I chose to spend my birthday (52) at the Thanksgiving Point Ashton Gardens in Lehi, Utah.  Just me and the trees and flowers.  Peaceful.  Beautiful.  No demands.  I snapped dozens of photographs just because I could and I wanted to and the flowers were so pretty.  At Monet Lake, covered with water lilies, huge koi lazily swam.  A quarter bought me a handful of fish pellets, which I casually threw into the dark water.  The water suddenly roiled with a sucking, slurping mass of colorful fish.  I laughed, and I wrote this poem on my garden map.

FEEDING KOI

slimy slurping throng
benignly greedy
hot roiling mass
till the food is gone
droning gliders
splotchy bright
purposing only for pellets