"September fattens on vines.
Roses flake from the wall.
The smoke of harmless fires drifts to my eyes.
This is plenty. This is more than enough."

- Geoffrey Hill, September Song

Charlie is barking crazily at deer in the meadow and must be let out, early in the chill morning, still dark. After it’s light we go out and we ramble through Rocky Narrow for almost two hours, finding so many visual mysteries and beauties. I stop to look closely at the remnants of the ghost plant and the hips of lady slippers in the pine needles, and I think about how interesting and complex and beautiful the wildflowers are as they age into their later seasons, after bloom. Like people I like to think like that looking at people, people like myself, who are aging. That we are in another more interesting phase of our cycle. I stop for a feather. I always stop for a feather. It’s hard to get close to birds, really close. But you can be close to a feather and wonder about the bird who lost it. The surface of the Charles is all cloud and reflection of trees changing. I have more ideas bubbling up, small tweaks, for my new poem as I begin to understand more and more what I’m saying in this September poem.I will bring this Monday night, and it’s ready to share. But I find another interesting piece that is capturing my imagination to work on. In the Boston Globe this morning I read a news article about the resolution of a crime, except by the time the case is solved the criminal is dead. How did she die, I wonder. And I start googling this and find a fascinating story - well, it intrigues me, it’s so poetic. And so I realize I will create something from this story and I’m excited to work on it, but the day passes in interruptions, mostly pleasant. Neighbors who have moved away stop by for a visit and I must walk them across the field to the wedding arch at the river. Dear neighbors, we’ve shared so much on this land. And the new husband and wife stop by to walk the dogs. And then the youngest who just moved away comes home and is hungry and must be fed and warmed up and listened to and comforted and we have a lovely conversation and she leaves the house singing. My husband travels again tomorrow, we have so much to talk about. We take the new husband and wife out to dinner. They sit across from us at the table and we talk. Two married couples. We ask them about their dreams, and listen to them. We think about how we started out: broke and hopeful and energetic and scared and happy and convinced we would succeed - together. We see this in them too, and we are glad. There is a giddy relief in our being together. On their side, meeting with us as a married couple, they have followed through. For us, we gave them a wedding that made them happy and satisfied. We all now know we did what we meant to do and we did it together and we did it just right even though in the process at times it felt hard and wrong and challenging.