Poem for Thursday and Festival Shops

Earth Summit
By Oliver Tearle

All gifts are off: for this stolen spark of power
the world rebelled and asked for something back.
He cheated. Man enjoyed playing with fire
too much, thought little of him on his rock,
chained and consumed. The air grew hot and dark.

Among her luggage-landfall was a jar.
Unstopped, it filled the world with strains so high
they burnt through layers beyond our atmosphere.
Human in truth but filling air and sky,
she looked to others to say she was okay.

Mere mortals of course, they could do little but take
her hand and stop it up again. Such is life.
After, the world erupting in the fire it took,
they played for time, tried turning the lights off.
They hoped against hope that it would be enough.

-------- 

I am running on no sleep because I've had an excruciating pain in my lower right side since yesterday evening -- which has happened before, but not as acutely and not lasting as long -- resulting in my going to the ER at 4 a.m. after googling appendicitis symptoms and concluding that I had enough of them that I had better make sure that wasn't it. Well, it's not appendicitis, a kidney stone, a hernia, a cyst, or a fibroid, which is all good news -- the CAT scan and ultrasound showed nothing wrong. But it means it's probably a small muscle tear that I keep aggravating and there's not a lot I can do for it besides take ibuprofen and ask my insurance whether they'll cover PT for it. So that's a lot of discomfort. 

That was my day, apart from napping, a quick walk out on the dock where we were excited to see what we thought was a beaver but turned out to be a nutria -- still very cute, but those teeth are unmistakable, and they're invasive in this lake -- and chatting with my Thursday night friend group, one of whom is going out of the country for several weeks. We're watching this week's Silo now and I have to say that although it feels derivative, it's an interesting enough mash-up with enjoyable performances that I really look forward to it. Now we're watching Three Pines for as long as we can stay awake. Shopping at the Northwest Folk Festival, which had crafts, clothes, instruments, and food from all over the world: