February 2
The Inside Half
I have drunk deeply from the glass set before me. I’m not entirely sure that I am half way through, but I am into it a goodly bit. I would be happy to have another 31 years; thirty-one more hours would be a gift, too. That glass might be half empty but I am at least half full and I am amazed! I am regularly stunned by the prodigies this half trek has born to term; equally dazzled by how quickly the generations compound in this painstaking construction. Development both internal and assembled surpasses my wildest imaginings. Amazement is my most constant companion, more than gratitude and as of late even outstripping willingness my most trusted ally. Shock has been replaced by wonder, bewilderment with surprise, I am fortified with these feeling realities and look happily to finishing the rest of what is in that glass.
Turn left into your right mind
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DUCK TONGUE
Trying to get out of myself, I travel to an Asian fish market and grocery
I had heard has very fresh fish.
Greeted at the door by thirty large and lively tilapia
Swimming in their tank,
I felt my mood lift.
The captured beauty gave me pause.
Shiny and silvery, the faces banged at the glass
As they tried to get a better look at my entrance.
Like passengers packed on a subway car,
The fish jockeyed for position near the glass.
Further inside, I see the wonders we have extracted from the sea,
Cuttlefish, conch, squid, mussels, clams,
Whole fish of every stripe.
My belief in a power of diversity strengthens
And I smile.
Leaving the seafood section, I head forward,
To the refrigerated cases of other types of meat.
Frozen pigs tail, fowl with feet on, the novel variety pleasing.
When I approach the trays neatly filled with rows of chicken feet
I break out in a grin.
Thoughts of soup and days gone by flutter through my mind.
Finding formed foam piled with layer after layer
Of duck’s tongues was my limit
Spinning in my mind,
Who? Why? Oh no!
But in the end I came to care
About how these minuscule flaps of leather
Were placed.
The person whose job is done well
And to the fact people are just people.
We do what we do.
For reasons unimagined to the rest
And we do it,
With full faith
And hopeful breath.
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