Fool

I listen to a short, daily podcast sponsored by NPR called "Make Me Smart" hosted by Kai Ryssdal and Molly Wood. Once a week the listeners are invited to send in something he or she thought they knew but later found out they had it wrong all along. The following would only be the beginning of a list I have revised for years.

Fool

Yesterday at the feeder

a newcomer: a finch

more magenta than mauve,

confused by me for a female cardinal.

On my kitchen counter:

a pristine pitcher

in the form of an orange,

a find in a second-hand store,

but not the mid-century vintage

I thought when I bought it.

In Congress: legislation

promising to outlaw lynching,

a presumption of progress by me.

But no, this same bill proposed

over a century ago.

A north country mandate:

the removal of ice-fishing houses

'from frozen waterways by March

the 1st. Misconstrued in my view

as an end of all things winter.

And within my soul

the songs of you: our nights

of star drift and rooms of heat,

these, too, mistaken by me - this time

                                  for signs of love.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor