An afternoon in the garden

I'm delighted to announce that I've got a poem up at Qarrtsiluni. It's "an experiment in online literary and artistic collaboration", to use their words, and I've been a fan for some time. The theme these days is Transformation, so I submitted a poem inspired by the works of Frida Kahlo, whose diary I read last year. You should pick it up. And don't forget to check out my poem and all the others. You can even listen to my nasally voice reading it.

* * *

So yesterday I engaged in some backyardsitting, enjoying a late summer late afternoon. We're in that post-September summer that everyone forgets to reckon. Labour Day is the ritualistic end of the season in our secular calendar defined by measured by three-day weekends.

But everyone who uses their own senses can heard the cicadas, feel the breeze, see the waning summer light, smell the vegetation. The tomatoes on the porch are still going, the yard is pretty robust.

Looking from the balcony to the garden, don't those two chairs look inviting?

Oh yes, on closer inspection they still do. They're old but have character, and they were salvaged from trash day. It's alarming how quick people are to throw out stuff that definitely has a few good years left in it!

Looking from my afternoon perch to the drive way. I need one of those wooden rakes them zen gardeners use.

Trevor has managed to turn the yard into a garden, with birdbaths and chairs and brickwork. Our neighbour contributed river rock pebbles, and that with the tree trimming really brightened it up. This is the first summer in the almost four years I've lived here that I sat down and enjoyed the back yard.

Tropical Storm Hanna poured and poured on us Saturday night, but by daybreak yesterday it was beautiful. I know because I was awake for it. I can see why people like getting up early. We walked to Cafe Ula and had our breakfast outside, as we've been doing on some Sundays this summer, and realised we still had lots of day left.

* * *

From Thoreau's blog:

Some hours seem not to be occasion for anything, unless for great resolves to draw breath and repose in, so religiously do we postpone all action therein. We do not straight go about to execute our thrilling purpose, but shut our doors behind us, and saunter with prepared mind, as if the half were already done.