Poem for Saturday and Kitsap Peninsula

Sonnets from the Portuguese 44: Beloved, thou has brought me many flowers
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers
Plucked in the garden, all the summer through
And winter, and it seemed as if they grew
In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers,
So, in the like name of that love of ours,
Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,
And which on warm and cold days I withdrew
From my heart’s ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers
Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,
And wait thy weeding; yet here’s eglantine,
Here’s ivy!— take them, as I used to do
Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.
Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,
And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.

-------- 

I had a really nice Saturday mostly more than an hour away from here, across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge on the Kitsap Peninsula in magnificent low 70s weather. We went to visit Adam's good friend Daniel's older sister Julia and her family, whom we've visited several other times when in Seattle but not since before the pandemic; then, her now-toddler was a newborn, and now she's nine months pregnant but that didn't stop her from getting pizza for us and her two older children. We got to hang out with the teens and visit with the cat, puppy, and chickens in their beautiful yard. 

Then we drove to nearby Gig Harbor, famous for its Scandinavian heritage, seafaring lifestyle, and spectacular views of Tahoma (Rainier, which should be restored to its original name as Denali was). The mountain was a bit obscured by clouds -- there's still wildfire haze up in the atmosphere -- but the harbor is lovely, there were lots of fishing and sailing boats on the water, and despite it being the weekend, it wasn't at all crowded. We drove back in the late afternoon, took a walk to see the ducklings here, had sandwiches for dinner, and we're watching Jeff Goldblum's show on fireworks.