Sultry Apathy

Monday

Still waters and my own mind almost as tranquilly empty as the calm moist air following overnight showers.

Each day brings tales of the aspirations of important cultural players. People who are elected, appointed, anointed, or who make more than the average Mr. and Ms. Jones. They have rigid ideas about what you and I should be doing, and how they will force us to do it, to make us more like them. Except of course they do not want us ever to be actually elected, anointed, etc. etc.
I never could quite work up envy. I believe those minds are closed to the truly finer aspects of existence. Summer happiness has fortunately soaked away even minor irritation _ I sit on a beach or walk the woods immersed in beauty and meaning and constant joy. Apathetic, I wantonly ignore where such self-declared leaders imagine they are steering society.

Tuesday

Deadly nightshade tangles along the road, glistening with imagined malevolence based only on its name.

What better place to contemplate reality than a warm sandy beach on a hot summer day? I riffle through a thick book, periodically glance up at boat traffic piloted by those too juiced to relax, listen to laughter and screams of children, watch a few others just like me. Almost all of us, surprisingly, fully untethered from the electronic web which tries to make our lives so insistently worried.
This lethargy does not help our GDP. I’m using public space, spending no money, directing nobody else to do some chore for which I will pay them. I might as well be an ancient ancestor lazily contemplating our universe in between chipping stone hand axes. I guess I should feel shame while shirking the necessity of constant intrusive progress.

Wednesday

Chicory lovely blue blossoms before noon, brightening a chill moist stroll.

The busy bear went over the mountain …
Maybe he should have spent more time examining his own.

Thursday

Quasi-professional clam bayman gets ready to try his luck beyond the inlet.

There is a dawning realization driven by current economic conditions that the United States in the 1950s was in many ways a golden era never likely to happen again anywhere. At the time and in decades of later mythology it was seen as the normalized dawn of utopia. Science could cure all ills. Jobs would constantly become better and higher paying. There would be time for recreation, second homes, infinite wealth. And people would become good and make the world perfect.
It all felt that way, of course, because at the time the US was a uniquely undamaged industrial state, and moreover had just gone through a few traumatically unifying events (the depression and WWII). Theorists and leaders have sought to maintain or recreate that for years.
For me and my boomer peers, such was normal life. What happened, we keep asking. Where is utopia now? High taxes? Government deficit? We easily forget that in the 50s taxes were extremely high, especially on the wealthy, and industry grew anyway. The government spent money like water on the interstate highway system, ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, and countless other projects and the boom went on with no end.
The dream of the 50s has turned into the curse of our times, and has broken society into brittle little pieces absolutely certain that everything has gone wrong, and somebody must be to blame.

Friday

Summer blues surround pale bindweed blossoms, pretty enough here, an alarming menace in my garden.

Summer has returned as I melt here on the patio. High humidity, lots of insects including mosquitoes but mostly during the day just various harmless insects. Birds visiting the birdbath and feeder. Flowers wilting, and me happily dripping as I read some interesting new work from the library.
We have been visited by frequent intense storms, so many and so often that we wonder if global warming is part of the reason. Birds and flowers don’t seem to mind, but we worry. There have been storms before, high heat before, but …

Saturday

High eighties, burning sun, no breeze, a fine day for fishing even if nothing bites.

Two older folks set up chairs on pebbly beach, inhale deeply of salty breeze, stretch in hot sun. One turns a radio low volume to an oldies station. The other looks around, surprised.

“Eddie?” asks the woman. “Is that you? My God, haven’t seen you in …”

“What?” He squints and blinks. “Oh, hey, Brender. Yeah, been a while.”

“Where you been, anyway? Surely we should have …”

“Well, been living on the West Coast since forever. Just visiting a trade fair in Melville. Thought I’d look in on some of the old places, see what’s changed.”

“A lot and not much, same as everywhere, I guess,” Brenda smiles.

“You certainly seem to be doing well,” laughs Eddy. “Still looking pretty damn good.”

“Why, thank you, sir. And you as well. What you been up to? Jeez, what is it _ 40 years on?”

“Yeah, I think … summer of 75? Me, I’m just killing time until retirement, a few years from now. Selling pools, actually, at my father-in-law’s place. I hate it, but college for the kids you know.”

“Ah, how many?”

“Two girls. And you?”

“Good, good. Stopped work when I had my knee replaced last year. Jack still covers everything, and I have Heather living down the street with her kids, so I babysit a lot.”

“A lot happened after those highs and lows back then, eh?” smiles Eddie.

“What we didn’t know …” replies Brenda. “I remember thinking it was the end of the road.”

“Both found a way to survive, though,” he notes.

“Survive hell, I’ve had a blast. Still enjoying myself.”

“I see, I see. Yeah, me too.”

They sit back carefully and begin to stare out at constantly sparkling waves as white sails outline against the far dark hills. The radio tune has run its course, tale frozen in time, but life continues to unroll and complicate and surprise everyone.

Sunday

Except for crowded boats in distant marina, this could be a scene from sixty or more years ago.

Molasses summer, vast and free

I rest unbodied, drift in time

While insects flit, some bother me

Break concentration on this rhyme

Where should I go, what must I do

Or simply sit as life spins by

Quite content my lassitude

Let others preen or sell or buy

My years are flowing rapid gone

I’ve loved each one, and still admire

Achievements, memories, every one

Wish little more, from this retire.

True Olds

Monday

Egrets enjoy a light meal on tidal flats in rising heat.

“News” should be naturally opposed to “Olds.” The sun came up today, I am still alive, the world is full of marvels _ these are not news. When the sun remains dark, if my arm aches, any unusual event anywhere _ these are supposed to grab our attention as curious primates.
Fake news is the current meme, which some call lies. But it really stands for irrelevant entertainment that has no bearing on our daily life. Can I affect a dying sea otter population on the far side of the world, what does it mean to my daily action today, how does it help me survive better? Honestly, most news from our vast media sources is useless to how each of us lives.
The olds are good and bad. The climate degenerates slowly, but the environment temporarily at least remains vibrant. My trillions and trillions of cells are still miraculously working well to support a consciousness, although perhaps less vibrantly than forty years ago. I am now spending a lot of time trying to appreciate the olds and to be less concerned with superficial novelty.

Tuesday

Intimations of late summer as dock shines reddish brown in shimmering heat.

This morning’s olds is that there are lots of chipmunks in our area. News is that we have two in the back yard taking advantage of sunflower seeds falling from the bird feeder. Cute little things, and probably this year’s crop since they show too little concern for big creatures like us lurking about. Fun to watch, even though we are quite aware that they carry ticks that spread lyme disease.
If our chipmunks vanished, the olds would not change at all, although the news might distress us. If all the chipmunks in our area disappeared, or if, like that bats, all of those on the North American continent were threatened, it might be a different story. But it is so hard to tell which is which, and most of the time the news we are aware of is of our purely backyard type, from which no conclusions are possible nor valid.

Wednesday

Some public beaches in Huntington can occasionally resemble deserted Caribbean isles in travel brochures.

A bell clangs in the night: “2017 and all’s well.”
Not quite.

Thursday

Smog, beauty, bright leaves, shining water, and artifacts of our civilization everywhere.

We like to believe that our culture is changing more rapidly than any other in history. The jury on that is out, I have seen studies claiming the 14^th century in Europe was even quicker. Certainly the “long static unchanging lives” which some people tell us happened long ago have never been true in “civilized” places for the last two thousand years. In all that turmoil, survivors mostly contended with “olds” _ getting food, shelter, clothing, and following the routines of normal life.
What has been true, and continues to be so, is that our local lives are affected by distant events over which we have no control at all. It might be technology, or war, or plague, or simple bad luck, but something we dread may be coming over the horizon every morning when we wake up. Such news is too often bad.
That jars our explorer and pioneer myth. Explorers and pioneers, by definition, left the cozy confines of routine old life and set out into a wilderness where they controlled everything that happened to them. They ignored everything else and took care of everything that came along. Each moment became a form of “news.” We wish to retain a spark of such rebellion.
Each morning, like molasses, we are embedded in the “olds”, which is a good thing. As soon as we power up our electronic devices, shrill salespeople try to convince us that mostly irrelevant “news” is somehow important to what we do next and how we will think this moment. Most of the time it is wise to ignore such chatter, and deal with normal local reality.

Friday

Forgotten except by birds, entangled deep in poison ivy and thorns, wild berries ripen with hidden beauty.

Weeds are particularly good examples of the news cycle. Normally, we never notice them. They are just roadside greenery, or more leaves in the garden, or once in a while an unexpected flower. Sometimes we even take notice, for a moment, that they help define the landscape, such as when ragweed looms waist high where there used to be hard-caked dirt. Who cares about the growth of weeds, anyway _ they just take care of themselves.
But once in a while I wander around our
flower gardens in July, and suddenly I am amazed to find that weeds have been overtaking the carefully cultivated displays. Bindweed strangling the taller plants, pigweed carpeting the ground, the tentacles of crabgrass grasping everywhere, and all kinds of unknown interlopers grabbing nutrients, water, and sunshine. On that day, at that hour, weeds are news, and I become consumed by pulling them out and clearing what should be a nice civilized space.
For a few days I watch vigilantly, and tug something else here or there. And then time passes, the flowers are pleasant, and once again I notice nothing until some other morning ….

Saturday

Early light, quiet breeze, an almost false tranquility as birds chorus loudly.

Old Man River and Father Time recline on a crimson cloudbank, casually contemplating a possible game of checkers as they sip their craft beers. Athena bounds in, glowing with enthusiastic happiness.

“Hey, you guys should get out in the sunshine. Dianna and I just saw the most amazing deer racing by, and all the summer flower fields are too beautiful to believe.”

“Seen it all,” says River, slowly.

“Every year,” adds Time with a slight croak.

“But you’re missing it all. Why the butterflies alone are …

“Been there, done that,” replies River.

“Year after year,” grunts Time.

“Old news,” they chorus together. “We just want to sit back and relax.”

“Stupid lazy old men. I think you have entirely wrong approach to the miracles of the day.”

“Moments are just moments, we hang out for eternity.”

“So do rocks. Lot of good it does them.” Athena flips around and bounces out and over a billowing cumulus, dwindling as she slowly falls.

“Silly whippersnapper.”

“No sense at all.”

Sunday

Last willow standing along our harbor road shimmers in early misty sunbeams.

North wind cools, south brings warmth,

East wind chills, west drives rain

Big thunderstorm always unexpected.

Born, live, die, each constant fate

isolate, enmeshed as well

Not to know deep what nor why

(unless escaped to insane dream.)

Each moment new, each memory old,

Unbalanced hopes and fears

Constantly surprised

Northeastern Lights

Monday

Humidity dims distance, as usual heat clouds pile up along Long Island Sound over the far shore.

Surprisingly, as twilight lingers into short nights and late darkness, I become more aware of the moon, stars, and lights in the heavens. Milder temperatures encourage me to pause a while when I take out the trash, and to look overhead.
Of course, there are few stars to be seen, around here. When the night is absolutely clear there is the moon in its constantly changing phase, if it happens to be overhead in its complicated journey. And a few of the brighter stars from the few constellations I remember. Then it is almost a game to pick out Venus, Mars and Jupiter from hordes of approaching and departing jet aircraft.
Writers use terms like velvet black. Huntington skies are always an orange glow. Town and increasing suburban electric illumination reflects back from clouds and vapor, so much that no night is truly dark. There used to be only dim porch bulbs on houses, but now harsh security beacons either blind constantly, or switch on at every momentary sound and motion. Cars blaze along each few minutes, actinic blue in front, trailing flaring crimson. More and more, annoyingly tiny twinkles of solar-powered junk line walks and driveways.
All of this, all the time, and only I seem to notice, for nobody else is usually outside. The final rays breaking charm of dark evenings are multicolored flares emanating from windows where huge screens provide something to look at which is more interesting than moons, planets, and stars.

Tuesday

Clear air all the way to low satellite orbit, too early for much smog.

Volcanoes, pollution and _ presumably _ massive asteroid strikes create spectacular sunsets. Turner’s exotically flamboyant paintings, once thought the product of an overactive imagination and exaggerated romantic senses, were recently reevaluated and declared quite realistic based on the documented effects of the massive 1815 Tambora eruption (which also caused the “year with no summer” in New England.)
Huntington is graced with marvelous sunsets lacing and luminescing through the soot, gasses and general industrial activity of New York City immediately to our west. Once in a while an inversion will extend contaminated air all the way to our part of the island, but mostly we know it by its evening sky signature. As with all such phenomena _ oil sheens or explosions come to mind _ awful causes can have beautiful effects.
I would be foolish not to enjoy them. “Taking time to watch a sunset” is a cultural meme. But I would be amiss not to realize that they are the result of a high price we are paying to allow our civilization to continue its ways.

Wednesday

Beach roses are infallible markers of warmer days when a dip in salt water is a perfect experience.

Hey diddle diddle …
If the cow tried to jump over the moon these days, it would probably bump its head on a communications satellite.

Thursday

Last evening’s thundershowers are boiling off to form interesting patterns soon cleared away by sunshine.

For the last two centuries, it has been almost impossible to take a panoramic photograph without catching at least a few of the poles and wires on the horizon or nearby overhead. Poles and wires are a definitive marker of this culture, which future archeologists can probably use to identify this particular layer of civilization in their digs. They are so common that we unconsciously filter them out of sight, so that we are frequently disappointed when our carefully composed pictures end up being spoiled by lines and blockages we didn’t really notice at the time.
I can’t claim that such ruin the skyline. They are just there, and frequently have a complement of birds sitting high up, and don’t block much of what I want to see. But surprisingly often they put the lie to some composition that tried to capture nature at its raw best.
In the future, solar and other local technologies will probably make them obsolete. Already, many thick cables and their supporting structures are dinosaurs. Massive imposing beasts, soon to be vanquished by off-the-grid solar power and invisible airwaves. Undoubtedly in some future parkland or designated city area they will be as carefully recreated for historic nostalgia as gas lamps and cobblestones are now.

Friday

Pollution welds sky to sea as Connecticut shoreline vanishes.

Dawns are different, for me at least, than sunsets. For one thing in the summer I’m rarely awake in
time for them, certainly not dressed and outside. For another, leafy trees to our east hide direct beams until around nine or so. By then, if the weather is warm and dry, I can ditch this computer and eat out on the patio dressed in pajamas while waiting for my wife to wake up.
Morning sunlight is usually clearer than that of the evening. Eastern Long Island has less factories than exist to our west, and local pollutants have temporarily settled down. Bright sunbeams set off brilliant blue sky, while birds proclaim their supposed mastery of the air.
Mornings are another part of Northeastern Lights, even when we have fog and mist. Dew often sparkles back fractal reflections. Cobwebs trace amazing patterns. Sharp shadows cut around me. Maybe it is all only so surreal because this time of day I am fully awake and aware.

Saturday

Deceptively tranquil puppy cove, like everything connected to troubles of our wide world by wind and tides.

Somewhere, physicists maintain, in impossibly infinite mathematical spacetimes, Prometheus and Orion are arguing about our night time skies.

“It’s all your fault, Prometheus,” Orion complains bitterly.

“What have I done now,” Prometheus sighs.

“Nobody pays attention to me any more. They can’t see me,” replies the constellation.

“And that’s my fault? Why?”

“Gift of fire, remember.”

“They don’t use fire much, and certainly not overhead.”

“Yeah, but it led to technology and now look at this place. They can’t see anything any more except their own nocturnal pollution.”

“Not fair, that. You might as well blame Vulcan for letting them learn to chip rocks to make stone-age tools and expand their brains.”

“Well, yeah, but you owed me after I rescued you from that stupid boulder you were chained to.”

“OK, I’m sorry. I admit it was a mistake. The rest of the planetary ecology has been raking me over the coals as well. Guess the Gods knew what they were doing when they punished me.”

“Ah, it’s all right, I guess,” says Orion. “After all, humans took care of the Gods themselves some time ago.”

Sunday

Solitary clammer tries his luck on Oyster Bay, hard work in hot conditions with a beautiful view.

Bright light night, such easy rhyme

Freely used by poet scan

Always a part of each day’s time

They think that all will understand.

But night is gone from human ken

Banished by electric flares

What was once feared is now ignored

Day or nighttime, no one cares.

Most ignore Northeastern lights

There’s better things to see

I’d cast aspersions on my peers

Except they’re just like me.

Fretful Fourth

Monday

Hot sun and warming water has enlivened the beach scene considerably.

My late spring depression was bracketed, not coincidentally, by patriotic holidays. Somehow what they represented seemed far grander not only in my youth, but as little as a quarter-century ago.
Now we endure the worst government since Buchanan, possibly heading for the same social upheaval and disaster as followed that one. The president thinks any adult without at least a million dollars is worthless. The supreme court dwells in a fantasy ivory tower, examining ancient words and punctuation of godlike founding fathers, all anachronistic and irrelevant to this modern world. Congress is controlled by a party and fanatic hacks who truly believe as much in the aristocracy of wealth and the blessings of poverty for the masses as ante-bellum southerners believed in an aristocracy of land and slaves. And, worst of all, the electorate has allowed itself to be dumbed down to the point where it believes anything that supports its peculiar prejudices.
Jefferson famously heard “alarm bells in the night” as he grew older. One of the hallmarks of current conservatives is that they pay no attention to any thoughts of the founders after 1800. The current plutocracy is so out of touch that they may be truly surprised at the backlash created by hopeless conditions they praise and enforce as a capitalistic god’s will.

Tuesday

My personal fireworks are these brilliantly bursting lilies in my back garden.

Each year, the Beachcroft community celebrates the fourth of July on its private beach. It usually resembles a scene from the fifties, with children swimming and splashing, a few organized games with prizes, residents discussing life over beer and soda while hamburgers, hot dogs, and Italian sausage sizzle on the charcoal grill. Numerous platters of various foods have been provided by each family, there are red white and blue tablecloths and bunting on the dock as the large American flag waves in a breeze cutting the hot sun.
This year there will be reportedly fewer people because Tuesday is difficult to handle as a singular holiday. In any case, lately our area has split into the old-timers who want to keep up the traditions, and the newer, wealthier folks who see no point in hanging out with those who can’t give them more financial contacts. The elders view it as a breakdown in civility and morals, as elders always do. No matter what, if normality holds, nobody will get into political discussions.

Wednesday

Rare bucolic view high on a sand bluff above the harbor; mcmansions are popping up all around.

“We don’t want to fight but by Jingo if we do

We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too!”

Less than two decades after quaffing ale while lustily bellowing this song in 1900, patriotic Brits had no ships, no men, no money, and were about to endure over three decades of misery, disaster, and despair.

Thursday

Midsummer flowers in full bloom, early grasses loaded with grain, harbor packed with pleasurecraft.

We used to refer to ourselves, almost proudly, as descendants of the dregs of Europe. That expanded recently to include wretched refuse of shores everywhere. But we also stubbornly thought we were special, an alloy formed of a magic melting pot, a proof that humans shaping their environment could become better than their history. Surprisingly, many in the world believed us.
But that boomer generation is dying, often as bitter old men and women who cling desperately to whatever power they can muster after breakfast. What is left is _ depending on which ancient Cassandras you listen to _ either vapid hedonists, or cynical incompetents. In any case, younger generations are doomed by machines, environment, terrorists, and themselves. Elders huddle before cable news, gather furtively in corners, and lament the passing of the shiny old days.
Part of those old days, kept alive as a shell of former glories, are the memorial holidays. When I was a child, everyone knew a family member or local friend who had died in “the war,” a noble cause proudly accepted by all. Vietnam began the long slide to today’s heavily equipped mercenary armed forces, just another specialized well-paying job being automated like all the others. There is an inevitable sad irony in “celebrating” those who shoot drone bombs at wedding parties in far off deserts.
But the uncertain lethargy of the times, when it is hard to tell right from wrong, has enervated even fierce opposition to once-immoral or illegal actions. Our government descends into rat-maze kleptocracy. The “elite” hide away behind stock shares while frantically partying until the plague arrives.
Sun continues to shine. Bands continue to march. Slogans will be shouted as freely as joint pain commercials. But this holiday is not that of the fifties. And sometimes I think the dregs and refuse
have indeed taken over.

Friday

Delicate blue chicory is best appreciated close up, a hardy miracle where almost nothing else grows.

Ground cover now creeps inexorably over trash strewn across meadows and glens. Ocean water patiently continues to swallow and hide infinite disposable plastic shopping bags, or containers pitched from boats. Somehow, the air and water continue to become almost purified in ongoing global cycles of renewal.
From a natural standpoint, the only difference between a mansion or housing development and an empty bag of corn chips blowing along the highway is size and permanence. Both have disrupted natural rhythm and balance. Temporarily. They too will pass, although exactly what comes after and how profoundly rich the environment may remain is poised on a knifepoint of uncertainty. I am not even sure we can influence it very much at this point.

Saturday

Deep breaths, calm, ignore the chatter, flow with reflections, waves, and reeds. The real world goes on.

“Nice shot,” remarks Lucifer, as he pulls out a wicked-looking crooked driver from his decal-decorated fake leather bag.

“Why, thank you, sir,” grins Michael. As always, his shot has gone straight and true, the fairway glittering under the arc of the blazing ball as it passed by.

“Don’t sir me,” Lucifer grunts. “Remember, we agreed to take the day off _ well at least this morning _ and just enjoy ourselves for a change.

“Oh, I almost always enjoy myself,” Michael smiles beatifically.

“No choice,” mutters Lucifer. He swings mightily, his greasy ball unsurprisingly smacks a few trees and lands in the rough, but quite near the other. Their handicaps are, after all, nearly even.

“Been busy lately, I see.”

“Not so much. The world seems to be taking care of itself quite nicely from my perspective. Idiots everywhere, and sin ascendant from the bottom on up. Happy times for me, if any times were happy.”

Michael frowns in thought. “I don’t have much to do either. I cannot admit it, of course, but everything seems pretty futile. Frankly, I have trouble even finding anywhere to start.”

“Perhaps we have merely become superfluous.”

“Maybe that’s why the pension started to arrive last week.” Michael lines up the next hole.

“You think? Well, we better enjoy this interlude before the real action starts…”

“Fore!”

Sunday

Unconcerned gull stares quizzically while garbage floats by, some kind of natural statement I suppose.

Refuse of global shores has congealed

Into a stinking, ignorant, prejudiced landfill

Larded with lumps of religious certainty,

Fuming capitalism belching whiffs of wealth

That may destroy the planet.

Sadly, probably, still

The best hope of the world.

Climbing Back On

Monday

As the Tour De France approaches, weekend pelotons on Long Island are common.

After falling off a horse or bicycle, one is supposed to immediately climb back on to avoid long-term fear and avoidance of the activity in the future. So I am restarting this blog after a few weeks absence during which, for various reasons, I went through a period of crisis of confidence.
I guess if I were a writer this would have been considered writer’s block. Mostly, I just didn’t see any reason to exert myself. Why bother posting each day? Why not just wander the world, enjoy it, look around, happy to be? What is the use, especially at my age and situation, in attempting anything more than living each moment well?
My search for answers continues. Mostly, though, I find that trying to express myself is a way to build my own inner intensity and appreciation. That is true even when I know there are no other readers, and no logical reason in the world to post a blog. Consequently, I will allow myself this one week of wallowing in mental self-pity, and then get on with something I have found I missed.

Tuesday

Profuse honeysuckle sweetly scents the salty breeze.

Stonehenge is famous as a calendar to determine solstice. Summer solstice in temperate areas of the Northern Hemisphere is, of course, pleasant but also marks the moment when days start to shorten and winter becomes inevitable. Huge stones in vast circles are variously interpreted, but surely were partially constructed to remind people of the repetitive circularity of seasons.
Now all foliage is full and flush over hills and underfoot. Spring flowers have gone to seed, summer flowers are bursting into bloom. There are still almost no signs of autumn, later blossoms are holding off, inevitable fraying and drying of leaves has hardly started. Insects are just beginning to swarm numerously, but remain less annoying than they will be.
Hard to remain morose long in such a setting. Our brains are stubborn, however, and good at resisting external influences. So depression can occur even on a fine, bright, perfect summer afternoon.
Today another example of perfect weather. I must be off and out and singing my way, inconsequential as it may be.

Wednesday

Freshly mowed vast green lawn, swallows swooping, perfect early summer at Coindre Hall.

“It doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” – Casablanca
True. Nor one those of little person. But it’s my hill of beans …

Thursday

Sunsets require a professional photographer, but sometimes I can’t resist trying.

Humans have existed for a flicker of geologic time, civilization for much less than that. Both seem about to vanish within a few lifetimes. We’ve survived by the skin of our teeth before, perhaps we will pull ourselves out of destruction yet again.
But in the meantime, each life has been glorious. I am more and more convinced that human intelligence is unique. A once-in-infinity chance that never happened and never will happen anywhere anywhen else. Geologic time is meaningless compared to a single second of our awareness. Each person is more important than any of the trillions and trillions of presumed planets anywhere else.
Of course, you know that. Part of humanness is having a sense of self-meaning and importance. Our perspective is grandiose, our being is what counts, when our hours end something that never existed before and never will again also vanishes.
Why, then, do we bother to strive beyond simple survival? A question with no answer except in ourselves, in our daily lives, in our inner being. From one perspective, everything we do is futile and doomed, sooner or later. But viewed from our real central core, we are truly masters of our universe.

Friday

Wild wheat matures early as temperatures rise, bountiful crop from frequent rains.

Thunderstorms are expected this time of year around here. Usually there is a preliminary period of oppressive heat and humidity, when I struggle to do all the normal little things I enjoy. Then dark clouds roll by, thunder rolls and eventually cracks as lightning strikes, rain pours down like a waterfall. When quiet returns everything is wet and steaming, the temperature drops, air clears, and for a few days there are wallows of mud and clouds of newly-hatched gnats and mosquitoes. But soon enough everything is back to being merely summer pleasant, and life goes on happily.
That is a fair metaphor for some of the conflicts in my own personality. I sometimes go through thick heat and nasty storm and ev
entually emerge _ not so much refreshed as reset. Trying to control such periods seems as impossible as dictating the weather.

Saturday

In a secluded corner of Caumsett, not at all worried about tall grass, ticks, and Lyme disease.

Hank grazes verdant long grass in the corner of a hillside field, Billy leans against a dilapidated rail fence nearby. Hot sun pours down into stifling air filled with sounds of crickets.

“So, which one of us will it be?” wonders Billy out loud.

“You, for sure,” answers Hank, raising his head. “He hasn’t been horseback in ages. I’m just a literary convention.”

“He hasn’t been on a bicycle for a long time either, you know.”

“Maybe neither, then. Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” remarks Hank, trying to show off his cultural pretensions.

“But he talks about it all the time. ‘Get back on’ he keeps saying.”

“Just something humans do. They worry all the time. Different than us.”

“Well, I do wish he _ or someone _ would ride me somewhere. I’m starting to rust out here.”

“Me, on the other hand, I like the peace and quiet and wish they’d leave me alone. Oh oh, here the girls come now _ school must be out. It’ll be groom and saddle and ride all afternoon. No rest for the weary.”

“Maybe he’ll come by and rescue me,” muses Billy wistfully.

“Don’t hold your breath. He talks the talk, that’s it.”

“Nice afternoon, Hank.”

“You too, old pal.”

Sunday

Field of ripe grain, ready for harvest, but this crop fortunately reserved for wildlife.

Summer has icumon in

Loudly sing … oh the heck with it

Poetry is as dead as other arts

Coopted by toothpaste and patent medicines

No one has time or energy

To decode tangled imagery or patterns

Too easy to ask Siri

Is it summer? Wow!

Soiled Memorials

Monday

Rhododendrons in full bloom, delicacy challenging downpours to do their worst.

Tree canopies have filled out, casting darker shadows where they fall, still all sharp edges. Later this week, adolescent bands will march like manic birds, all exotic plumage and harsh sound. Town beaches will reopen (for the extremely hardy) and state parks begin to charge fees for the privilege of trying to get away from the busy lives we hold so dear.
Already pompous speeches about future hopes for young generations have been spoken at colleges. Tests have been mostly taken at the high schools, and students anticipate routines without instruction for a while. We once more pretend to follow an agricultural cycle from our ancient heritage that no longer really has any place in how we actually live.

Tuesday

Considering population density around here, just one discarded beer can on a beach is almost acceptable.

Remember those who fought for freedom. Salute the honored flag. Rejoice in our exceptional form of government. Buy something to make consumer capitalism stronger. All that and more will blare from televisions, internet, paid event speakers, and various reading materials. All fervently believed, perhaps, at the moment spoken. All focused on the honored dead, being remembered with the solemn frivolity of barbeques and proclamations and holiday for the fortunate few.
Lately those sentiments float on darker seas of manufactured worry. Politics has become a zero sum game of apocalyptic predictions _ do this or else. Once-educated and flexible minds have frozen into puerile mush spouting plastic bag slogans. Morality lingers in day to day activities, but has been cast aside by those with any grander ambition.
We have been offered a grace period in a world of calamity and warfare. We have the tools to make things right. We have the knowledge to try to avoid the tragedies of history. But we do not have the simplest means to encourage sense in the minds of the stupidly rigid, nor agreement on common good nor control of insecure and amoral mongers of fear, who like jackals feed on other’s problems.
Memorials can be soiled and tarnished and used for evil ends. Slogans may cheapen belief. And sometimes I am no longer thrilled by the tinsel pageantry of my contemporary culture.

Wednesday

Magnificent ancient bushes grace the ancient yacht club _ all but the sight reserved for members

Consider the lilies of the field, they toil not …
Time to stamp out those cheating, free-loading lilies once and for all.

A May Zing

Monday

Boats begin to fill waters, bushes start to obscure views, unblocked sun begins to burn.

Spring is aging more rapidly than me. Crocus, daffodils, forsythia are ancient memories, tulips more recent ones. Dandelions are here to stay, azaleas and dogwoods take center stage. Everything is fresh green and gleaming under bright _ but still cool _ skies. Soon heat arrives, then the long happy sloth of summer.
But in the meantime, it is easy to feel rejuvenation in outlook and joints. A zip in my step as I wander woodland paths listening to nesting birds, watching ferns uncoil, noticing that tree shadows have returned. Once again heeding breathless warnings about ticks. It’s a wonderful time. I think I am just as I was when once I was five. Unfortunately, some quick pain or breathlessness suddenly reminds me I am not.

Tuesday

Ragweed glistens framing whitecaps on a blustery afternoon.

Ragweed covers disturbed soil like a blanket, another start to its attempted conquest of all Huntington. Still kind of pretty and cute, a dusty grey-green low cover that is a nice step up from the mud. It hides trash, and convincingly shows that nature has a few tricks left to overcome human stupidity.
I know that shortly it will be waist-high, choking out what I consider more desirable plants. I know that naturalists despise it as an invasive intruder, a blight on the landscape. I will sneeze with everyone else when it releases pollen in a few months. But it is hard not to feel a secret admiration for its toughness and tenacity.

Wednesday

Wisteria overcrowds supporting trees along back roadsides everywhere.

“Ring around the rosie” is a cheerful children’s ditty about the Black Death.
Kids today flock to horror movies in much the same spirit.

Thursday

Marinas also have sap running and boats blooming.

In Northern temperate climates, May traditionally causes hormones to surge and love to dominate passions. It’s hard not to smile at young couples holding hands, entranced in a world that is only partly shared with others, with all cares and worries reduced to interacting with one another.
Even grumpy and disillusioned old folks can usually remember happy times of youth. Now we are shriveled, but once we were just like them. A few of us, I admit, are cynical and bitter and remember only that young love finally failed, as it often does. But all in all, we share that bond of existence, and it adds a particular zing to match fresh (although pollen-laden) air.
The frequent consequences of couples bonding also scream and howl and laugh around playgrounds. Children of all ages are finally released from indoor gloom and feel free as the birds singing continuously around them. Of course, the old folks smile for a while, then wish that the noise would die down and leave them in contemplative peace.
May in a Huntington park is a wonder of joyful madness, shared community happiness, and even a random shaft of hope for the future _ to offset the electronic drone of doom emanating from our self-proclaimed more important media.

Friday

May contains no “R” but shellfish collection continues under much better conditions than in February.

Azaleas are ubiquitously native to the northern hemisphere, but more than that they have been selectively bred by many cultures over thousands of years. Lately, there seems to be a frenzy of introducing new and more fantastic varieties each year. Why not? They are hardy, evergreen, grow in shady spots, and are spectacular in spring, handsome most of the year. Minimal care, but rarely found in the wild, unlike their cousin rhododendrons.
Why bother looking this up? Should I not be content to merely gaze and wonder and enjoy the show? Probably yes. And yet _ as with almost everything _ a deeper detailed and accurate knowledge encourages more profound meditation. True mystery is never destroyed by knowledge.

Saturday

Low tide exposes algae which demonstrate just how quickly foliage has matured to darker greens.

“Lovely Leda, isn’t this just perfection,” Paul majestically paddles through the calm green waters of Hecksher pond. “Why, people have even fenced off our nest to keep away curious children. I’m glad we come back here every year.”

“I guess,” sighs his mate, “but I do miss having some privacy once in a while.”

“Maybe so,” replies the other swan, “but it also means we miss most of the raccoons, cats, and rats we used to have to deal with.”

“I know, there’s always tradeoffs. This is a beautiful and relatively safe spot.”

“As long as we remember to warn the kids about old Arnie the snapping turtle.”

“Yeah, but he hasn’t really been too aggressive now that there are lots of fish around.”

“Besides, Leda, the hawks hate to fly around this congested traffic area. I tell you, it’s just about perfect.”

A few more pedestrians stop nearby to snap pictures, all chattering away. “Fame, fame, fame. We might even go viral.”

“And what good would that do any of us, Paul? A Nike sponsorship for down jackets? Or ending up on a thanksgiving dinner table to advertise some kind of gravy?”

“No,” Paul says, nibbling an itch under his wing, “I’m pretty sure that is turkeys. Or geese. Not us.”

Leda sniffs. “Low life geese, that’s the only thing I don’t like here, the neighborhood has been going downhill for some time. We’re going to have to get the cygnets into some good water with the right sort of birds later on.”

Paul nods in resignation as he glides off. Such is the way of a lifelong marital commitment.
Sunday

A few days of high heat have shoved honeysuckle into blossom, despite a chill drifting across waves.

When I was younger, the world fine and free

I mostly ignored what was not about me

Now that I’m aged with vast changes gone by

Sometimes I summon my strength for a sigh

Each era was marked with its hopes and its fears

Fortunate we who encountered those years

No matter what, ‘twas a marvelous show

What will come next, I scarce wish to know.

Blissful Apathy

Monday

Bleeding hearts march along playfully although too easily overlooked.

A week in which I will pay no attention to newspapers, talking TV heads, nor worried contemporaries. A retreat into meditation, self-imposed, visible only to myself. Seven days of staring at skies simply as skies, flowers only as nature, food only as a gift gratefully received.
Fashion demands that I attend the fall of sparrows eight thousand miles away, gasp at troubles of endless places I shall never visit, care about tangents and projections of various experts. Fashion may be correct, but I have rarely allowed myself to be constricted by it.
Perhaps one form of reality is correctly described by such fashion. Religion, politics, future visons may all be right, may all be desperate, may all be horrible. I wonder if such be true, if it may not then be wise to retreat into a lonely monastery somewhere away from the world, and contemplate happily all that has been and especially all that I have known, as the empire crumbles around me.

Tuesday

A young ailanthus frantically bursts forth to join leafing madness everywhere.

Surprisingly, for rapid-growing, beautiful, and useful trees, dogwoods have an average lifespan of around eighty years, which makes them about the same as modern American males. At this time of year they are massively lovely (the trees, not the males.) It always seems that their petals float in the sky, and in my mind they are always white or pink clouds hovering above.
For too long, I took them for granted, as springs went by. I had other more important tasks to attend. Then, when I began to notice the world as more than something I must shape, I was more astonished by unusual sights than by the steady companionship of the familiar. Even now, our old pink dogwood out back _ almost generational, there since my wife grew up here when young _ and unfortunately slowly dying year by year _ is just a part of the everyday landscape.
As am I.

Wednesday

Our old pink dogwood not what it once was, still vital and beautiful, some lesson there for me.

“Apres moi, le deluge,” said Louis XV on the eve of the French Revolution, which indeed carried off his son and most of the royalty and aristocrats.
I’m afraid we boomers are beginning to feel the same way.

Thursday

Every inch of ground space crowded with impossible struggles for sun and water.

One enduring cultural fantasy has been that of the ancient familial homestead. Sunny pictures of well-off farmers on ancestral grounds, gathering beneath an ancient oak tree on a hot reddening evening to pass wine with the wonderfully cooked dinner filled with home-grown produce. Generations gathered around laughing, no doubt joined by a few convivial neighbors from the farms next door.
In that scenario, we usually see ourselves as somehow masters of the land. Without too much hard work, shaping the very hills, taming the vineyards, plucking the fruit, gathering milk (rather mysteriously, for we are really city dwellers) and somehow creating wonderful artisanal cheese.
Dreams are fine things. But historic reality is that many fled existences that were never like this to become urbanized or suburbanized or even to begin farming in a modern style. And although they shaped much of their lives in better, newer ways, there were always constraints. Few manage to go through life never encountering a barrier.
Amazing things can happen in a lifetime. But the fact is most of us do not actually change our entire culture with a single vote, nor our lives with a single action, nor the world with a well-spoken point of view. We are constantly told we can make a difference, but the difference we make is usually extremely limited.
Our true ambition should be not to seek literal Tuscan fantasies, but to embody in our actual existences the calm, peace and joy we believe existed there.

Friday

Surprising hillside horse hollow at Caumsett looks more like spring in Kentucky.

Heat in mid-spring New York is grudgingly granted. Not so cold as Maine nor Canada, but often the world looks a lot warmer than it actually feels outside. Winds sweeping over the chill waters of the harbor continue to bite, mists can cause involuntary shivers. Occasional hot days only make the cold ones more annoying.
We take our Cinderella planet for granted. A few days _ a week _ of too much heat, sun, rain, cold, dry, wind, anything _ can cause us to wonder what went wrong. Are gods or nature angry with us? Humans are so perfectly adapted to “normal” conditions that incredibly trivial variations seem important. On occasion, I try to take a deep breath, stand still, and appreciate whatever heat
, whatever precipitation, whatever light there may be in the sheer ineffable joy of existence.

Saturday

Clouds condensing in a cool oceanic breeze defy promises of warm sun.

“Sarah, Sarah,” whispers Simon, without trying too hard.

“Almost here, almost,” drifts back from whiteness coalescing in the clear azure sky. “Ahh, that feels good. Good morning, everyone.”

Nearby clouds nod politely, with an occasional grunted “g’morning.” Quite a crowd of puffs today, Sarah notices. Spots of shadow dotting the waters below. “Anything exciting while I was away?”

“Nah,” says Simon, “All the excitement due tomorrow when Harry blows in. Hard cold rain, whipping wind, nothing fit for the likes of us. Low class, like all his stormy friends.”

“Thunder too?”

“Nah, Thor claims he won’t come by until later _ not warm enough yet, he says. Likes to stay south as long as possible. Did you have a nice nap?”

“Yes, lovely, thank you. Immaterialization is such a relaxing joy, you’d expect more of us to do it more often.”

“I like seeing things and being seen,” answers Simon.

“You like seeing Daphne,” giggles Sarah. “Little Miss Diaphanous, you can see right through her half the time, just a constant tease.”

“I love seeing you, Sarah.”

Sarah swells a little and lets her brightness shine. Happy times, she thinks, under a brilliant sun.

Sunday

Mid-spring natural cathedrals can inspire more awe than any human construction

“Om” they say, just rest and be

Unburdened in eternity

Perfume, sunshine, sounds of bells

Hunger, fear, manmade hells

Ignore distractions, empty mind

In emptiness peace you will find

I sniff and think and hear and see

Happy, afraid, content, and free.

May Be Local

Monday

Don’t want to get much closer than this to lovely, ubiquitous, nasty poison ivy.

Now I speak as an old man, which few are willing to do in these age-obsessed times. I never accepted the current cultural wisdom about life, which is that children must be grimly groomed for adulthood, adolescents must be grimly culled into the successful or lost, young adults must grimly save pennies for a grim future, the middle-aged must grimly and selfishly grasp everything around them, and elders must never admit that they have become grimly less competent than they once were. This is an outlook that attends a magnificent feast and can only (grimly) count calories.
Such despondent and hopeless attitudes are primarily formulated in response to remote events rather than local reality. The paper says this and that, books say this and that, experts say this and that, media says this and that, strangers in the street say this and that. We may never encounter this and that in our own lives, but obviously it is important because everyone else knows about it.
Each day of life, even for many of those in intolerable positions, is a potential feast. And this is where I also have some difficulty with what everyone says. For I am not sure that my happiness in my local existence should be grimmed down by far-away predicaments and events. I have an infinite world of joy around me.
I wonder _ given that I have power only over my local bubble _ if I am really spiritually cleansed by ceaseless whispers from distant places that all is not well everywhere, and that my current happiness is temporary and somehow sinful. Or is that just an echo of American puritanism now decayed into a kind of self-righteous guilt.

Tuesday

Fluorescent green algae coat low tide rocks beneath a persistent, almost Irish, mist.

Nothing is more global than air. Smoke from a burning forest eight thousand miles away reaches us within weeks. Radioactivity from any disaster does the same. We are constantly amazed that weather on the other side of the continent sweeps eastward and affects us in days with showers or sun. The atmosphere is a frothy mix of everything stirred constantly all the time and if anything is exactly the same anywhere on the planet it is the air we share.
Yet as I walk around air varies tremendously. It blows hard in one spot, but can be calm a few feet away. It has no scent here, yet a hundred yards further on may be putrid enough to make me gag, or sweet enough to evoke ancient memories. A whiff of poison gas can kill me instantly, floating puffs of microbes may be just as fatal if more lingering. One day it is wet enough to almost drown, another so dry that breathing rasps the throat. As for temperature …
For all the local variations, it remains global. But the local variations are what I notice, and sometimes I feel that local variations are all that matter _ even though I logically well know that is completely wrong.

Wednesday

Green is overwhelmingly resurgent, between silver sky and sea as rainfall departs.

All politics is local
Unfortunately, everything else is global

Thursday

Lilac is beautiful, but its glory is scent, which I can neither capture nor share.

Our biosphere is a master of recycling. I am composed partly of atoms which were also used by tyrannosaurus rex, a blue pansy, Julius Caesar, a giant pine, Lucretia Borgia, a nasty shark and _ well _ everything. DNA has also exposed our family relationships. There is only one kind of life on Earth, and given the rules of evolutionary engagement, that would probably be true anywhere _ although not necessarily the same kind of life as we enjoy.
In some ways, there is eternal serenity in that. Whatever happens after I die, at some point part of me will be part of it. Possibly a wonderful utopian civilization. More likely a turgid sea of restless radioactive bacteria. But atoms I have used will be swirling around in that mix.
Our minds have not become what they are by being humble. Each of us contains a deep cosmos, a complete certainty of importance, an automatic filter on what is relevant. Truly each of us considers ourselves meaningful in some way or other, even if it is only to help others be more meaningful. That is hubris, but hubris is the core claim of humans, and we ought not write it off too casually.
On the other hand _ there are those recycled atoms telling a very different story …

Friday

Nearly infinite green hues may have names assigned by decorators, but naming doesn’t enhance reality.

Once upon a time, long ago, all North America was “public property.” Then the Europeans arrived with their new-fangled sense of entitlement to common heritage and began carving the land into private enclaves, based on papers which granted o
wnership in perpetuity to the original speculator. It was a time of grand fantasies by philosophers like Locke and Hume and other partisans of individual rights. One of these was that death is irrelevant to ownership. As it turned out in the American judicial interpretation of the constitution, even being a human person is irrelevant to ownership.
I’m pretty sick of conservatives singing the hosannas of three-century-old philosophers and two-century-old merchant princes and landed squires. Someone should look at the idiocy embedded in assumed sacred rights to private property. Right now, the issue is a convenient legal fiction which has gone cancerous and is likely to destroy civilization.
If there is one certainty, it is that no matter how long we live _ even if people live for thousands of years in the future _ we all just borrow things while we exist. Dreaming of control after death is insanity. All property should pass back to the common wealth upon death, and all land should merely be rented from some political entity representing everyone. Corporations should not be allowed to “own” anything at all.
This is a new era. People do not light homes with whale oil, disease does not come from bad air, this world and its knowledge is vastly different from that several hundred years back. Ditch the stupid reverence for “ideals” which are insanely out of date and didn’t even work well at their inception.

Saturday

Between rains and seasons, new growth begins to overwhelm leftover stubble.

Tommy slowly climbs the grassy bank, bumping his way among other turtles who have already staked out prime sunning spots. Finally he locates an open space and begins to bask.

Desmond’s foot has been disturbed. He raises himself enough from a pleasant torpor to complain “Tommy, have some respect for your elders, eh? You need to learn to be polite.”

“Sorry, sorry. I came out of hibernation late, that’s all. Why do we all have to use this one place, anyway?”

“Only one with sun, son. You’re welcome to circle around the freezing water trying to find a better branch, but I’ve been around long enough to know what’s best.” Desmond is a lot larger than Tommy.

“Well, why don’t we leave here and find somewhere with more islands instead of on this cramped little space.”

“Tommy, an adventurous little turtle is a dead little turtle. Believe me, I’ve known a few. Stick to what we all do.”

“But there must be lots of wonderful places …”

“Maybe so. Maybe so. But maybe no better. Hecksher park is turtle paradise, and smart little turtles understand that or they never become smart older turtles.”

“Oh.”

“So leave me alone to soak up some rays and warmth. I suggest you do the same. Quietly.”

Tommy thinks a moment, and then as is the way of all his friends, does not think at all.

Sunday

Impossibly overflowing azaleas light landscapes everywhere.

Spring hormones surge, their net effect

Seems nowhere rage.

Peaceful beauty bathes the land

Vast harmonious gentle shared.

Underneath lush loveliness

Survival struggles

Tooth and claw

Bud leaf and seedling

Vicious calm.

Here and Gone

Monday

Brilliantly emerald weeds add to the general exuberance of an exploding season.

Spring now launches into a period of wild bursts of activity. Flowers suddenly blossom, hang around for a while hopefully awaiting early insects, then fade and vanish. Overnight any tree can transform from bare brown to nearly full green. A brilliant afternoon can suddenly turn viciously grey cold and rainy, or vice versa. People learn to dress for anything and to expect the unexpected.
Naturally, such times recall old memories. Some things are gone forever. We had a large cherry tree that right about now would send showers of pink blossoms on every breeze, a fantasy scene. Alas, it came down in a storm some years ago. An old apple tree in our backyard has been missing for decades, and yet I still remember it blooming, with bees everywhere.
I try sometimes to meditate calmly and remember distant places and times, often anchored by the season in which I am located. I do not dwell on summers or winters while April surrounds me, but rather concentrate on other Aprils elsewhere and elsewhen. Usually, I fail. Memory preserves only the most exceptional events in our lives. Spring and April just flow by, creating gentle but fuzzy recollections.
So I do my best to appreciate April now. That is what I have. And that is an awful lot. And I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to watch this season through its normal course, even if I will have forgotten most of it next year.

Tuesday

Cherry blossoms overlooking harbor; not exactly Japan but Hokusai would appreciate the motif.

April showers are generally more appreciated in nursery rhymes than in real life. A quick drip or two is dandy, but weeks of constant clouds racing by, a few delivering moisture, can be quite depressing. Always expecting rain can also complicate apparel choices and what we carry with us on walks.
Of course, this is a hermetically sealed age, and I suppose I am more aware of meteorology than anyone except farmers and fishermen. A retiree tends to focus on such things, having time to look out the window and the freedom to decide what to do today based on what is seen. When I was working it was simply a dash from house to car to office and back, the only notice of weather being in how it affected traffic.
I find it an exercise in contrast. A brilliant sunny day around here is all the more exceptional for not being a dark rainy one. A dark rainy day can sometimes even be a relief from enforced sunshine. At least, I can try to make that my attitude, and I often succeed.

Wednesday

Tulips require a farmer’s foresight and optimism; planting bulbs months and seasons before any results.

Where are the snows of yesteryear?
Gone into forever with the blooms of last spring.

Thursday

Finally our Cinderella landscape is getting dressed for the ball.

Our minds are so constituted as to embed important patterns that let us make sense of our world. Once a pattern is in place, we tend to ignore the particulars. A tree is just a tree, a cloud is just a cloud. I may enjoy watching a robin, a blue jay, or a cardinal outside my window, but I have no overlays of such birds in other times and places, not even from last year. I surely know what a robin, cardinal, or jay look like, but it is a single composite picture, not a series of snapshots from the past.
I contrast that with unusual sights seared into memory. A bald eagle flying along route 17 one year, buzzards at a park in Florida another, hawks swooping below us at Letchworth state park. These I may never see again, but they remain somehow vivid.
And so it is with many things. That is why travel is supposed to broaden the mind by filling it with the strange and new and out-of-pattern, so that we come home with enriched imaginations and enhanced perceptions. Sensory and mental tools sharpened, we are prepared to pay more attention to local experiences that we previously took for granted.
Growing older, of course, is a constant evolution of mental fog. We claim to remember some things well, especially from childhood and adolescence, but the fact is we have a lot of trouble saying what we did any given day last week. Probably part of that is we now have had so many days to recall, but a bit of it is sheer neuronic decline. The flip side of that _ a bonus if we treat it correctly _ is that any view of a cardinal, robin, or jay can be a delicious and astounding event that we can enjoy as if it were the first time.

Friday

Overhead canopy unfolds in a variety of pastel brilliances.

Huntington tulips are not invasive and never naturalize. It is possible to see entire hillsides covered with daffodils lasting for centuries, or to come upon untended crocus patches in secret for
est glens. Tulips require care, and replenishment, and human intervention. But they are so beautiful that everyone plants them anyway, year after year.
They do cause problems for towns and sites that advertise their “tulip festivals.” In Holland, blooms last a while in relatively predictable weather. Here, blooms may come and go in a day or two if the weather is too hot, may never happen if the ground is too dry, may open brilliantly only to be destroyed by a sudden harsh rain. And the timing is never certain, even when varieties are planted together to hopefully give an extended bloom.
There is probably a life lesson in tulips. Fortunately, for me right now, the sheer esthetic pleasure of viewing them overwhelms such arid intellectual thoughts.

Saturday

Lonely cherry tree blossoms profusely in the parking lot at a local harbor deli, mostly ignored by hungry passers-by.

“Larry, Larry, hey, what’s new?” Anthony glides slowly onto the sand next to his friend.

“Hey Tony, yourself. Nothing much. Holding the fort.”

“Where’s the gang?” asks the great grey gull loudly, as usual.

“Here and gone, mostly gone. Bob and Tina said they were tired of the local food options, she couldn’t stand raw clams anymore, they flew down to the city a while ago.”

“Boy, they should have checked out the south shore. You would not believe what you can get at some of the ocean beaches if you hit the right day ….”

“And Patsy, Heather, some of their friends _ young crowd you know _ into the city too. More excitement, easier pickings, tired of the same old fare.”

“Who can explain this younger generation,” grunts Anthony. “But what about Mark, Bob, Marsha? Nothing but dynamite would make them move.”

“Gone, just gone, I’m afraid,” responds Larry. “The winter was going so well, even for them at their age, but then that last unexpected ice storm just hit too hard.”

“Ah, ah. Life goes on, I suppose,” Anthony sighs. “Well, good to see you here at least.” He glances at the long stretch of empty beach. “Sure not like the old days.”

“Nothing is. Nothing is.” They squawk a while longer, then wing out over the whitecapped waves.

Sunday

Wind-ripped pink blossoms

Innumerably strange

Float

Evoke ancient dreams