back to the future? again?

The field behind the house is full of Spotted Horsemint, with scatterings of black-eyed Susans and a few compass plants. Purple Lovegrass provides a colorful, mist-like understory, if prairie-like fields can have an understory. Our wet spring seems to have prompted an abundance of late Summer natural beauty for this last week of August.

a cluster of Black-eyed Susan flowers

Photo by J. Harrington

Speaking of late Summer, the weather has taken a definite autumnal turn. Highs are forecast to be in the 70s all week with lows feeling as cool as forties and fifties, thanks to freshened breezes and last night's (early this morning's?) cold front that came through. Good weather for getting caught up on some yard chores that've been deferred due to heat, humidity or thunderstorms.

The elderberry bush in the wet spot behind the house has numerous clusters of berries replacing its midsummer blooms. Our lilac bushes have a few small clumps of flowers that feel out-of-season. We think there's at least one rough(?) blazing star in bloom in a spot not visible from the house. Learning to appreciate little things and natural beauty around us is taking some effort but is worth it, especially during these days when there's so much ugliness in our world. 

From time to time I find myself drifting back to the 1960s and 70s when some of my close friends were semi-hippie, back-to-the-land types. My iPhone has lots of folk music from those days, copied from my CDs. So many of Bob Dylan's lyrics seem prescient and traumatically relevant to today's situations. Or, to quote a refrain from one of Pete Seeger's classics: "When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?" Money isn't speech. Corporations aren't people any more than artificial intellligence is. We are all in this together and all of US need to learn to act that way, as of yesterday.

Back Up Quick They’re Hippies

By Lani O'Hanlon

 

That was the year we drove

into the commune in Cornwall.

“Jesus Jim,” mam said,

“back up quick they’re hippies.”

Through the car window,

tents, row after row, flaps open,

long-haired men and women

curled around each other like babies

and the babies themselves

wandered naked across the grass.

I reached for the handle, ready, almost,

to open the door, drop out and away

from my sister’s aggressive thighs,

Daddy’s slapping hands.

Back home in the Dandelion Market

I unlearnt the steps my mother taught,

bought a headband, an afghan coat,

a fringed skirt — leather skin.

Barefoot on common grass I lay down with kin.

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