Sapphire Dinner

Blue seafood banquet on the Edmonds pier

That sunlight graced with loving kindness

Presented us a pristine Puget scene

Of ferries and mountains and whales,

Wispy fragments of childhood wonder

Brushed by a cloudless quartzite sky.

Smiles aglow around the seraglio dome,

Mothers in ecstasy celebrating home,

Glints off the glass that love smashed

To smithereens, shirts blue and green,

Cards from sons and daughters, emotive in spring.

We thank you for this food, we thank you for their love,

Theirs is the greatest of flavors, dashed by a holy cross,

Saints of tenderness the angels marinated,

Joy and care transmitted from their smiles to ours.

Those beau monde coquettes who stole the eye,

Reflected lasciviously through the polished glass,

Yield to this platter of crustaceans and kinship:

Nothing is more important, alas, we sometimes forget.

To stay together is a gift, often overlooked,

Though we deign to surrender its value,

With plates of gratitude left at the shrine.