Poem for Monday and Nearby Neighborhoods

Bluebird
By Stanley Plumly

The house was strange, even for a summer house,
cold somehow, the wraparound screened porch
almost cut off by the trees, though the trees, off
and on, would come alive with bluebirds, birds
so tame, they would follow on the mountain path
down to the small home lake, chur-wi, tru-ly,
chur-wi, tru-ly, over and over, in bird-English.

Had I ever seen a bluebird so bright a blue? —
a blue easily confused with happiness. I didn’t
even know a bluebird was a thrush. I knew
and loved you, that was enough. These blues,
as you called them, were yours: They seemed
to fly in and out of your hands. The lake was one
of those mirrorlike lakes. And the house was yours.

-------- 

Monday was another gorgeous day in Seattle -- mid-60s, partly sunny, lots of ducks and geese honking outside, though I spent a lot of it indoors unpacking and organizing my computer desk. We did walk to Idylwood Beach in the afternoon so I could put my toes in the lake and visit the chatty mallards that live there, and we ate the IKEA frozen veggie meatballs we got while shopping on Sunday. 

We got our bedroom rug and front hall runner in place and now we're watching this week's Fantasy Island season finale, which I'm hoping comes back next year because I missed a chunk of this year and now I know both how the mermaid situation and the Elena-and-Javier situation wind up (both in a satisfactory way). I love that the developments between us and the park all have such beachy names: