Opening Day meant friedcakes hot out of the deep fryer—
Betty Crocker called them cake doughnuts
But mother called them friedcakes so friedcakes they were—
subtly spiced and dipped in glaze or sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar
and stacked in dripping pans to cool.
Opening day was hunters in camouflage jackets
and canvas vests lined with little pockets
to store bullets in. Traipsing in and out
the back door to sign in on dad’s clipboard
hung on a nail beside the dryer.
They would carry their birds back up the lane by the
feet
stopping first to report in and get a friedcake.
A
snapshot of one of the regulars
Eddie in his bulging vest with his bird
And
a grinning preschooler full of indulgence in a fuzzy sweater.
What beautiful birds those ringnecks were.
1957
Gunshots echoed across the fields
The kicking up of leaves in galoshes and wool socks.
The warm kitchen smelling of hot oil and cinnamon
Friedcakes dripping frosting cooling in the pan.
A jostling around the counter to duck and grab
Mother in her apron and dad in his coveralls
Talking up the hunt and the camaraderie of neighbors.
2023
A Kindred Need
Chaff in the wind, grasshoppers on the fly,
the gathering up and the laying down.
Combines creep across the field
where sparrows hover and hide
in the dry rustle of the corn
storing up energy in their hollow bones
for fall portends winter,
when they’ll swoop over the land in concert of wing
for they need their kind come winter.
I heard a pheasant this past summer.
Never saw but
heard the truncated chortle,
the two-note song.
Was that a tail waving in the Queen Anne’s Lace?
I thought I heard a pheasant this past summer.
Can't resist linking this to Poets and Storytellers with their prompt in favor of adjectives, reaffirming my belief that there are exceptions to every writing rule. And in answer to the prompt at What's Going On? what do you love?, this post might only scratch the surface but Opening Day, then and now, are right near the top.