Now we’re cutting it

I spent much of the morning mowing overly tall, excessively thick, grass in the back yard. It’s not been tended to for weeks, thanks to our rain every day or other day pattern. There’s more to be done but at least we’re now at the beginning of summer mowed (heh, heh). I wouldn’t want anyone to find out, but it felt good to have my butt on a tractor seat instead of in an arm chair. Being outside and noticing what’s sprung up from seeds long dormant due to lack of rain is more fulfilling than doom scrolling on any and all social media and news platforms. Now I just need to remember to pace myself to levels of effort more consistent with my seriously advanced [but unspecified] age. The primary objective for the afternoon is to hit the poison ivy with some Roundup. Rain plus morning dew have hindered those efforts for about a week now.

whitetail doe and fawn

Photo by J. Harrington

The Better Half is excited because flax seeds that were sown several years ago have finally germinated and bloomed. We’ll see about some photos this afternoon. I’m going to take a chance on jinxing the effort and start to give serious consideration to where the germinated bergamot seeds should get planted. I’m thinking maybe at the top of the hill where the dead apple tree needs to get removed. Someplace that I’m not likely to be tempted to mow plus where we can watch for flutterbyes and bumbling bees.

Perhaps the best and most exciting news of the day is that this morning we enjoyed the first fawn visit of the year. As mom slowly munched her way through the field behind the house, junior scampered and gamboled south, west, east and north at top speed plus. I hope they become regular visitors for the summer and autumn.

Written Deer

Maggie Smith

Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?
                            —Wisława Szymborska

My handwriting is all over these woods.
No, my handwriting is these woods,

each tree a half-print, half-cursive scrawl,
each loop a limb. My house is somewhere
here, & I have scribbled myself inside it.

What is home but a book we write, then
read again & again, each time dog-earing

different pages. In the morning I wake
in time to pencil the sun high. How
fragile it is, the world—I almost wrote

the word but caught myself. Either one
could be erased. In these written woods,

branches smudge around me whenever
I take a deep breath. Still, written fawns
lie in the written sunlight that dapples

their backs. What is home but a passage
I’m writing & underlining every time I read it.

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