Friendship

Jere has rescued me many times.

During an especially bitter winter, in an old and drafty house, with a heating system involving gas and a tank totally foreign to me, I called him for help. He came, took the temp inside, hovering only a bit above freezing, investigated the tank, and announced there was no gas. He walked home across the street and came back, with space heaters and an invitation to come on over.

Another time, when a squirrel ran under my tires and I felt the thump of death, I called him, crying. I drove a block out of my way for a week just so I wouldn't see the corpse between our houses. I hadn't needed to make my detour. Jere had removed the squirrel immediately after I called.

He and his wife drove me to the vet one Sunday evening with my dying cat, comforted me when I sobbed, and buried her the next day in their garden because I had to leave town at 4:30 in the morning. They said a few words, sang a hymn, and placed flowers and a stone rabbit above her little body.

Just this past Saturday, he rescued me again when my car stopped on the Interstate, where I stood, nervously for an hour, before his arrival. He called a tow truck and gave me much-needed auto advice and let me rail and cry. He later said he knew I'd get over it.

This is Jere the next morning, enjoying his daily routine. His smile says it all. He's a mensch.

And I love him.

The Redness of the Blueberry Leaf

The blueberry leaves, red now with the fire of fall, sing of Dylan Thomas. Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And so the blueberry rages and so the blueberry will be reborn in spring.

A Bug's Life

I shot beautiful dotted green bugs, racing along hairy plant stalks or snoozing in sun-lit yellow petals or eating their way through purple flowers.












"What are they doing?" I asked my friend Jill.

She laughed.












I said, "You're the bug expert!"

She laughed again. "Procreation, food, basic needs."












My basic needs are so much more complicated that some days a bug's life looks pretty good.

Snap, Crackle, Pop

Better than cereal, the snap, crackle, and pop of fall.

Into the Woods

Days of long shadows
now when
with limb, leaf,
trunks, I fall
into gold.

What's White Isn't Always

Sunday morning, in a friend's garden, under intense November sun, a white skipper floated from plant to plant, just ahead of my shadow. In air, winking white; spread-winged at rest, brown dotted; close up, hairily olive -- the skipper sank into blossom after blossom, and into my lens.

The Day of Windy Leaves

Listen and see Green's View in fall.