The woods smell like rain is coming; all the plants must be expecting rain; there is no patch of blue; all clouds above the blueberries, plentiful on bushes along the trails, ripening in all their stages. I am listening to my poems as Charlie and I walk in the cool morning. I recorded the batch I plan to read tonight at a poetry reading in Somerville. On the page, I doubted them. In my ears, surrounded by everything new and fresh growing up from the earth at my feet, I liked them, I trusted them. The poems sounded beautiful and true, and I very much wanted to read them aloud, in the evening, into the ears of anyone who would listen.

All photos and text copyright Kelly DuMar 2018