Bonnie Raitt & Allison Krauss

 https://youtu.be/DZki0PkSgAs?si=WWAQrpUjBAzVeDv7

Woman in a Meadow

Her balm the in-between, 

The interstitials

And somewhere out in the 

Great Plains and the divide, 

Great opening spaces, in

The small meadows she created

I find her

All the Light I Cannot See

Spent all day in the big outside

Mowing into the glory of the clover

Fretting about apple trees’ vigor,

Though they’re old, 

Making sure in my reveries

I kept respectful distance from the 

Pond’s banks 

No tilting in too far, and 

Surprise of 

Wiping tears away

Weeping 

For the kindness, the 

Constancy, and 

Understanding; 

I had to shade my eyes now and then

From a lowering sun, the 

Chords of knowing blinding

Into the precious new again, that 

Some things never change. 

Coming in

To cook up all that

Emotional

Psychic

Visceral

Logical 

Incoming,

I turn to dinner 

Yesterday my friend gave me a bounty of 

Butternut squash soup, 

She said, he doesn’t like it 

And if I had to guess 

I bet it comes from 

The church ladies; an 

Excellent base 

And then the riot:

Mine here, in no order—

Two evenings’ soups

Beets and pesto 

Cream, some honey and 

Black beans

Paprika, and some cheese

And snips of basil, parsleys from

my kitchen garden, 

My way of finding 

Balance 

Relief

 They’re all so safe

The safe ones

In my age and yearning

I cleave to trusting 

Why not, anyway? 

It’s exhausting, otherwise. 

It means, I know, that the 

Fringes and dressings of the circle

Get smaller,

Defining the warp and weave

Design and pattern 

Of my life 

Whereby the task was always, 

Unfolding, whether I would ever 

See it or not, 

To live the best way I’m

Wired, clinging to honesty

Admitting love and its mystery

In the ground that seasons shift

In the tactile of my time. 

Waiting for Solstice

Rising from the Heat 

And desperate for those skies

That bring the solstice

I make to make welcome 

Beloved friends. 

Sister, 

I just saw her, in mist 

Diaphanous

Lavender and blue

Miasma in the library

As I breathe in a cooling

Air, but still, 

Only if I’m

Still, symphony with 

Bullfrogs and I can see 

The Dipper  

From the patio. 

Years ago I saw her and told you about 

Her, you said, 

Diaphanous and

Blue, and I believe that’s when you 

Put up the mezuzah; it’s 

Come down but tucked into

This place

With her.  

And then 

My sister, you blessed all the

Doorways. 

In the time of Suffer

Mowing

Sanctuary

Salvation

Every blade of grass, 

Bloom, every 

Slide as I sog into

Unrelenting mud 

Every

Color, 

Wild and everywhere 

And all the smells so glorious

I watch for bunnies

Hop toads, blown branches 

Too thick for mower chop

Coherence 

Here We Are

I am in the garden, it’s all garden, I am mowing, I am cutting the pasture high; I am outside, on the porches, on the patio, planting pots, shoveling away winter detritus on the patio; I am walking to the barn and walking back to the barn gardens, I am at the pond. I am walking in the middle of the road at night. Night vision. Burgundy Farm, Capon Bridge. The children were little. 

There was a small hastily-painted sign above a screen door at camp, pointing to a nest tucked away: “Carolina wren nesting, 🪹 don’t disturb her.” The sign didn’t have to say, so come in another way. 

Today I was sweeping off the front porch again. It’s a formal porch. No one ever comes to the front door. At Christmas we hang a large Maine wreath, with a spot on it, on the front door. Every spring, I hang baskets on the front porch. I move concrete urns with old ferns out there. It takes a beating from the elements, though it is a deep beautiful in the snow, which shapes itself into onto and around the porch and its Greek columns. But it is not an unoccupied or unused front porch, and we know the life out there. Fucking squirrels chew thru everything everywhere they can. I sweep up piles of insulation, hubs pounds away at the holes in the porch ceiling & calls in the posse when he can’t reach. The little bastards get in through the cornices as well. 

Each corner, on the outside columns’ pediments, contains a small built environment, nests. Every year they’re there. It’s quiet in the front; mommas are vigilant but not alarmed; soon the fledglings are fine. By the time I hang baskets all is sorted out. This season, though, the rain, incessant rain, constant, deluge, unrelenting, and wind, not thunderstorm wind, but derecho wind. The fucking weasels got the hens 6 weeks ago. 

I digress, but it’s all related. 

Yesterday when I went to sweep off the front porch, amid the squirrels’ rampage I’ve barely kept up with, I noticed a tiny feathery just gossamer ghostly creature, the nest blown down probably the night before when some fearsome straight line winds came upon us as once in awhile in terrible storm they will, and I think barely, barely hatched. I knelt a bit and whispered to it. It was a something, it had had a beating heart. 

Tonight. I swept. Wept. The wisp of the bird was bigger. My knees wanted to crumple. And as I propped my head against the hand clutching the broom, just aside atop my eye, a movement. Another wee speck of life. The smallest moving bird leg I’ve ever seen or will ever see again. A nanosecond of movement in a puff of lightest grey. What do I do? Grateful I was not vigorous in my sweeping. 

Would the Burgundy campers bury them? Would they cry for them? Oh life.