Poem for Thursday and Huntley Meadows Wildlife

A Sunset
By Ari Banias

I watch a woman take a photo
of a flowering tree with her phone.
A future where no one will look at it,
perpetual trembling which wasn’t
and isn’t. I have taken photos of a sunset.
In person, “wow” “beautiful”
but the picture can only be
as interesting as a word repeated until emptied.
I think I believe this.
Sunset the word holds more than a photo could.
Since it announces the sun then puts it away.
We went to the poppy preserve
where the poppies were few but generous clumps
of them grew right outside the fence
like a slightly cruel lesson.
I watched your face, just out of reach.
The flowers are diminished by the lens.
The woman tries and tries to make it right
bending her knees, tilting back.
I take a photo of a sunset, with flash.
I who think I have something
to learn from anything learned nothing from the streetlight
that shines obnoxiously into my bedroom.
This is my photo of a tree in bloom.
A thought unfolding
across somebody’s face.

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Wednesday was a rainy, dark, gloomy day until just before sunset, which always makes me sleepy, and I was sad about Christine McVie. Fortunately I got to chat with two of my high school friends around lunchtime, and the sky cleared just as we went out to take a walk, so we got to see a spectacular twilight. We ate dinner early so I could watch an episode of Rings of Power with a friend, and I could hear and see flying squirrels eating suet on the deck all the while.  

The Masked Singer season finale was on Wednesday night, a two-hour extravaganza that was probably too much, but we hadn't watched the beginning of the season because I was still mad about Rudy Giuliani last season so I finally got to see William Shatner and Eric Idle. I knew who the Lambs were but I wasn't positive about the Harp until the end, so I was very happy with the conclusion. Then we watched the Marvel episode of Lego Masters. Animals at Huntley Meadows last weekend: