August 25: Vireos

For most of the summer the red-eyed vireo's rollicking song has been playing in the background, his warbled, "Here I am. Where are you?" a constant projection from the trees. Because this particular vireo species sings for most of the summer, he provides a non-stop soundtrack to the season, a soundtrack at first accompanied by warblers, orioles, tanagers, robins, and other songbirds, but gradually dwindling down to a handful of goldfinches, chickadees, and titmice providing occasional back-up chorus.

This morning I didn't hear the song, I heard only a vireo's repeated call, a distinctive sort-of whine, almost a complaint. Now the only birds singing in the big oak next-door are the usual flock of goldfinches, probably chattering about which feeder they're going to descend upon next.

No longer singing
even the vireo protests
as summer draws to an end.

August 24: Still summer

The nip of fall may be creeping into the morning air, and the song of the crickets may be slowing down to a more languorous, late summer pitch, but summer still holds sway. On this blue sky morning I'm still wearing tank top and flip flops, wishing I could be outside at play rather than at work--because we all know this won't last.

Still fresh blueberries
on my cereal, still
hummingbirds in the bee balm.

August 23: Summer's ending, or Do we just need some rain?

Already dead leaves
pile up on the back porch,
crackle underfoot.

August 22: Acorns?

I keep hearing things falling through the trees out back, and had assumed they were acorns but then I realized it was too early for acorns. They don't drop till fall, when the mast crops provide protein-rich sustenance for bears, turkeys, and deer that helps fatten them up to survive the winter. So what's making all that noise? Are the squirrels getting a head start on this year's crop, or are they knocking other things down as they fling themselves through the branches?

Random artillery in the trees--
I thought it was acorns
but it's too early.

August 21: Echinacea

Sometimes going away for even a short time can be disorienting, as if you were transported to a different world, a different cycle of time. You come home almost surprised nothing has changed, half-expecting that not only you were being affected by your experiences but everything else in your life too.

Only away three days--
so why am I surprised
the echinacea's still in bloom?

August 20: Migrating butterflies

During my two-day visit at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference this weekend, haiku was a recurring theme. An old Bread Loaf poet friend, Peter Newton, is now writing only "short form" poetry, as well as serving as editor for the website tinywords.com. He encouraged me to attend a craft workshop led by Patrick Donnelly on incorporating the Japanese aesthetic into one's writing, which served to further steep me in haiku and other Japanese poem forms. Then I had the good fortune to meet Jane Hirschfield, who is well known for her Japanese short poem translations and whose short work (available as an e-book only) "The Heart of Haiku" has been extremely inspiring for me. All this has hopefully reinvigorated my energy for this blog, and encouraged me to shake up my haiku somewhat by being looser with the syllabics, focusing more on content and aesthetic. From here on out, my haiku won't necessarily follow the 5-7-5 syllabic structure, though I haven't given up on that entirely!

All that said, while lying on the lawn in the sun at Bread Loaf this morning, I was struck by how many monarch butterflies were flitting about. I tried to describe to a friend how you can tell if a particular monarch is male or female (the males have a special gland visible on one of the wing stripes), but none landed close enough for me to show him this cool lepidopteran party trick.

Migrating monarchs
flitting too high
to tell male from female.

August 19: Hay fields

I've spent many summer weeks of my life here at Bread Loaf in the heart of the Green Mountains of Vermont, as a Middlebury undergrad (this is Midd's "mountain campus"), at the School of English graduate program, and at the Writers Conference, most of them when I was in my twenties. The sun shines brightly this morning on the vast mown lawns and the uncut hay fields that surround the campus, and I can't help but lose myself in reverie over the many memorable experiences I've enjoyed in these fields. Like riding with about ten other people crammed into an old Mercedes in the middle of the night "on safari," randomly driving through the tall grass while blasting weird music. Or clowning on the "Robert Frost Rock" in the middle of one field, a rock where he'd once been photographed. Or sweet summer kisses. Or long walks picking wildflowers with my best friend. Or watching bluebird fledglings forage in the weeds...

Amid timothy,
uncut goldenrod, reside
fields of memories.

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August 18: Bread Loaf Writers Conference

I'm visiting the Bread Load Writers Conference, where I worked many summers in my youth, for a weekend. This incredible place, centered on an old inn nestled in the Green Mountains, is one of those magic, timeless spaces where all experience, even ordinary ones, are somehow transformed. I've reconnected with old friends and already experienced some wonderful readings by the faculty writers. For a writer, there's nothing more invigorating and inspiring than being steeped in the writing life like this, in such a beautiful setting, even if just for two days. Conversations about haiku while looking out on the sunlit hayfields where Robert Frost once walked... Waitstaff in feathered boas and fezzes... A reading from her memoir by a dominatrix... Seeing the stars clear and bright over the silhouette of Bread Loaf Mountain as I walk back to my room... All part of the Bread Loaf experience.

I don't have the words
to describe so many words
so beautifully read.

A couple of the Bread Loaf dorms

Front porch of the Bread Loaf main building, The Inn

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August 17: Rider on the storm

Late night, caffeinated drive to Portland through, first, torrential hail, then a straight downpour, all mixed with ground fog, thunder and lightning the whole way, and one deer crossing the road.

Turn up the music
to drown out the sound of hail
drumming on the car.

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August 16: Thunder

Awakened in the middle of the night by a very loud thunderclap, followed by more rumblings and the rush of a downpour. I say "middle of the night" but the sky was lightening and I had no real idea what time it was. The clock seemed to say 5:00 a.m.-ish (I can barely see without my contacts in), so after I got up and unplugged my computer (my one conditioned response to a thunderstorm), I was able to crawl back in bed and fall asleep for a little while longer. The cat seemed utterly unconcerned. Which I find interesting, because some loud noises do get her attention--she'll at least look up when a motorcycle goes by, for example. And just now she reacted a bit spastically to the honkings of a flock of geese flying over, anxiously rushing to the window to see what the clamor was. But thunderstorms apparently don't faze her.

Ah, to be a cat
and be able to sleep through
thunder, anything.

August 15: Braid

One of the goals of growing out my hair for the past months has been to braid it once more. In college and for quite a few years after I often wore my hair in one long braid down my back. This morning it was finally (almost) long enough to do so again. The end result wasn't pretty, and fell apart before day's end, but it's getting there. It occurred to me that it's been 13, 14 years or more since I've been able to braid my hair like that, since back in the first years when I was dating my now-husband.

Braiding my wet hair--
remember how young we were
when last I did this.