NaPoWriMo2017 - Day 29

America Day #

It is sunny and summer out
I like the Fourth of July
because I need to do nothing
but allow myself
to lapse into pensivity and introspection
I can watch this lazy bee
meander from flower to flower
and just be happy

We are in Tilden above Berkeley
The Wilds, as it were
The only evidence of human beings being
the picnic table and grill
and bathrooms and water fountain
and road and also
the utility pole running through our campsite
picnic site in fact
following these wires
leads to a creek
that fails to lead us to Narnia
yet it is a pretty place to forge friendship

We are cooking and grilling
carne asada
peppers and cactus
tortillas and tomatoes
Marie has made a cake
red white and blue
it tastes better than the poems
we read out of this pretentious book
me and Sean found late at night
in a box on the side of the road
the words’ mediocrity
punctuated by occasional
genius diversions of cleverness
that drive us on to keep reading

We read and talk and write and chat
spilling casual secrets
moving our chairs according to the whims
of the sun and shade and our
preferences for temperature

I traditionally write on Independence Days
about America
and gratitude, and fireworks and joy
about friendship and cookouts
about a girl whom I never told
that I loved her

There is a mosaic of trees and song
None of us know the words to anything
but we screech like eagles
in poor imitation
of real bands
but we are technologists for a reason

A real eagle cries overhead
it may be a hawk who knows
but we comfortably
decide that it was an eagle
because that’s as American as the hot dogs
we didn’t get around to cooking

It’s sunny and summer out
and freedom is in the wind
sunlight surrounds me like a cloak
I am too full to eat another bite