Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day

~ Walt Whitman

Frank is sitting on the dew-wet deck when I wake at 5:30 or so and join him. It’s the 4th of July and it’s pleasantly warm and likely to get very hot soon. He goes off to his meeting; I water the yard, waiting for my friend who is coming to walk before we all go kayaking on the Charles. I water all the flowers in the meadow with pails of water and then I plant a shrub and more perennials and then I weed as I am waiting. My friend is running late so I use the time. There are tiny mushrooms on the lawn like little umbrellas. When the kids were young and we were in town we would take them to the field games for the 4th. Or, to the parade. The same parade I rode my decorated bike in down Main Street with my brothers and sisters as a girl. My friend arrives with her dogs and we walk them in my woods and they all swim, a dog party, in the brook, and Frank comes home and we get all the kayaks and canoe brought down to the landing and our other friends arrive and we set off down the leafy and lush Charles River, with the turtles and the herons on the sleek, glass, surface in the hot sun, and sometimes shade, and we go to the Trustees landing where there are campers in a tent and have a morning picnic of coffee and muffins. Later, we go to Farm Pond for a swim and my son joins us, and we bring the dogs, and I take a long swim around the island and return to the dock and see my son with Suzi on the paddle board. He gets both dogs onto the board - such fun to see them, under his spell, enjoying the pond and learning the art of balance from my mindfulness expert son. My friend on the pond hosts our dinner; she asked me to bring poems, and I find five poems that we read aloud after dinner as the sun goes down and the rumble of fireworks off in the distance begins to frame a perfect day of nature, exercise, gratitude, friendship, and fun. I don’t turn on the news. The poems are what I need.

. . . America is no

other than this

moment, the

burning ribcage,

the hand gone

that might have

put it out, the skies

afire with our history. 

~ Excerpt from John Brehm, “Fourth of July”