The chipmunks and I are developing a very special relationship.
I think of them as my little woodland friends.
They think of me as a primary food source.
We're very close.
[First posted: September 30, 2018]
Foxglove Moments
Foxglove is the name of my property, five acres overlooking the Lewis River Valley that was covered with the wildflower when I first moved here in 1996.
Storm surge.
Light layered between darkness.
Sunset seems steeped in significance...
Or maybe just one of those days
when anything can be a metaphor for something else.
I really need to stop fretting about the next four years.
[First posted: November, 2016]
Some days the sun doesn't simply set.
It takes the world with it,
and this valley becomes
a shimmering chameleon
of changing color and mood rhythms,
a creature of the night
slowly waking,
mysterious, lurking,
freed at last by the departing light.
[First posted: March 31, 2016]
They are collecting pieces of people at a Belgian airport.
A child is tortured to punish his father.
God has been appropriated for a dubious political campaign,
and a thuggish clown wins another presidential primary.
At times the world seems too much with us,
almost too much to bear.
Yet this day also offers blossom antidotes,
beautiful, brief,
a momentary relief,
but it is enough, it is enough,
before the world comes rushing back in.
[First posted: March 24, 2016]
"Quoth the raven, Nevermore."
Recently, on a dreary afternoon
in the bleak of December, I,
made snowbound by a sudden storm,
was writing at my desk,
when there experienced that uncanny dread
of being surveiled.
Pausing my pen, with growing apprehension I turned
to the glum gray light beyond my window,
and there didst behold two glowing orbs
staring at me out of the dusk.
"Fiend!" I cried. "Infernal fowl who haunts my dreams!"
(Okay, maybe a little overdramatic.)
"What message bring you from that other world?"
and braced myself for the specter to speak its dreaded curse of
Nevermore.
Or maybe, Anymore?
Furthermore?
But spake it not. Neither did the apparition depart,
but kept its unholy vigil outside my window, staring,
forever staring with red demonic eyes--
which actually turned out to be the ruby underparts on a hummingbird's throat.
But still kind of spooky.
[First posted: January 9, 2016]
He remains serene
whatever the season.
In Tales of Tokyo, Jason goes walking alone at dusk along
the coast of Matsushima. Overwhelmed and weighted down by the woes of the world and by the pain, misery and loneliness that seem our human inheritance, he comes upon a stone Buddha:
"Imperturbable and serene in heat and cold, the Buddha sat there with that secretive smile, like one who knows but isn't telling; and Jason wondered,
can one really live in this world and know such peace, such calm, be so undisturbed by life's disappointments and sorrows,
so untroubled by its desires and temptations, without being made of stone?"
When I walk this hillside and come upon a buddha, I wonder this still.
[First posted: November 21, 2015]
"Man, this rain sucks. We shoulda went south with the Reds for winter."
"Aah, they're a bunch of wusses. Besides you hate flying."
"I don't like the cold and the rain together. Separately, I can take them, but not together."
"Get over it already, will ya? It's not even winter yet."
"Is it just me or is he watering down the drinks again?"
[First posted: November 15, 2015]
Watching autumn do its thing,
slowly overtaking summer,
day by day, leaf by leaf,
blossoms dying without grief.
It's just what they do,
And they seem to know it.
I wonder at how effortlessly,
how perfectly the seasons pass.
No grandstanding, no defiant show,
they just...let...go.
[First posted: November 10, 2015]
Every year around this time, approximately four billion maple leaves fall in my yard, half of them managing to land in my pond, each the size of an elephant ear--a large elephant.
And each spring I must clean my pond, removing a foot of decomposed leaf sludge from the bottom.
So this year I decided to get a pond screen. The pond shop didn't carry them, but the helpful store assistant suggested I make one myself. "They're easy to make," he said.
Easy to make. He was probably thinking of someone mechanically inclined like my father or my nephew Ryan; he probably wasn't thinking of someone like me who isn't always sure which end of a hammer to use.
So I took his advice and asked Ryan to design and construct a pond cover, netting on top so the pond can "breathe," plastic on the sides so the leaves can slide off.
I'm pleased with the result. My pond is now protected from the annual leaf assault. Once the leaves are all down for this year, we'll dismantle and store the cover until next fall.
For now, I happily sit back and watch the large maple leaves happily fall where they may.
[First posted: November 5, 2015]
Fitting end to a well-lived day:
writing stories in the morning,
raking leaves in the afternoon
occasionally stopping to scribble down ideas
raked up with the leaves
when suddenly I note the light has gone.
In a graying sky one bright cloud
shines like a beacon:
"This day signing off."
[First posted: November 3, 2015]