“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -”
― Rachel Carson

A summer holiday week begins with sunshine and a breeze that blows to freshen the woods. The milkweed by the railroad tracks is past its peak. Far into the Trustees trails the tree canopy and leaf cover are lush and inviting. I am thinking about change. Letting go of old ideas. Keeping an open mind. Before walking, up early, I finish commenting on a client’s poems in writing. How it’s an honor to be invited into the process of craft and experience what the poem is aiming for from its point of inspiration. This particular writer has grown into realizing that revision is a process, it’s normal, it’s beneficial, it’s essential. She is committed to change and growth. I appreciate the fresh and original way she’s developing her unique experience. I appreciate the strength of what she’s shaped so far. I have questions and ideas I know she’ll consider deeply. My own Monday night poetry is canceled tonight for the holiday, and I appreciate the break for once. This is a day of distractions with people coming and going, with sweet time with my youngest who wants us to sit in the same room together doing our work. We go outside on the screened in porch and have relaxed conversations. I have finished planting, weeding, mulching and edging the flower garden off the deck and I am sore from shoveling mulch. And very satisfied at the progress. There will be more weeds. I am accepting this fact. I am committed to weeding with energy and acceptance. My friend calls weeding therapeutic. In the days to come, i will let it be so. I will surrender to the need to weed and appreciate being in the dirt with the birds and the owls making their noise a and the sweat and the breeze because summer is so short and so pleasant. Yesterday I submitted a piece of writing, a flash prose piece I wrote months ago that has been rejected a couple of times, but I responded to a promising call and it felt good to be putting work out there. Any day, now it’s July, I am expecting my new collection, “girl in tree bark,” to arrive from my publisher. This summer I will weed the garden, revise poems I’ve written all winter, and make wedding decisions. I took the pig food I’ve been collecting to Unity Farm, and ran into Kathy who runs it and she has a referral for a wedding cake baker. There will be cake. There will be a magnificent cake and why not? I am hopeful about so many things, about the fact that human beings can have troubles, and human beings can change. Sometimes they choose not to. And sometimes, there is grace, and they choose change. The milkweed has blossomed, has attracted the bees. Soon it will go to seed so more milkweed will bloom and more butterflies will be created.