the blue muse

Mostly, I forgot to look at my garden this month. Well, it wasn’t so much that I forgot, it was more that my nose was chained to the grindstone, and looking up wasn’t always an option. But the monkshood, planted right outside my studio window, has stood by me all month, shining in my favorite color, against a backdrop of gone-the-perfect-shade-of-orange hydrangea leaves.

The perfect slice of autumn—framed where I can’t possibly miss it.

Last night, the almost-full October moon went dancing through a shroud of cloud, and in my heart, I danced along with it. During busy days like these, sometimes the only time I spend outside is when I take the dog out, or walk to the road to get the mail. I hang onto those moments, breathing in the air that smells like my favorite season, crisp frost atop loamy leaves, smoky nights and apple-cheeked days.

The tall grasses I’d planned to cut down are still standing, mocking me with waves of pleasure in the wind. Oh well. Another year, perhaps. They’re still here, I’m still here and it’s raining again.

But look at that color, that life, that moon.

These cycles that keeps my life on track even when they become rote, even when I forget to notice.

This monkshood that waits for me every year, standing quietly by my side all summer, holding the garden’s last gift.

I am grateful, old friend, I am grateful.

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shoulder to shoulder with light and bloom and living

holding each other up in the vase of existence

smiling at the sun

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wishing you a week filled with support

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of the make your own sunshine variety

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stories that whisper in my ear, impatient to be told

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these last flowers, ever hopeful.

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i give them water and a wait for change

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every day something ends

something begins

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twenty years ago today

1+1=5

we became a family

together

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we’ve grown and matured

added to our numbers

celebrated marriage and

new life

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our love has multiplied

far beyond each passing

moment

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you are my heart

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happy anniversary

to my husband

my love

my family

xoxo

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in my tiny house beneath a big sky

a sunday night that feels like monday

exhausted by a week of work and emotion

i stare up at white ceiling

searching for stars

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leaves fall and moon rises

as the sky

howls with change

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endings and beginnings

journeys and returns

heart and soul

seeking

comfort and light

in the cold grey sweater

of autumn’s embrace

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It grew late and I was tired and there were clouds threatening to obscure my view. But eventually, it all worked out, and I sat beneath a star-filled sky and watched the moon eclipse and just as it was almost there, a shooting star raced down the sky.

And I was so glad I’d stuck it out, so glad I’d brought the camera out even if I didn’t get the tripod set-up, and so happy to just sit there and watch the super-bright moon turn all mysterious and orange and red and beautiful.

There were no pictures of the full eclipse, none that came out anyway, but I don’t mind. Eventually the cloud cover did move in, so I wasn’t able to watch the shadow pass through.

Even so, it was a perfect evening, clear and cool with a magic-filled sky and a cricket-filled yard, and a gratitude-filled heart.

I’ll remember it, always.

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and every year i
think of working harder
to force
the soil to produce
blue hydrangeas
but then i
think
how much these
so obviously
just want
to be pink

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wishing you a weekend filled with color

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it has been a quiet day. not silent, of course, there is never that, but quiet.

part of me feels empty because of it. part of me feels soothed.

i sit here now, late at night in my living room, dog at my feet, television not on, not wanting to disturb the peace.

the windows are open, it was a warm day for fall, not too warm, just perfect.

i hear crickets outside singing away, sounding somewhat frantic, as if they know that very soon the nights will become too cold and then they will be stuck in months of quiet.

a waxing gibbous moon hangs low in the sky, so close to full that I would never know that it isn’t, except that the weatherman says so.

it is autumn, autumn in new york, and you can smell it, the scent of leaves on the ground, a basket of apples, cool nights.

in the field just down the road, the farmer started cutting down corn today, leaving short bare stalks sticking up from the ground, rows of little soldiers bearing witness to the folding in of summer, the boxing up, the putting away.

a surrender that we know must happen, but watch wistfully, just the same.

there is a new package by the back door, but i haven’t opened it just yet, it sits there in crisp wrapping paper, colored in golds and tans, browns and oranges.

i think i’ll leave it out there just a day or two longer,

while i sit here and listen

to summer’s last moment

of silence.

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This post first appeared 09/22/10

The cardinals sit outside my window eating kisses.

Blue sky and autumn chill, anemone and silence.

We are all whispering this morning,

the flowers to each other,

and me to myself.

Trying not to wake

the afternoon.

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