Birch Island Books

We went out as far as the Grandmother Tree today,
my light-footed Rovers and I,
and we all sat quite still
Listening.

Birds, brook, beech leaves rustling.

Today is for things that begin with B.

I’ve collected poetry from previous summers into one volume – a day book to walk with you from Litha (Saturday June 20th this year) through to Lunastal (August 1st). Observations, visions, and a small thread of story inspire the words – two good dogs underscore them.

Won’t you join me?

Wind from southeast, up the small valley, cools all.

I am grateful for rain
and cool air.

I am not doing so well inside my heart today,
But I can be grateful for rain
and cool air.

Begin again.

Small Shiatsu Dog woke me with paddy paws on my back
and a message about the goodness of the day
and all the refreshment to be found in a nice bowl of kibble.

The yard smells of mown grass and that is all Grace –
and the kitchen now glows with a spring-green-leaf-seeming –

and that is all Grace.

Every day Grace is all around me, holding me in love
and wonder.

I went a little further today,
and I did some trail work in the sense of clearing branches out of the new path.
And I processed some regrets,
which is a lot like clearing branches out of a new path.

OK, Thursday, apparently you want to be Metaphor Day.
I can go with that.
Now, what is “ignoring the laundry” a metaphor-for?

Laying new trails
through thick, young woods
over rocky angles.

A pretty nice start to a summer’s day.

I’m not quite certain where my edges are.

Air, thick with wet, blurs the edges of trees, bogs, rocks, dogs, trails,
and me.

A tiny, tiny part of the Dance of the Stars –
not causal, but effectal (footnote) –
The light streams in, crosses the space which we have tried to hallow,
and exits exactly there.

In some places it might be about where the shadow falls at the Moment.
In this place, it is about the light.

(footnote: it is so a word, ’cause you understood me!)

We walked to a piece of quartz that marks the center of our grove.
Not the beech grove near the beaver lodge
But the beech grove which would have been the best house site except for getting things actually out to it.

Like building materials.

Some very excellent advice we had many years ago:
find the second best house site and build there.

Now we can go to the best spot and enjoy it still –
it’s not the same, it’s full of beech saplings,
but I’m not the same either.

Here’s to you whose smile is like sunshine on morning water,
whose welcome is like hot cocoa with marshmallows.
May this day be blessed,
May this day be held in balance,
May love prevail.

The air touched me today,
thick with the not-yet-rain.
I cradled my neck into the hand of the air and knew a lover’s touch.

This one morning, pale blue sky
an unknown passeriform flashed white wing at us,
half of the moon flirted with us,
frost and strawberry blossoms,
focus down, down, find it in the small noticings.