Morning Dew

After weeks of rain, we’ve enjoyed two glorious August days. Summertime splendor all the more apparent for the contrast with two months of incessant drizzle-to-downpour conditions. Sunny. Bluebird skies. Hot. Light breeze. Lower humidity. And morning dew on the decks and lawn when I take Carley out in the morning and when I wander up to the icehouse.

I noticed this morning that my bare feet were leaving footprints on the deck. For some reason the morning dew combined with my footprints on the garapa decking, and the traces were startlingly apparent. As if I’d walked in red clay. Or blood.

But neither blood nor clay could explain these inadvertent graffiti. Just bare feet and morning dew on garapa decking.

Morning Dew Haiku

Coming and going,
my morning dewy feet print
the garapa deck.

I’m always struck by the narrative that living beings — and, in some cases, no longer living beings — recount with our feet. This is especially true in nature (i.e. identifying the culprits who have munched through the Swiss chard in our garden or deciphering wing prints and often a few drops of blood in Rosslyn’s snowy meadows while cross-country skiing.)

And so this morning dew haiku composed itself, first in visual form, and then in words. I was fortunate to be present for both, at once participant and messenger. The garapa decking, dewy and brilliant, recorded and amplified my comings and goings. For a while. Until the sun rose high and the deck dried. No more footprints. No more haiku.

Update: after romancing the summer weather, this evening the rain has returned…