April 2, 2022 Basking underneath bare trees,Face kissed by the barest breeze,Gentle sunshine now descending:Winter isn’t never-ending.The leaves have not yet filled the sky,Not yet born, already die.I lay upon the almost greenAnd wait in spring’s sweet in-between. Written at Corhaven, Virginia. What if waiting wasn’t something to escape, but a season in its own right, a thing to...
March 5, 2022 The grip of cold is past,But not its gifts:The trees are sticks,The yard, still bare.Tufts of withered grass,Papery leaves, wind scattered,Whitewashed reeds,Seed pods: velvet husks, lone dried bean,Its time to sprout long past.The garden, gone.Beyond the fence, brown brush.Fallen branch.Amidst a mound of dirt Crowned with a sewage lid,A tiny creeping weed,Tendrils outstretched in...
February 18, 2022 Valentine’s Day has come and gone, which means it’s time for my favorite garden chore: pruning roses. I love pruning of all kinds, at least, the non-metaphorical kind. But pruning rose bushes takes me back to my parents’ house, with their immense days of dry summer sun and luxurious swaths of space for roses to grow unshaded and unencumbered. I liked being the one to don good...
February 14, 2022 Our baby is 18 months today. She’s our last, and my intention from the moment we decided to try for a third has been to be present. It is so tempting to jump ahead to a future stage that promises fewer demands on my time, a little more freedom, a little less work. It may be true–though nothing’s guaranteed–that it will be easier when she’s sleep-trained, cup-and-silverware...
The turning of the seasons, and in particular, the hidden richness in the fallow winter season, have long been of special interest to me. When I lived in Brooklyn, I loved walking through the Botanic Garden in the dead months, hunting for the smallest signs of transformation. A bud months away from blossoms just starting to swell on a branch, a shoot just breaking ground. The space felt rich with...
I hear,from the bench where I sit in the woods,six or seven distinct voices:High-pitched trills,Consonant thrum,Wandering warbles,Insistent monosyllabic bursts. The knock of a woodpecker against the tree opposite me. Each bird speaks its own language,sounds exactly like what it is,no shame in a higher pitchor shorter song. Each bird, exactly that bird’s voice;Each bird, exactly bird-sized...
February 6, 2022 It would have been my dad’s birthday. His nickname was “Burr,” and my family celebrates “Burr Day” every year with something he loved: sweet treats. When he was sick, but could still enjoy them, we would gather the best pastries from three or four specialty bakeries in driving distance and assemble a massive platter of flakey, gooey goodness. It is our family’s way to...
February 9, 2022 My garden aspirations far outpace my time, talent and knowledge. My mom has been gardening all my life, tends a gorgeous, enormous yard att my childhood home and to my mind, knows all there is about cultivating beautiful plants. But she’s still taking a master garden class, has books like “Edible Perennials” on her coffee table. I haven’t had the discipline for any kind of...
I can’t stop thinking about two very different kinds of violence. No one can avoid the war in Ukraine; it’s constantly on the news, on my feeds, on our minds. Is this Hitler invading Czechoslovakia, the first shot in a multi-year world war three? Is this going to end with massive nuclear slaughter? You don’t have to ask such big questions to feel upset about what seems like a groundless invasion...
1/28/22 Our daily routine doesn’t leave a lot of free time: get the kids ready, school/daycare drop-off, work til a few minutes before pick-up ends, rush to pick-up, playground detour, make dinner, eat dinner, bedtime…and only once all that is done, a few precious obligation-free moments. Often by the time they’re all down, it’s late enough that all I want to do is passively take in something on...