water god

marine park at sunset. time for water tai chi.

it feels so good to be a rose

we spent most of the day in the basement

(because it's cool) watching star trek and eating ice cream. i might have a crush on spock. or is it the heat getting to me? when i was a kid and everything was at the tip of my fingers, becky had a four foot swimming pool across the street. we used to run over there when dad was napping and test the water with our hand before jumping in. we had goggles and floaties and water toys of sorts. we could do hand stands and underwater somersaults and synchronized swimming. the four foot above ground pool was monstrous to us, our own lake or ocean in which we could create whirl pools with the strongest of currants. we had hierarchies of largest to smallest within the pool, in which the largest bodies ruled and the smallest bodies (my own, usually) would be pushed under water for insurmountable seconds and pulled up again like a buoy, gasping for air. it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. we had brightly colored two pieces and disney themed beach towels. we had popsicle stained lips and tangled hair. we ran back across the street, barefoot, trying to fly over the hot concrete and onto the soft green lawn. we were rulers, we were ruled. we were superheroes, or cartoon characters, or dream people. we lay in the sun and swam and laughed and told jokes and practiced our synchronized swimming routines. we had fleeting victories over the moments of a day-even the ruled, even the small bodied- and we did not know it.

We Have A Plum Tree

this kind of rain makes me think about other places

Yesterday it rained summer rain and I forgot how rain seems special in the summer, even here. (Because somewhere in my gut I am hoping the grass will turn green once more and yield kindly under the pads of my feet. The soft hairs on my arms are waiting to know that winter will not come soon, and the rain will always feel like a warm shower). Kori took the chair and sat under the eaves to watch the rain and the lightening in the distance over the hills. The sky had suddenly turned in on us. And I drove down to pick up Bess and saw people walking happily in the rain: two girls holding hands and laughing and laughing, one leaning back so far I thought she would snap. I never loved the windshield wipers more, as I do in summer rainstorms. I didn’t have to try, I could remember the lake in north Idaho, the tiny row boat, and the thunderstorm. The young moose eating lily pads seemed perceptibly close, too close, and the lightening, stark and yellow white against gray clouds, was too close, too close, too. Jake was paddling and laughing and Sade was laughing at me- worried, always worried, about the moose. And our tee shirts grew spotted, then dark, from the huge drops of rain, and we moved towards shore, and ran down the dock, barefooted and laughing towards the house where we watched the storm from the deck and waited for the others to arrive. I am always waiting for something to hit. A car is like a boat in the rain, if you want it to be a boat. Before I knew it, I was in front of Bess’s house. We began chattering and dreamscape was pulled shut. Jordan called, talked animatedly about the hot storm in Colorado right then. Same storm or different storm? Ours was not really a storm at all, just a warm shower and some sparks, not like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming—driving up the steep and twisted dirt road to Bead Lake, my pulse thickening, the rain hard on the windshield. Jordan said good bye, I miss you. The rain stopped.

This Sunday Morning I am reading:

In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden

by Matthea Harvey

Last night the apple trees shook and gave each lettuce a heart

Six hard red apples broke through the greenhouse glass and

Landed in the middle of those ever-so-slightly green leaves

That seem no mix of seeds and soil but of pastels and light and

Chalk x’s mark our oaks that are supposed to be cut down

I’ve seen the neighbors frown when they look over the fence

And see our espalier pear trees bowing out of shape I did like that

They looked like candelabras against the wall but what’s the sense

In swooning over pruning I said as much to Mrs. Jones and I swear

She threw her cane at me and walked off down the street without

It has always puzzled me that people coo over bonsai trees when

You can squint your eyes and shrink anything without much of

A struggle ensued with some starlings and the strawberry nets

So after untangling the two I took the nets off and watched birds

With red beaks fly by all morning at the window I reread your letter

About how the castles you flew over made crenellated shadows on

The water in the rainbarrel has overflowed and made a small swamp

I think the potatoes might turn out slightly damp don’t worry

If there is no fog on the day you come home I will build a bonfire

So the smoke will make the cedars look the way you like them

To close I’m sorry there won’t be any salad and I love you

Eggs, Beans, and Hot Sauce

Forrest prepared for us a Guatemalan feast of eggs, beans, homemade tortillas, and hot sauce the other night. Delicious and simple, a staple of the country. He showed us pictures from his recent trip with Engineers Without Borders. Guatemala is definitely on my list of places to visit-- the landscape looks so lush with tropical plants. I want to be a gringo!

Yesterday Jordan left for Colorado to visit his mother for a week. I buried the initial feelings of absence by running errands and meeting up with Bess for tea. Later, Kori and I got beers and talked about boys, friends, money, and what not-- it was wonderful.

It is so languid and warm today, I want to loaf in the hammock and watch the birds.

Lake Terrell

Jordan and I went here today, a 500 acre man made shallow lake off Slater road. It is a strange place-set up and maintained as a wetland habitat for nesting waterfowl, but also for upland game hunting. We saw these goldfinches bathing in the lake. So adorable! There were a lot of beautiful meadows with swallows frolicking, as well, and a swainson's thrush waiting for us to leave so she could feed her babies.

Loafer

Soundings

by Joyce Sutphen

In the afternoon of summer, sounds
come through the window: a tractor
muttering to itself as it

pivots at the corner of the
hay field, stalled for a moment
as the green row feeds into the baler.

The wind slips a whisper behind
an ear; the noise of the highway
is like the dark green stem of a rose.

From the kitchen the blunt banging
of cupboard doors and wooden chairs
makes a lonely echo in the floor.

Somewhere, between the breeze
and the faraway sound of a train,
comes a line of birdsong, lightly
threading the heavy cloth of dream.

Bean, Shmem, and Day go Crabbing and Discover Shmem's Terror of Star Fish

Crabbing season opened this weekend! We made a crab quiche feast with our catch.