I carried my second-hand camera to the far end of the field; it carried the field back home in its little wafer of memory. I’m sorry it’s a little blurry. I had slept poorly the night before, & now everything seemed slightly out-of-focus.
Leaves on a first-year catalpa sprout are almost big enough to serve as umbrellas in a pinch. Yesterday morning, though, as you can see, I used them as a welder’s visor to look at the sun. Expect major sunspot activity in the next few days.
A white ash split down the middle by last January’s ice storm bravely sent up a few clusters of sprouts, but this summer’s drought has not been kind. The Virginia creeper climbs it with claws of shadow.
As I started up the ridge, my tired kneecaps made little popping noises with every step. Then I saw how thickly the wild grapes hung, fat clusters weighing down a witch hazel bush at the bend of the trail. I found a ripe grape & popped it into my mouth. Thick skin, crunchy seeds, acid-sweet pulp – I eat it all. There’s something vaguely unsettling about a peeled grape.
For you, oh reader, I’ll ford a river of white stones, for you I’ll grow a garden of lichens – don’t laugh. Marvel of marvels, a garden of lichens once gave me my best line ever: fungal integument chemically identical to an insect’s exoskeleton.
Dry? Of course it’s dry. This river is parched.
When you read these words, do you hear your own voice, or imagine mine?