"i do not believe in object permanence"*

I haven’t fed the birds since the snow melted. I was waiting for them to clean up the areas where the bird feeders hung or where I had thrown out seed; there was a lot. Today’s yard inspection shows that most of the seed is gone, so I’ll clean the feeders and put them out. This week I’ve been doing some yard work, taming the barberry bushes, cutting and shaping evergreen shrubbery and mowing down decorative grass in one of the flower beds.

My neighbor’s cat came over to tell me she did not approve and then peeked in at Zora asleep by the front door. Speaking of neighbors, my next-door neighbor (not the cat’s owner, she (the cat) lives one more house down) told me she won’t be using the raised beds so I will get those ready for the season as soon as I get done with my yard.

The weather has been wonderful, Wednesday it was 70, that was the high for the week but we’re averaging 55 during the day, at night it is getting cooler but nothing that isn’t expected at this time of year. And, now this time of year, is the before time, time of year.
A year ago, I was looking forward to the trip to Chicago, Jerry had work and I was tagging along; I had tickets to two events, I had plotted out my days (reading, walking, museums, Poetry Foundation), Jerry would be able to see his former colleagues, get his scheduled visits done and we’d have the afternoons to spend together; a poetry reading by Jane Hirshfield was to be the highlight of the trip. The before time.

Today world-wide deaths recorded from the Coronavirus are 2.58 million; 523K in the US.

Poetry Daily has a singularly stunning poem by *Fargo Nissim Tbakhi today, a poem that reminds me to look to poetry and look toward the world that can seem hidden or forgotten by our own dark times. The title today is a line from that poem.

Be safe, be kind, get outside if you can.