One For the Road

Over campfire and smoke, bats make figure eights against vanishing light. I sit at the fire alone, but not lonely. The idea of contentment, even in the face of fire, is now totally familiar and inviting. Embers begin to die as I take stock of spring and summer. I offer poems and posies, watch pain go up in smoke and collect seeds of joy left behind. The poison ivy rash across my neck mocks this seasonal soliloquy as if to say here's one for the road, beotch.

Night comes on like home. Stars reel across the sky and I don't even think about making a wish. Yet, I do wonder if I found you in the stars – a template wheeling across heaven – gathering wishes and sorrows. Light seen but already gone.

meditation
goldenrod shoulder
high

The boardwalk through the marsh was slick with morning dew. Cattails by the hundreds, going to seed. Red-winged blackbirds linger a little, but like the wedges of geese overhead, they have to get a move on. My grown children call me every spring when they hear their first blackbird trill. L. now lives in Texas so, maybe no phone call this year.

Sliced apples in the wooded park – tarot and poetry at the picnic table – monarchs touching down and taking off with sunlight beaming through their wings. The doe came eerily close but moved back when her baby stirred in the brush.

Back home, the seedum blushes between mauve and bright purple. Autumn and her swan songs offering yet another chance to be grateful.