By Mark Wagenaar
I’d have to hear it spoken in mind somehow,
my father said, of the Frisian word for hunger,
but I’d settle for memory, or grief, under
the category things that undo me. It’s a funny
thing to think. Who would be the speaker
if not him? His mother, maybe,
holding hands in the hospital with his father
after 76 years. Married the day after the war,
when the stores had no windows—the Nazis
took the glass. The mourning doves
might have the right vowels, or the red belly
in the leafless dogwood, now winging
through the sunlight peplummed through
the pines, blue tarp peeled back
on the cotton bales in the field beyond,
Merry Christmas spraypainted in blue
upon the white. Snowless, starless,
a man goes on trial in France for helping
refugees. Could’ve been your grandparents,
my father says, your Pake hid in barns, woke
once to mouse feet scrambling across his face,
but in France it was a 2 year old in a ditch,
dying of dehydration, & when I look down
I’ve pulled the petals from the bouquet,
& as I’ve neither French nor Frisian nor
courage, all I can do is sweep the body
of petals into my palms, & pour them into
the cathedral of water in front of me.
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I woke up with an excruciating sore throat -- the worst one I've ever had except when I had covid (yes, I tested; no, it was negative, but of course it was negative for several days when I got covid from Adam in 2022 before I got a positive one). So I did not have an exciting day, though we did walk to the park since it was nice out.
We started watching Carry-On, but the script was so terrible (less believable than Red One) that we have turned it off to watch the series finale of What We Do in the Shadows; it's definitely time, they're definitely running out of ideas, but I will miss it. Annual display of DC landmarks made from plant parts at the US Botanical Garden:
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