May 20: Violets

When I was a child, my grandmother, whom I called Nana Ruth or Nan, would send me out in spring to pick a bouquet of white violets from the lawn. That was my thing. A fistful fit perfectly in a special little vase she had.

 

I can't mow the lawn--

the masses of white violets

remind me of Nan.

Posted with Blogsy

January 7: Landscape of home

Driving Route One south from Belfast this afternoon, enjoyed the brief, wan sunlight shining on the gray winter waters of the bay and the familiar line-up of islands that I've recognized since childhood.

Same islands in the bay
that as a child I named
from my grandmother's porch.

December 10: Comfort food

Buttered toast
just like my grandmother
used to make for me.

May 4: Mayflowers

I spent several hours tramping around the greening woods of the Ducktrap River Preserve this morning. Some first spring sightings of warblers, including a beautiful sunlit view of a singing Blackburnian amid the hemlocks, and some first wildflowers, like this Trailing Arbutus.

Commonly called mayflowers, Trailing Arbutus flowers are often tucked away under its big leathery leaves. My grandmother, who would have been 99 in a few days if she were still alive, loved these best because they always bloomed in time for her birthday. And if you get down on your hands and knees and put your face close, you can smell their subtle, sweet fragrance.

It's a bit like prayer--
head down on the forest floor
sniffing the mayflower.

Trailing Arbutus blooming on the banks of the tea-brown Ducktrap River

December 4: Pressed tin

Dinner out tonight with my husband and a friend at a restaurant in Rockport in a lovely, renovated old space with a painted, pressed tin ceiling.

Remembering Nana's kitchen:
pressed tin ceiling,
sugar cookies cooling.

October 10: Toast

Home alone, making toast for dinner. Sometimes just a little thing will send me back to childhood...

My grandmother used to
cut my buttered toast
into "soldiers."

June 5: Rhododendron

My grandmother's house boasted a huge rhododendron bush out front. When its big purple blooms opened each spring, she'd clip a few, bring them inside, and float them in a glass bowl. It struck me as very exotic presented this way (I had a fairly provincial childhood), so I decided then that it was my favorite flower. I thought that only I fully appreciated the patch of soft brown speckles hidden inside each flower, because most people don't look that closely, and purple was (and still is) my favorite color.
 
When we bought our house seven years ago, one of the first things I did was plant a rhododendron bush--something I'd been wishing for since my grandmother died 20 years before. Each spring I glory in the days when it's flowering. This lush rainy weekend seems to have been the trigger, as suddenly the bush is in full bloom. I clipped one of the flowers wet with rain. Now it floats in a blue-patterned Chinese bowl. It struck me tonight that those tiny brown spots look just like the freckling on the throat of a veery, a locally common thrush with a truly exotic voice.
 
Bold purple petals
hide a patch of soft freckles
like a veery's throat.