#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Yellow Goatsbeard gone to seed

. . . We are bound to one another

And to God by harrowing, albeit helpless distinctions,

Impossible to bridge, imperative to love well.

We are free, but briefly. The pattern of a leaf branches

Out from human hearts, and the blood spills

Into the pattern a stone makes crashing into windshields. . .

~Excerpt from The White Campion, Donald Revell

White campion in the meadow

No need to water. Weather report promised rain. An overcast sky, a humid day. I brought a bag for the trash, but the teens had not been there. Still, on the trail, I managed to fill it about a third of the way. Oh, the yellow goatsbeard has gone to seed by the rails! I stopped to admire the little umbrellas. And in the meadow, the white campion bloomed so gorgeously and tenderly. The bull frogs croaked in the wetlands in the lily pads. At home, I worked on yesterday’s poem, a second draft. But we ended up canceling our peer poetry workshop in the afternoon. I waited and waited for the rain. I made two quiches in the afternoon. It clouded over, it threatened, and every time I checked it looked like rain, but it was an illusion. Until, it poured. And I had wanted to go out into the rain once it fell, but the quiches needed to get into the oven so I could get to a meeting. I stayed dry; the flowers got a drink. Our late afternoon peer poetry session canceled, but i kept working on the poem for tomorrow morning’s workshop. It’s okay. It’s such an early draft. On the morning walk, my daughter who is pregnant talked about the wild movements of her baby, his wakefulness, his acrobatics, her astonishment. I tell her: this was you once too. I know exactly how you feel.

Ahmad Arbery

The three men accused in the February 23 shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery were indicted Wednesday by a grand jury, a district attorney said.