The waiting

When you know someone is going to die soon, the waiting curls up inside your body. It feels like a wet rag or sponge. There it expands until you think you can't take it anymore. Then the person dies. Then you are left with a black hole and nothing to fill it with.

Why I am afraid of Bees

Photo taken this afternoon in our yard.

When I was little
I went into a house my
father was building.
I rocked in a little
red rocking chair he had
made me. On the
back of the chair
my father had painted
my name. I rocked very
fast. As I rocked, I hit
an empty box with my
feet. Soon I felt a terrible
pain and saw a bee climbing
slowly down into the box.
I cried as my father put
chewing tobacco over the
poison. He told me the
bee would die now because
he had planted his stinger
in me. A wasp can sting over
and over and still live, he said,
but not bees. I thought of
the bee climbing into the
darkness of the box to die,
and I was glad.

Outside the insects are screaming

Photo taken this afternoon in our yard.

August 28

Outside the insects are screaming,
"It's still summer! It's still summer!"
Bees and butterflies
work in the sunflower middles.
Butterfly, elephant-fairie, dipping
your long trunk into the blossom.
Bee, I'm afraid of you, though I know
you will not sting me.

Hector

Hector with the lazy eyes.
Hector with the lazy eyes and lazy feet.
Hector who has no job.
Hector, Hector.
Hector who is a mama's boy.
Hector who will eat at no other table than his mother's.
Hector who turns his lazy, beatific eyes to hers,
giving thanks.

Something I wrote today for a new friend (JM)

The words "tulip tree" seem unbelievably tender to me today.