The Picnic

Image borrowed from Bing

The Picnic

Late Saturday afternoon, summer in Discovery Park,
two by two by two they scampered over the lawns
loaded down with chicken and fruit and rice krispie bars.

Three couples in tandem, cackling like partridges,
all seated at one wooden table, using ripped-open
white garbage sacks for a cloth; gobbling and
giggling ensued over paper plates, with plastic utensils
and styrofoam cups; mountains of homemade potato
salad, fried chicken, fruit salad, store bought rolls;
food, fellowship, and love being passed back and
forth until the goodies were gone, and the glow
had settled in.

The men leaped up loudly and raced
for the children’s playground, leaving the
ladies to tidy up and talk about the men
swinging wildly on truck tires and monkey bars,
sliding on their ample bellies backwards
down stainless steel slides, their deep
husky banter wafting across the infant’s sand
to fall harmlessly at the ladies' flat heels.

A breeze came up cold off Puget Sound,
and everyone bundled up with light sweaters
and scarves. The tangerine sun began to set
behind the Olympics, and for a long majestic
moment the magic mountains seemed higher
and closer than they actually were.

The Sound spread out below the high bluff
deep ashen green covered with white caps
from Elliott Bay to the nearest islands.
Super ferries like bulbous white insects
running deep in the waves, glided past
Blake Island from the Bremerton cut.

Yawls and yachts and smaller sailboats
dotting the deep water like sea dandruff
scurried hard to avoid the tall sharp keel
of the stalwart dowager, Princess Marguerite,
at full steam, her flags and pennants fluttering
parallel to the jet black column of smoke
pouring out of her short stacks.

A small bunch of thick-necked white clouds
hovered near Mt. Olympus; first it’s forehead
and then it’s shoulders caught fire as the
great Tangerine sank into the invisible ocean
that they all knew was there due west
a hundred miles beyond the peaks,
the peninsula, and the inland sea.

The walk back on the gravel path
in the woods rang raucous, laughing
and philosophizing with two of the men
on point, two of the women moving astern,
while the clinging couple in the middle
was pulled to and fro like metal shavings
dancing wildly with a pair of magnets.

A park rabbit feasting in the half light
of a pale crescent moon heard low voices
deep in the darkness, moving steadily
toward the large parking lot, empty now,
but for three cars.

The six burst out of the trees
arms linked like sky divers, falling
together into the open air, everyone
speaking at once. They hugged each
other numerous times until their dialogue
was exhausted.

Metal doors slammed loudly as one joyous
noise, engines sputtered to life, headlights
bathed the bushes, arms waved, kisses
were blown, and soon only the faintest sound
of tires and mufflers was punctuated with
sporadic horn honking, hanging warmly
in the halcyon silence.

Glenn Buttkus

August 2011

Listed as #58 over on Magpie Tales 79

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