July 31: Water Lily

A bird whose song I couldn't recognize was making noise outside my office this afternoon, so I wandered out with my binoculars to try and track it down. I never did see the bird, but I ended up at the river's edge surprised to realize that I hadn't been down there for a few months. Or at least, not recently enough to have remembered there were water lilies growing near the shore there--including one big white one in full bloom.

Water lily's beauty
amplified by the river
reflecting blue sky, clouds.

July 30: Hostas

Berries on cereal.
Hosta blossoms hum with bees.
So begins my day.

July 29: Hollyhocks

Maroon hollyhocks
along the weathered gray shed.
The past, always with us.

July 28: Long drive home

Husband at the wheel,

Red Sox on the radio

the whole drive, winning.

Posted with Blogsy

July 27: Grand Lake Stream

Spent the weekend Down East in interior Washington County, at Weatherby's sporting lodge in the lakeside hamlet of Grand Lake Stream. You get there after a 3-1/2-hour drive through very rural Maine which included a Passamaquoddy Indian reservation, torrential rains, and a flooded road on the route we took. This weekend was the GLS annual arts and crafts festival, a quality event that attracts people from miles around--so the tiny town of one store is suddenly abuzz with festival-goers overwhelming (and probably overlapping with) the usual crowd of fishermen and ATVers.

 

We stayed in a little cabin at Weatherby's. Saturday we visited friends at their camp tucked into the pines on the shore of West Grand Lake. We enjoyed an afternoon cocktail on their porch while listening to the sounds of the summer lake. The sky had cleared at last ,and the lake sparkled as we rode back to town in their classic square-sterned Grand Laker canoe, just in time for dinner together at the lodge.

 

Screen door's slam, slap of

flip-flops on dock, lake warm

under my trailing hand.

 

Posted with Blogsy

July 26: Short run in the morning rain

Still sore, short of breath,

but the soft summer rain

has washed my skin clean.

Posted with Blogsy

July 25: Cacophony

Right now I can hear out my window, all at the same time, and loud:
2 cawing crows, one of them whiny, probably a younger bird
1 Blue Jay
1 Red-eyed Vireo, non-stop all day
1 Song Sparrow
1 cardinal

Beats the lawnmower,
this birdsong circus under
treetops' lush green tent.

July 24: Haiku on Hatchet Mountain

This afternoon I led a haiku hike up Hatchet Mountain in Hope (such alliteration!) for Coastal Mountains Land Trust and Sweet Tree Arts. Two familes, including four children, three adults, and two dogs, and I walked up the hill with stops along the way to compose short poems. Highlights included a singing Scarlet Tanager, a porcupine climbing a tree with surprising speed (trying to get away from us), views of the Camden Hills and all the way to the ocean, and lots of blackberries and raspberries to eat along the way.

Who can write haiku
with all these blackberries
to pick and eat?

July 23: My mother's deer

My mother was dealing with a stressful situation this afternoon. While she was anxiously waiting on the phone, on hold, she happened to look out the window and see this graceful doe looking back at her.

photo by Vicki Henderson

The doe, too, anxious

as my mother waiting for

good news on the phone.

July 22: After seeing the movie "Before Midnight"

Full moon rises hazy
over Rockland Harbor.
Night, full of promise.

July 21: Early morning at the camp

Paul and a loon fish.

From the tallest pine, merlin

breaks the morning calm.

Posted with Blogsy