#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Charles River Heron

All day the heavy pelting, the lovely summer drenching, and the deep grass puddles. I love grass puddles. I went out and weeded in the pouring rain. I picked fresh hydrangea stems for the dining room table and fresh herbs for a mason jar. I got muddy and happy, soaked through as any of the plants. I planted the hydrangea for the new garden by the tennis court, as well as some bee balm and lavender. This was a delightfully messy process of mud all over me. I had woken early to revise a poem, unsure which one, but I picked my most recent one and felt unsure about it until I simply opened the document and began revising and it came together, better, pretty easily, after all. After I cleaned up from the rain gardening I went to poetry and my poem was well received. Yay. And then I did laundry laundry laundry which was not as fun as the muddy gardening. Quiet house, Wave gone with a “I’ll miss you,” grammy upon his early departure. We flung the doors open every time the rain halted to get some fresh air running through. In the late afternoon it stopped and Frank said he’d walk to the river with me, and we talked about the garden as we cross the field, and then at the river I asked if he wanted to kayak because the river looked so deliciously green and placid and he said yes. We got our single kayaks down and went out. It was so quiet and lovely as summer on the river is. Herons all along the river fishing for dinner. The one in this picture is the one I saw first, he didn’t move away as I paddled very close before seeing him. He was very still and so was I. To make this image, I actually put the heron on the green surface of river from a different photo I took, and I like him like this. Well, Frank isn’t that interested in kayaking, so I didn’t mind that he lagged behind at his lazy pace and I went on ahead enjoying the birds and the wildflowers and the lily pads and the beaver dam and the button bush. . . I paddled under the clouds parting and clearing and the sun fought and fought and came out and warmed my damp arms. I paddled to Boggastow Lake and around in the lake, hoping to see the bald eagle I’ve seen there before, but not today. I paddled back, thinking Frank probably had turned around, but he had stopped at a woodsy landing that we used to stop at with Flash and Suzi when they were alive and let them out of the boat for a swim. He was waiting for me. He had talked to Landon who loved his first day of his new job, hooray. Home to dinner with our daughter, and then more poetry tonight and lots of compliments on my new poem, hooray. And the rain came heavily again which all the plants loved.