{"id":2106,"date":"2026-07-10T18:34:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T18:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=2106"},"modified":"2026-07-11T23:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T23:42:10","slug":"maine-main","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=2106","title":{"rendered":"Plentitude"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
If fate and luck wills it, 
once a year we converge
to celebrate family 
and summer 
and the bounty 
of granite coastlines
and the feasts 
of local farm stands.
If we are especially fortunate,
a relative will negotiate 
with a lobsterman 
down the dock
to secure a sack of 
Homarus americanus<\/em>.
Victorious, they appear
hoisting a recycled,
double-lined 
paper market bag
wriggling and 
accruing puncture holes
exposing sneak peeks 
of piqued crustaceans.
One grown pair of hands 
will nestle the heavy sack 
among mounds of crushed ice 
separately procured 
from the local bait shop
to begin the banded captives'
gentle descent into icy numbness.
Elsewhere, 
another pair of large hands 
will strong-arm a massive steam pot 
atop a portable induction burner 
propped on the picnic table.
Once the arctic bath has 
performed its henchman job,
an elder male approaches 
each slumbering decapod 
with an ice pick 
to swiftly dispatch 
one at a time 
before lowering each 
into the roiling water.
In another pot, 
summer corn steams
and tomatoes drip 
sultry seed pulp 
on walnut end grain.
A guest is back-slicing 
chives from the garden
and my mother is warming 
small ramekins of butter 
in the oven.
And then
it all comes together
from the corners of 
the kitchen and the porch
and the deck:
a feast fit for high summer.




<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cPlentitude\u201d an homage to the fields and waters and homes of coastal New England, written Friday, July 10, poem 191 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo, “Party Lobsters,” by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1573,290,1574,1438,1572,2],"tags":[1836,1845,1839,1844,1834,1831,1830,132,1843,383,868,1837,1838,1832,1558,1829,1828,1038,1842,1841,1833,11,1840,1835,134,1772,1827],"class_list":["post-2106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-generational-of-place","category-homage","category-lineage","category-nostalgia","category-of-place","category-poems","tag-arctic","tag-celebrate","tag-chives","tag-coastlines","tag-converge","tag-crushed-ice","tag-crustaceans","tag-family","tag-farm-stands","tag-feast","tag-granite","tag-guest","tag-high-summer","tag-icy","tag-july","tag-lobsterman","tag-maine-lobsters","tag-mother","tag-negotiate","tag-pot","tag-puncture","tag-relationships","tag-roiling","tag-slumbering","tag-summer","tag-tomatoes","tag-vacation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2106"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2128,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions\/2128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}