Category: Summer 2024

A month ago, only slow trickles of water
flowed over these rocks. Now, cascades!
All sparkly and bright, sending invisible
stars to land on your eyelids and face
once you get close enough. Summer
peaks, luxuriant, fragrant, lush,
the kind you dream about,
the way you dream about heaven.

Noon in the deep woods
is remarkably silent. A few
crows call. Insects quietly buzz.
Beyond that, the only sound
is the whispering of the trees,
and that fills the air completely,
like an incessant prayer. You
must walk softly, stepping
with a careful foot lest you snap
a twig and startle the atmosphere.
Even then, the silence forgives
and continues, enveloping you,
accepting you, even in your lumbering,
as one of its own.

Royalty came to visit today,
a fine, fat prince in a disguise.
What legs he had! What strength!
To see him leap all the way
from here to there, a length
twenty times the length of his body,
was enough to make me laugh
and applaud. He smiled at that
and winked his eye. But still,
I couldn’t bring myself to kiss him.
So he just leaped away.

To my amusement, I found myself
pulling on my sneakers, camera at hand,
as if my body decided it was going
to the park without even telling me.
Those butterflies you wanted to see?
Oh! Okay.
Sometimes magic happens.
Some whim sets your direction.
Go with it. You might find butterflies.

The layers of sumac fronds,
each a different shade of green
depending on how the sun
catches them or whether it does,
remind me of paintings by an artist
whose name I can’t recall.
But another memory comes to mind
of sitting with my dad on a sand dune
overlooking Lake Superior watching
the sun drop through a sky drenched
in pinks and corals, aqua, blazing gold.
We were silent for a long time.
Then my dad said, “Whoever paints those
sure does a great job.”
That about says it all.
I look at the sumac and smile.

Ask any yellow zinnia.
The whole point of it all is to shine.
Just to stand, facing the sun,
your arms wide open to the sky,
willing to accept whatever it sends you,
sending it, in return, all that you are,
your whole light, your whole song.
And even that is such small thanks
for this unspeakable moment of being.

On those days when you just feel so great, hon,
when your whole body feels so fine,
when the sky is so clear and the sun is so warm,
and everything’s singing it song,
you go right ahead and strut your stuff, babe,
dance through the world like you own it.

I walk very slowly, one gentle step at a time.
The quiet of the morning requires it.
I stop in tall grasses dotted with chicory,
the season’s first, its petals blue as sky,
and smile to see the buds of water lilies,
poking out from beneath their lily pad leaves
like round little lemons, the lake’s still waters
mirroring them. Here, despite everything,
the Yes remains, breathing its spacious peace,
just to remind us.

At noon on the last day of July
I got to pick them. I’ve been waiting
and watching for a couple weeks,
ever since my friend invited me
to help myself. “Nobody here,”
he said, “is going to pick them.”
He drove me around the place
in his golf cart to show me where
they hid. Then we waited.
And today was the day.
A hot one, and dry. The berries
looked like jeweled globes,
and my mouth watered
at the mere thought
of their tart juice exploding
on my tongue. I reached through
the tangles of thorny branches,
watching the ripe ones fall into my hand
at the slightest touch, the sun white
and dazzling in my eyes, birds telling
each other that a woman was down there
picking berries. But she was leaving some.
They made me laugh. I filled my bowl.
“You don’t get to pick wild blackberries
very many times in your life,” I told my friend,
thanking him for the fine adventure.
“Especially at high noon on the very last day of July.”

Queen Anne spreads her ivory lace
across the meadows, her black-red ruby
proclaiming her right to rule.
The grasses bow to her fragrance.
The clover rises to applaud.
The sky sends popcorn clouds
to mirror her beauty. Ebony wasps
and iridescent flies buzz their joy,
and all the meadow sings.
Oh, how the meadow sings!