Friday, August 16, 2024

Poem for Thursday and Lughnasadh Shopping

Gray Eraser 
By Joan Naviyuk Kane 

There is no one to scold,
even when the heavens deem

the most abject of failures
receptive to correction.

Likewise in cackleless sleep,
the magpies remain tucked away.

A mother can no longer dismiss
her child as a spectacular waste

of an education. Even the wind
stills its sighs in the dry and bare

branches of the nearby white
spruce damaged by Lirula blight.

Meanwhile, a pearl-green fox
retracts its untrussed tail

through an eastward sky
thick with unfamiliar stars.

If I wake missing the cold,
fresh sound of new snow,

I may still miss the kinds of places
that scar me and complete

my sorrow. Late at night,
the birches must let their leaves

pitch and imbricate the floor
of what is left of the woods

near what is left of me.

-------- 

The Mariners played early on Thursday, so we spent the morning working on computers while watching them blow it yet again to the Tigers after an excellent first several innings. Then we had lunch, I folded laundry, and we took a walk to Idylwood, where there were lots of people enjoying the warm weather and lots of ducks looking to see whether anyone had brought food. We saw a frog romance from our dock and the eagles were out. 

My Thursday night chat group met before we ate dinner -- Impossible burgers -- then we watched Jackpot, which is, well, pretty dumb (if The Hunger Games was played for laughs and money, so cynical and often mean-spirited) but John Cena, Awkwafina, and Simu Liu look like they're having a great time so that makes it watchable. Some of the shopping at the Lughnasadh PNW Witches' Market in Juanita Beach a couple of weeks ago:

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2024-08-04 15.09.41

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