Summer

These are the long nights

The middle of July nights

The pink and blue and cream nights

The best time of the year

They’re firefly and moth nights

Fiddle cricket tune nights

Stay out late to play nights

Until the moon appears

These are the hot nights

The no pajama, sheet nights

The window open, fan nights

The nights of frog and loon

The bicycle and stroll nights

The freezy ice cream treat nights

The skinny-dipping pond nights

That always end too soon

It's NOT Boring!

I don't know why some people claim that country living is quiet and boring. Take, for example, the other night. My friend and neighbor, J, and I were taking our regular evening walk that passes the dam at the north end of the pond. Water crashes over and pools in the rocks below before hurrying on its way downstream. We often stop to lean on the bridge railing to watch the great blue heron fish for its evening meal. It's noisy there so we stop on the edge of the one way bridge and check both ways for oncoming traffic before crossing, which is why we saw a large van approach the bridge and stop. The driver leaned out and pointed to the neighbor's lawn across the street where a large black mama bear was galloping, a wobbly black cub doing its best to keep up. They weren't more than 50 or so feet from where we stood.

"You know, they were right behind you," said the driver, "until I sort of nudged them off the road onto the lawn there."

Insert bug-eyed emoji here. J and I waited until the bears had disappeared into the woods before continuing on. Home again, we sat at my patio table to discuss the day when J looked out across the lawn and remarked, "Brian (her son) must have put his chickens in early."

"No," I corrected her. "He never let them out this morning. The door to the outside pen is gone."

"Gone?" she said. "Where is it?"

"I don't know," I remarked carelessly. "It's not my door."

She gave me a funny look, wondering why I was not as curious as she about where the door actually was, and when she left for home, went out past the chicken pen to see what had become of it. I heard her hoot. She came back a moment later, almost doubled over, gasping out that the door was not gone, as I had assumed, but merely pushed back against the wire fencing. The fact that I had not seen it nor been curious as to its whereabouts was the cause of great hilarity. I had to laugh with her, wondering out loud what else in my life I missed when it was right there in front of me had I bothered to be curious.

Not ten minutes later, while I was weeding the beets in the waning light, I heard my name being called across the yard. I looked about but could not see J anywhere. Finally she shouted, "I'm locked in the hen house! I need rescuing!"

It was my turn for hysterics. I chuckled and chortled as I hot-stepped it across her backyard to the hen house. Sure enough, the door with its simple hook and loop mechanism, was firmly latched.

"How did you do that?" I queried, as I lifted the latch and set her free. She looked chagrined.

"Well," she admitted, "I forgot to turn the hook aside as I usually do and when the door slammed behind me, I heard it fall." She was looking at the ground as she said this. She looked up and confessed, "It happened a couple of weeks ago, too, but I managed to get out the door at the other end of the house. But I've since locked that one."

"From the outside," she added.

On our way back to her house we wondered aloud how long she might have had to stay in the hen house had I not been outside and heard her hollering. We agreed it would be a good idea to check on each other daily. "And now," she said, "I'm going to bed before anything else can happen."

I haven't heard form her yet this morning. Excuse me while I go check.

Winter hues are so unlike their bright summer counterparts you’d hardly think they originated from the same colors. A winter sky looks cold. It’s ice blue in the early morning, cobalt in the afternoon. Even on sunny days there’s a hint of frostiness. And there is no color quite like New England grey—a sullen shade that portends snow, or worse, a dreary fall of freezing rain.

Winter woods are hauntingly beautiful. Trees whose shapes and patterns go unnoticed under a canopy of summer leaves stand revealed, every lofty limb, every bend of branch and configuration of twigs inked in relief on a canvas sky. Bark—rough and craggy or smooth as skin—is every shade of brown there is. When a pale January sun reaches out and touches bark and branch, the trees look as if they are lit from within. And snow, far from pure white, flaunts rainbow colors when struck by direct sunlight. Late in the day it harbors deep purple shadows; on moonlit evenings it turns to pure silver. Snow brings a discernible depth to other winter colors.

We tend to think of winter as a bleak and desolate season, a time when color recedes and fades into nothingness. A painter would tell us differently. No winter landscape is rendered in pure white. Always there is an underlying wash of blue or brown or yellowy-orange. Our eyes, blinded by fall’s fiery display, seek brilliance and in so doing, overlook the perfection of subtlety, of austerity, of less.

 If you look closely, you can see hints of spring shades to come. They are visible in the pale green-gold of the tightly folded lilac bud, in the wine-red withes of the swamp osier, or in the grape-colored stalks of blackberry canes. Winter is not a season of death so much as one of rest, a time to withdraw and be quiet, to renew ones' self in anticipation of summer's vibrancy.

Reincarnation

I think, said a friend once,

that you were a tree in a former life.

That would explain my deep love of the out-of-doors,

my longing for roots and an inordinate love of homeplace,

my penchant for being a watcher, a witness,

rather than a willing participant in human endeavors.

What sort of tree he didn’t specify.

A pine perhaps? I’ve always admired pine trees

with their towering, pitch-knobbed branches,

their prolific and diverse cones,

their forest-green needles that turn a faded orangey-brown at death,

a different shade of beauty.

I doubt he meant an oak — too mighty and steadfast and regal in bearing,

too impenetrable and strong, treasured for its sterling qualities.

He could have meant a redwood, but my human self is drawn to them in such astonishment

that I can’t imagine being invited to join their ranks.

Perhaps he was thinking of the birch, a water lover, compatible with my Zodiac sign, recognizable for its elegant bark, its pliancy, its delicate greenery,

though I’ve always felt, were I ever to be a tree, I’d be a willow, the weeping kind

that likes its toes buried in the damp earth and its head in the clouds,

a mothering being that bends and sways and waltzes in the wind, whose immense green arms

offer secret hiding places for birds and other small creatures, and children with books.

If I believed in reincarnation, I would believe I’ve been a weeping willow tree,

a habitat, a host, provider of shade and safety, my toes holding the erodible earth,

my leaves breathing, my body a nurturing source of shelter and warmth. This time around,

I think I am simply a mother incarnate.

autumn morning

how can ordinary words

describe the sunlit undersides of geese,

or how the swamp maple,

in the first blush of dawn,

thrusts an implausible pink trunk

into the sky?

exactly which upper

and lower case letters will allow you to

feel the bite of the first frost

on your carelessly bare feet

skipping through the wet fire

to the sound of syncopated honks?

hours from now

unless these observations are

fixed on the open sky of the page

who will understand how your

shadowed footprints melted

into the dying grass

or how the great birds were swallowed

by the rising light?