Three Things about Walking with a Dog and a Cell Phone in the Rain

1.

Photobombing

2.

Windows

3.

Anticipation

Weather Readings

I
The cats are no fools. They bedded themselves in their plush doughtnuts as soon as they rose from my own bed. All day, they have slept, barely repositioning or peeking.

They know weather.

No sunny spot to stretch across, no open door to deck, no birds to draw them -- jaws chattering -- to the windows.

This cold gray day after several sunny warmer ones hibernates them again.

Not to worry I assure them. These are the death throes of winter.

II
as people winter,
skin thins
when bruised or punctured
failing to hold within
the vitals
and skin dries
leaking out
what was once within
hiding less
revealing more
veins thin rills of blue

IV
The daffodil, in its last throes like winter, shows its linear skeleton.

 

III
Some people read weather, not for the sake of prediction but for the sake of creation. Artist Natalie Miebach collects data and weaves fantastical storms, sometimes composes in musical form.

IV
This is my kind weather, especially on a day like today.

It's the little things

that save a day otherwise tainted by gray skies, a cat's problem ear and unplanned visit to the vet, ice pellets, a nagging headache.

Like five early daffodils, for example, blooming in woods where six deer nipped at other plants.

When the deer moved on, I moved out.

Now, the daffodils light my kitchen.

A Note from Home

Hi Gay,

I know you're enjoying Paris and all the art, architecture, wine, chocolate, pastries, and sauces, but I thought you might like to see what you're missing at home.

Miss G is still yapping up a storm, the campus is (thankfully) quiet, and the flowers are popping out in Abbo's Alley. 

Today I saw daffodils, Lenten roses, those sweetly scented delicate white and yellow viney blooms (whose name I never remember), hyacinth, bluebells, crocus (the last ones), snowdrops, Virginia spring beauties, and a fully budded trillium poking out of a snake hole by the last little stone bridge below the spring. (Oh! And those teeny-weeny little purple flowers running along the ground.) You'll be happy on your next walk here. 

Spring is springing in Sewanee without you!

Your friend,
Robley

No Faerie Is S/he

but asleep in a daffodil blossom, the lady beetle seems more ladylike (think Titania or one of her companions) and less beetlish than the hundreds of his/her kind I dispatched at The Lemon Fair earlier today.

May she slumber soundly.

Yes, Billy Collins, Yes!

Today

by Billy Collins

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,

so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw

open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,

indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths

and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight

that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight

on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants

from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,

holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,

well, today is just that kind of day.

To see spring

I push

my lens,

into daffodil

& hyacinth cups,

grains glistening

promised spring.

Their fire

must do

for now.

Oh how

I hate

must do.