June 7: Buds

A heavy rain falls
on peony buds closed tight,
unenlightened minds.

June 6: Craneflies

Came home the other night to find two craneflies mating on the well-lit front door, connected end to end.

Where one cranefly ends,
another begins.
Such perfect union.

June 5: Dodging swallowtails

Route 52 was a corridor of butterflies today--all along Megunticook Lake, swallowtails rose up before my car, then fluttered away in my wake. My car felt like a large, unwieldy instrument of destruction around such fragile bits of life.

Between lake, mountain
I try to dodge butterflies
in my monstrous car.

June 4: Borrowed shirt

His old linen shirt,
shrunk in the wash and now mine--
my possessiveness sparked.

June 3: Tattoo

In the taco joint
woman with much-tattooed chest
holding her baby.

I'm wondering how she nurses the baby without frightening him.

June 2: Return of the Red-eyed Vireo

In the neighborhood this morning...

Another hot morning.
Back for the summer,
Vireo sings non-stop.

June 1: Nest

Helped lead a walk today as part of the Acadia Birding Festival on Mount Desert Island, on the Wonderland Trail in Acadia National Park. The short trail passes through stunted boreal spruce and jack pine forest to emerge on the granite shores of the sea. As we scanned the waves, one participant looked down instead... and found the nest of a Song Sparrow tucked in a rose bush, neatly cupping four mottled blue eggs.

Vastness that is sea
alongside these small blue eggs,
singing sparrow.