August 14: Party sunset

I love the kind of party when, as the sun is setting over a distant hazy ridge, just a burning hot pink sliver above the horizon, everyone there rushes over excitedly to watch it sink. And meanwhile dozens of hummingbirds buzz around us, getting in those last sips of nectar before bedtime. Everyone leaves happy.

End of the party--
buzz of voices at sunset,
buzzing hummingbirds.

August 13: Summer afternoon

I'm standing on the edge of lawn and field looking up at the green slopes of Ragged Mountain. At the lawn's edge, blooming gladioli stand at glorious attention, and faces of tiger lilies peer through greenery. Hummingbirds chatter and buzz around the flower beds. Goldfinches rise and dip over the fields, singing non-stop, swarming the seed feeders. Overhead, birch trees against a blue sky. Butterflies flit in little circles around me, and in the distance, a family of bluebirds gathers on a branch. Tomorrow night we're having a party here, and at this moment, I can't imagine a more perfect place to be.

Butterflies, bluebirds,
birdsong--is this a set for
a Disney movie?

August 12: Sunday morning

Another quiet, misty morning on the coast of Maine, one of those mornings when I just want to stay in bed and listen to the noises of the neighborhood awakening...

Wakened by ospreys,

neighbor's singing and strumming.

Now, "shh" of rainfall. 

August 11: Time of one's own

I can't even remember when I've last enjoyed a day with absolutely no commitments. And I certainly can't remember when I last woke up feeling relieved to see fog and grey skies out the window; now I can sit around and read all day if I feel like it and not feel guilty about squandering a sunny day or neglecting my lawn and garden.

I can curl up with the cat and tackle the enormous stack of books that has been growing rampantly on my bedside table. Or maybe I'll work on some poems. Or I can just sit here on the back porch with my crossword puzzle, while ospreys squeal nearby on the river, squirrels fling themselves through the oak tree, and the cardinal chips on the neighbor's feeder, announcing his imminent arrival on mine. It's my day.

(Well, actually, it's also my mother's day, it being her birthday. And I know she too is doing whatever she feels like today--antiquing with my dad, dinner out tonight--the way a birthday should be. Happy birthday, Mom, my one faithful reader!)

Crickets sing while I
simply sit here, absorb fog,
feel my breathing slow.

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August 10: Funeral

A character in a book I read recently complained that funerals should never take place on beautiful days, that the sun and blue sky merely taunt those who are in mourning. This foggy morning thus seemed well suited for attending a funeral, the soft focus appropriate for introspection and reflections on mortality. I was surprised after arriving in this muted mood, then, to find myself spending much of the service laughing. The deceased, whom I'd never met (I was there to support the widow, whom I know through work), was apparently quite the comedian, and the stories his family shared--they were laughing loudest--along with video clips of him hamming it up, allowed a good-spirited humor to keep at bay feelings of sadness and loss. The foggy landscape took on a different tenor on the drive home.

No gloom in this fog--
rather, goldenrod glowing,
candles in a dream.

August 9: Signs

Signs fascinate me with their often unwitting poetic potential. Wherever I'm driving I pay attention to signs--decorative to crude, whimsical to downright weird. For a while I kept a running list of names of hair salons, which seem particularly prone to awful puns. Driving today on Route 17 I was inspired by one particular sign for a bottle redemption center, seen shortly before the sign for S & M Radiator.
 
"Rapid Redemption"--
Is grace really as easy
as returning cans?

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August 8: Dirt roads

This past weekend up at Baxter my husband and I were talking about how one of the reasons mountains are such sacred spaces is because they have the power to create their own weather. As I was driving down the long, winding dirt road to my sister and brother-in-law's camp tonight, I was struck with this similar thought:

A dirt road creates
its own weather: dust storms flare
behind every car.

August 7: Nostalgia

My husband asked me yesterday if I ever have nostalgic thoughts. What poet could honestly answer "no"? This time of year, as the start of the Bread Loaf Writers Conference approaches in the Green Mountains of Vermont, my thoughts often drift to the eight summers that I attended the conference, seven of them as part of the administrative "social" staff. I was in my twenties. Those two weeks spent with fellow poets, many of whom became close friends, living, breathing, eating, talking, writing, listening to, and reading poetry, surrounded by inspiring, well-known poets and other writers, in an idyllic mountain setting, were truly a highlight of my young life. We stayed up late, drank too much, danced in the barn, frolicked through hay fields, wished on falling stars while huddled around a bonfire, caught fireflies, skinny-dipped, and, most of all, were fueled by excellent lectures, readings, and workshops that kept me going as a poet for the rest of the year. Ah, those August days (and nights) on the mountain...

Kissing in a field--
what could be more innocent
on a summer night?

August 4, 5, & 6: Baxter State Park

Spent three days in Baxter State Park, primarily at South Branch Pond Campground in the northeast corner of the park, so that I could lead a session on journaling and haiku for the ten cool kids in the Maine Youth Wilderness Leadership Program. As preparation for my session, I wrote a few myself to share so that they could see how they themselves might be inspired by the breathtaking natural surroundings. (And because I wanted them to focus on the concept of capturing a moment in a creative way, rather than the traditional syllabic structure, the following haiku do not follow the strict syllabic form as the other haiku I've written here do.)

In addition to (literally) soaking up the beauty of the pond, surrounding mountains, and lush woods of northern Maine, we hiked a six-mile trail following Howe Brook up a cleft of Traveler Mountain. This mossy, cobbled stream wends its way through water-carved pools and potholes, cascading over smooth ledges and down steep shelves--a perfect place for trailside swimming on a hot day. Frogs sang us to sleep, and the waning gibbous moon lit the trees outside our lean-to all night long.

South Branch Pond, looking south

Already August
and only now
my first swim of the summer.

Mountains embrace the pond--
wide, pebbled bowl,
tiny swimmers within.

These two fishing loons,
almost as loud
as the splashing swimmers.

Two loons surface near shore,
calmly ignore us all.
They own this pond.

Drumming across the pond,
a single woodpecker--
how loud!

A white noise machine,
wind drowns out
all human voices.

One of the many falls and pools of Howe Brook.

August 3: Squid

The cat, who was previously very occupied with licking her catnip mouse in the living room, jumped up and dashed into the kitchen meowing querulously, as if she knew that my husband was about to haul out a bag of squid to clean in the sink for dinner. Cats seem able to preternaturally sense the presence of seafood. Our former cat would be in the kitchen waiting if we just talked about having shrimp for dinner. And they have such a sense of entitlement about it, too--we end up having to offer up bits of squid just to placate this demanding creature, this small feline goddess with the great power to read, and sway, our minds.

Ears up, tail wagging,
our cat patiently awaits
her squid offering.

August 2: Late night drive

Driving home late from a Lucinda Williams concert in Portland, half-asleep in the car, the edges of our night world made even blurrier by fog...

A flare in the night--
cigarette tossed from a car
In the foggy dark.

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