Little woolly overcoat
inching up my wall,
do you think you’re coming in
to cozy up for fall?
Yes, I know that winter comes
with autumn equinox,
but I can’t accommodate
your hundred shoes and socks.
As if the trees and the stores weren’t reminder enough, come now the woollies to tell us that summer sets and autumn rises. I wish for all of us, dear reader, a season to catch our collective breath in the colors and new air that will come. May the din of the absurd be muffled, if only for a while.
Two dazzling things happened yesterday, dear reader!
As you know (or not), I’ve been in the throes of downsizing. I moved into this smaller house about a year and a half ago, and that makes this my second gardening season here. If you are a gardener, you know that you have to earn ownership of a garden; it doesn’t just happen. Nor does it “just happen” that a house becomes home. For me, it’s all a work in progress: this isn’t home yet either inside or out.
However, there were these two heart-stoppers yesterday:
I caught a glimpse of new color deep in a tomato plant. I was down on the ground as fast as my creaking knees would allow and, yes, there it was: the first red tomato! MY tomato! If you have read my blog in the past, you know that until recently my main claim to gardening fame was in consistent tomato-killing. I grew them in memory of my Grandpa Mauck but without much hope of eating actual tomatoes.
(Last year was The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, if you recall. The tomatoes had their revenge.)
And tuxedos in the dill! In my last house I had a magnificent dill patch and these very formal, elegant caterpillars feasted royally thereon. Swallowtails bobbed their thanks over what was left. This year the blasted rabbits ate to the ground every single dill plant I tried to grow, so I planted dill in a pot on the deck. Now come the beautiful caterpillars. Can swallowtails be far behind?
I dance a rheumatic jig and think that maybe home will happen.
The air was still
no finch’s trill
no breeze, no voice, no chirp
and so I know
as sun sank low
I heard a tiny burp.
Once upon a time
it all was green and yellow
brilliant, supple, showy
like my caterpillar fellow.
Now it’s tones of wood
brittle requiem
but chrysalis, seeds attest
death is just pro tem.
The caterpillar labors
for every bite under his belt
one really has to wonder
why isn’t he more svelte?
He dwells in perfect palette
imbibing herbal air
tuxedo’d little beastie
rotundly debonair.
As Pogo would say, “A caterpiggle!”
a stripey fellow, bright little wiggle,
but imprudent to sun in this herbal green spot:
he almost ended up in my old stockpot.
August countdown.
Archimedes the caterpillar
Oddments 