A roar, a...?

The first dragonfly of the year appeared in front of the Jeep’s windshield and flew over the roof yesterday. Since we’re half-way plus through spring, summer is beginning to shoulder in. Mother’s Day forecast is for a high of 83℉. I doubt the Better Half will approve of that since I’m the one that prefers warmth leaning toward heat.

We missed the aurora last night but have been enjoying photos and reports on social media. Some of the reports noted significant traffic jams in our general area as others tried to find better lines of sight. It’s hard to see much beyond the tree tops where we live and a visual check early this morning revealed a glow in the northern sky much like the urban light pollution to our south.

first a fiddlehead, then a fern

Photo by J. Harrington

Somehow this year, when I wasn’t watching, the ferns across the yard in front of the house, along the edge of the woods, snuck past the fiddlehead stage and are now mature ferns. It probably occurred while I was looking up at the trees for bud burst and leaf out. If I had decided to mow the front yard already, no doubt I would have seen the fiddleheads. I’m still reading and pondering the pros and cons of no mow May. It occurs to me that, with all the trees around, and all the leaf fall in the woods, it’s hard to rationalize leaving leaf cover for critters like caterpillars who have an abundance of options on where and how to overwinter around here. Plus, we’ve accumulated too many brush piles during the past few years and haven’t managed to torch enough of them. I’m losing the yard along with my personal filing system and the stacks of books that have leapt beyond my meager efforts to manage them. I think I need a fairy godmother with a magic wand.

Letter to the Northern Lights 

Aimee Nezhukumatathil

The light here on earth keeps us plenty busy: a fire
in central Pennsylvania still burns bright since 1962.

Whole squads of tiny squid blaze up the coast of Japan
before sunrise. Of course you didn’t show when we went

searching for you, but we found other lights: firefly,
strawberry moon, a tiny catch of it in each other’s teeth.

Someone who saw you said they laid down
in the middle of the road and took you all in,

and I’m guessing you’re used to that—people falling
over themselves to catch a glimpse of you

and your weird mint-glow shushing itself over the lake.
Aurora, I’d rather stay indoors with him—even if it meant

a rickety hotel and its wood paneling, golf carpeting
in the bathrooms, and grainy soapcakes. Instead

of waiting until just the right hour of the shortest
blue-night of the year when you finally felt moved

enough to collide your gas particles with sun particles—
I’d rather share sunrise with him and loon call

over the lake with him, the slap of shoreline threaded
through screen windows with him. My heart

slams in my chest, against my shirt—it’s a kind
of kindling you’d never be able to light on your own. 

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.