#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Osprey circling her nest, Brickyard

. . . when I wrote, I no longer felt that I was in the regular, flat world anymore. I knew nothing to that point about the tradition or the lives of artists, but I could feel myself filling with discovery and vitally changed.

~ Darren Morris, Poetry Editor, Parhelion

Moon Shell, Menemsha Morning

Waking, and realizing in the suddenly cool morning, fall will come. Remarkably cool. The only cool morning so far. I wear an extra shirt on the hike with Charlie. Sun is coming out over the Sound. I don’t swim this morning, as I know I will later. I stand under the brick chimney, watching the osprey circle and circle her chimney stack nest on the deep blue sky. Then Charlie and I walk home. I'm thrilled to have be one of three poets featured in the Summer Issue of Parhelion, just out today. Four poems & an essay on those poems: Place & Poetry, Eggs & Diaries, selected by poetry editor Darren Morris. Later in the morning, when my son is up, we sit outside on the deck talking. I ask if I can read him two of the poems just published, as he features in them, as a boy. They were inspired by diary stories I wrote to him and my daughter. He enjoys them. Then he reads more from his book aloud to me, and we fall into a discussion of storytelling, and how I came to be a storyteller, and why. A loud series of screeches above us. My son looks up and points. The osprey. She is circling above us. She has followed me home to my nest.

Soon, Frank joins us, after tennis, and we talk more. Delicious to have such relaxing, focus time together. And then Frank and I go to Lucy Vincent. A green flag day––and I have never never seen the water so flat! I go for a long swim because it’s so placid and pleasantly warm. Then we must go. We have a special delivery arriving in Oak Bluffs! A delivery we have been waiting for. And, then he is with us, on the beach. We play in the sand and the surf. The Special One discovers the difference between a pond swim and an ocean swim. You must meet the pond. But the ocean meets you. He lets the waves bury his feet as they recede. He sits next to a girl he’s just met who is letting the waves meet her legs and lap and he follows her lead. We ride home to Chilmark, meet Charlie and my son, and Frank cooks up a quick delicious meal: salmon and asparagus and watermelon and we have bought, in the way home, a Black Dog apple crumble pie and we eat it with ice cream and so much vacation joy on the deck as the day turns to dusk. Then, tucking in. Tucking in, singing, storytelling. Sleep.