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.

August 14: Party sunset

I love the kind of party when, as the sun is setting over a distant hazy ridge, just a burning hot pink sliver above the horizon, everyone there rushes over excitedly to watch it sink. And meanwhile dozens of hummingbirds buzz around us, getting in those last sips of nectar before bedtime. Everyone leaves happy.

End of the party--
buzz of voices at sunset,
buzzing hummingbirds.

August 13: Summer afternoon

I'm standing on the edge of lawn and field looking up at the green slopes of Ragged Mountain. At the lawn's edge, blooming gladioli stand at glorious attention, and faces of tiger lilies peer through greenery. Hummingbirds chatter and buzz around the flower beds. Goldfinches rise and dip over the fields, singing non-stop, swarming the seed feeders. Overhead, birch trees against a blue sky. Butterflies flit in little circles around me, and in the distance, a family of bluebirds gathers on a branch. Tomorrow night we're having a party here, and at this moment, I can't imagine a more perfect place to be.

Butterflies, bluebirds,
birdsong--is this a set for
a Disney movie?

August 12: Sunday morning

Another quiet, misty morning on the coast of Maine, one of those mornings when I just want to stay in bed and listen to the noises of the neighborhood awakening...

Wakened by ospreys,

neighbor's singing and strumming.

Now, "shh" of rainfall. 

August 11: Time of one's own

I can't even remember when I've last enjoyed a day with absolutely no commitments. And I certainly can't remember when I last woke up feeling relieved to see fog and grey skies out the window; now I can sit around and read all day if I feel like it and not feel guilty about squandering a sunny day or neglecting my lawn and garden.

I can curl up with the cat and tackle the enormous stack of books that has been growing rampantly on my bedside table. Or maybe I'll work on some poems. Or I can just sit here on the back porch with my crossword puzzle, while ospreys squeal nearby on the river, squirrels fling themselves through the oak tree, and the cardinal chips on the neighbor's feeder, announcing his imminent arrival on mine. It's my day.

(Well, actually, it's also my mother's day, it being her birthday. And I know she too is doing whatever she feels like today--antiquing with my dad, dinner out tonight--the way a birthday should be. Happy birthday, Mom, my one faithful reader!)

Crickets sing while I
simply sit here, absorb fog,
feel my breathing slow.

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August 10: Funeral

A character in a book I read recently complained that funerals should never take place on beautiful days, that the sun and blue sky merely taunt those who are in mourning. This foggy morning thus seemed well suited for attending a funeral, the soft focus appropriate for introspection and reflections on mortality. I was surprised after arriving in this muted mood, then, to find myself spending much of the service laughing. The deceased, whom I'd never met (I was there to support the widow, whom I know through work), was apparently quite the comedian, and the stories his family shared--they were laughing loudest--along with video clips of him hamming it up, allowed a good-spirited humor to keep at bay feelings of sadness and loss. The foggy landscape took on a different tenor on the drive home.

No gloom in this fog--
rather, goldenrod glowing,
candles in a dream.