Sunday, June 16, 2024

Poem for Saturday and Juanita Bay

A Taste of Blue 
By Cynthia Manick 

I tell my father about the way
I collect small things
in the sacs of my heart—

thick juniper berries
apple cores that retain their shape
and the click of shells
that sound like an oven baking.

He presses the mole on my shoulder
that matches his shoulder,
proof that I was not found
at the bottom of the sea.

I also got his feet, far from
Cinderella’s dainty glass slippers—
and fingers, too wide for most

Cracker Jack wedding rings.
I read how some mammals never
forget their young—

their speckled spots, odd goat
cries, or birthmarks on curved
ivory tusks. There must be some
thread of magic there

cooling honey to stone—where
like recognizes like or how
a rib seeks its twin.

-------- 

We had rain forecast for a lot of the day on Saturday, so we tried to get out ahead of it -- we even missed the Orioles game, though Kate kept me in the loop -- but rain caught up with us at Juanita Bay Park, where we were otherwise having a lovely time watching the waves roll in and seeing turtles, eagles, ducks, bunnies, geese, gulls, ospreys, juncos, and various other animals, plus lots of different early summer flowers. Because of the forecast, there weren't many people, so it felt very serene even with the rain soaking us. 

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We stopped at Safeway on the way home, watched the end of the Mariners game, had dinner, and now we're watching the start of the fourth season of The Boys, which is massively violent and wrong and excellent -- reminds me of old South Park when it was fearless, mixing in real-world people and politics -- name-checking The Masked Singer and Harry Potter! QAnon attackers who mistake Bat Mitzvahs for Zionist cabals! Vought on Ice doing "Put the Christ Back in Christmas" (and of course it ends in a bloodbath)! Still brilliant.

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