Tag: Summer

  • Poetry of Earth

    Poetry of Earth

    I missed my mark — Earth Day, April 22, 2023 — with this post extolling the poetry of earth. It was germinal then, and it remains germinal today (albeit marginally more mature?) Sometimes a seed germinates with exuberance, practically exploding into existence as if overcome with the glory of imminent bloom and fruit. Other times…

  • Dock, Boat Lift & Friends, 2010

    Dock, Boat Lift & Friends, 2010

    This morning my friend, Mark, sent me a photo snapped exactly thirteen years ago (where does the time go?!?!) after we launched the dock and boat lift for the start of the boating season. In addition to a timely hint that spring is starting to flirt with summer — a meta metronomic rhythm reminder, if…

  • Seasonality

    Seasonality

    Seasonality might strike you as a strange menu for organizing a blog (and an even stranger way to navigate a narrative.) But in many respects it may well be the *only* useful way to structure a circular story that’s slim on plot, chronically a-chronological, and deeply immersed in the poetics of place. Summer’s End Haiku As if…

  • Storm Damage

    Storm Damage

    With the last sands of August slipping through the hourglass, the winds of September have already arrived in full force. And this afternoon, following an alarm on my phone by only a very few minutes — enough for me to rush around the house battening down windows and doors, and enough to quickly hustle Carley…

  • Daybreak

    Daybreak

    Daybreak: Lake Champlain sunrise through “wavy glass” in late August, summertime slipping through the hourglass. (Source: Geo Davis) Since my earliest Rosslyn intrigue, wondering if the house and property might one day become a home for us, daybreak was my fixation. Perhaps it was just my lifelong affinity for the early hours. As a “morning lark”…

  • Hazy Days Haiku

    Hazy Days Haiku

    I’d planned on getting the drone up in the air for some aerial photography of the waterfront and deck areas (where we’re planning some maintenance projects). As luck would have it the morning was misty. No, more like pea soup. So I waited. And waited. It burned off a little, but finally I realized it…

  • Summer 2019 Flashback

    Summer 2019 Flashback

    Historic Essex offers plenty of Instagram-able views and vignettes, don’t you think? And it’s always a fun surprise to see familiar facades pop up in other shutterbugs’ feeds. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Woody Lauland (@woodylauland) From midwinter’s snowy vantage, this sunny moment offers a sweet if slightly sultry siren call…

  • Walking Stick Haiku I

    A couple of weeks ago I shared another walking stick photograph on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter with this accompanying haiku. A walking stick and miniature companion gossip in the shade. My walking stick haiku makes more sense if you actually look closely at the photograph. https://www.instagram.com/p/CDogBYJpIs8/ Can you discern the walking stick’s miniature companion? Is…

  • Rainbow Resonance

    Rainbow Resonance

    Perhaps a purist will scoff, a musicologist for example, when I hitch a rainbow (a double rainbow) to resonance. But I’ll claim poetic license long enough to sneak past the physics police or whoever else patrols these matters. Rainbow resonance isn’t just a pleasantly alliterative title for this post. It’s an observation. Rainbows — witnessed…

  • Friend or Foe: Yellow Garden Spider

    Meet our Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia). This morning this awesome arachnid greeted me from a flower bed planted with Shasta daisies, lupine, and irises. She’s dazzling and, I’ll admit it, a little daunting. Is she friend or foe? Yellow Garden Spider Although I’ve come across these visually impressive pest predators before I needed a…

  • Mighty Winds

    Mighty Winds

    Early evening, maybe 6:00 pm or so the skies darkened prematurely. I mean, really darkened. And the wind whistled then whipped. I blasted around the house battening windows and doors, cranked the shade umbrella contraption (what’s the proper name for those?) over the dining table on the back deck, and lowered the roman shades in…

  • Summer Supper Prequel

    Summer Supper Prequel

    Sometime summer supper comes in springtime because the asparagus are perfect and I just can’t wait for summer. Or I want to jumpstart summer. Or… Let’s just call this a summer supper prequel and get in with the eye candy! Because asparagus season just happens to have coincided with the decadence of fresh lobster meat.…