A warning flash, in the breaking light

 

The Midwest is under another heat advisory. In our area it runs until Thursday evening. In the past 24 hours we’ve had quite a bit of rain and some thunderstorms. Typical August stuff. Another typical thing are the Goldfinches come to dine on flowers. Last year they were stuffing their beaks on Zinnias. I didn’t grow any this year so they are ravaging the sunflowers. 

The male finch has landed on the window a few times today and peeked in, cheeky beauty that he is. With the hummingbirds that buzz psychotically by the flowers, the abundance of bees in so many sizes and the butterflies and dragonflies that come about (not to mention the blue jays, grackles and cardinals, sparrows and robins) it’s a regular air traffic control nightmare.

I rarely see the cicadas flying but they have their deafening and extraordinary song. When we pass them on the street some mornings they buzz and wriggle sounding like wind-up toys that are done with playtime. Evenings there are still a few fireflies out. Then there is the no less wonderous but less airborne amongst the garden community, the groundhogs, the squirrels, the rabbits and the occasional cat. With the heat I try to leave out water during the day especially for those wrapped in fur and low to the ground.

In the past few days, I’ve been watching the COVID numbers climb (infections, deaths) the whole scenario I watched last year, except now those dying are younger and, for the most part, unvaccinated. But dying, still, and turning hospitals back into trauma centers – for those dying and those trying to keep them alive. It is alarming (again) and painful (again) and avoidable (again). It is (again) distressing as I have people I know and love, who have loved ones (and those I love) in hospital(s) for non-covid, lifesaving endeavors. But they remain vulnerable to the selfish. To the petty. To the hypocrites.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. I was rereading notes from a year ago. Feeling bad now for everyone who has tried to hard to stay safe, to keep others safe, to be a lifesaver. Carrying on. Ordering some new masks tired of basic black, though maybe the ones I have now would be good arm bands.

Stay safe, stay kind, vaccinate. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Tell those you care about how much you care.

A poem fragment from last year:

Everything is burning

Small fires are burning all over this morning,

the begonia back from winter hiatus

is aflame in the dawn; the geranium, dreaming

of sun, reaches for day, its tight bud an angry fist;

a ruby-throated hummingbird, sits

on a branch perfectly in shadow

until with a slight turn he is a beacon,

a warning flash, in the breaking light.

 

Beside the front door, wrapped around a fire bush,

                              a rat snake, gleaming like a jewel

                                                I call my husband and we watch it move from the shade

                                into the total darkness of the low pine.

Flat cat

Outside the flat cat is grazing. The flat cat is Otto the groundhog. A couple of days ago I watched him endure the neighbor cat. (she “belongs” to one neighbor a couple of houses down; she has claimed the next-door neighbor) She came charging at him and he stood up tall on his tip toes and hunched his back.

She stopped and then just sat watching him while her tail twitched wildly. I think Otto wouldn’t play the game she wanted. He lowered down slowly and started eating again, periodically she’d jump at him and he’d get big again. She grew bored quickly though, it’s no fun when the flat cat won’t indulge you. Last night she zipped across the lawn at him again, but stopped short when he turned around. They’re about the same size so I don’t see her actually jumping him, but she is a young cat and needs to have fun. What disgrace it must be to the other cats when they see these two together. I imagine them quoting Sylvester Junior, “Oh, the shame!”

Today it’s 37 degrees cooler than it was yesterday. The cardinals and finches have been at the feeders all day as though they haven’t eaten since summer started. The funny thing was the way the younger birds were fluffing up in the chill.

Right now, a squirrel is out trying to get the last of the sunflower seeds from the feeders. If there was an Olympic event for creativity at the feeder this particular squirrel would get the gold. I appreciate the bright red cardinal tsking her as she eats, swings and then sticks the landing.

Today

Last evening, I stepped outside for some air. It has been very warm here the past few days but after I came home from the vet I spent the day cleaning: how did two small cats have so much stuff? Outside it was still warm and humid and someone, somewhere was burning something. The smell of smoke was nearby and it always makes me pause and walk around the house. The fireflies were out, dancing under the Maple. It was a nice break to stand and watch them, to know that nothing was on fire and nothing needed action.

Today I turned the cat quarters back into a guest room. Today I hung a picture I bought because I just wanted it. Today I bought a begonia that I will put on my dining room table, the table I had to remove a begonia from shortly after Zora and Ursula jumped on the table, ate some and then threw it up onto the table. Oh, joyous catdom! Today I watched the young birds flock to the feeders and try out their territorial wings. The new cardinals are so bold right now. The squirrels ran them all off, but the birds just giggled from the lilacs – they don’t care. Today was Tuesday. Gosh it seemed like a week.

Be safe, be kind. Wear your mask. Get the vaccine. Be. Safe.

A quick cat year

Farewell, Ursula. I sang her song, I sang the alternate cat song (Lady Cat, you are my lady cat. Slow R&B) I stayed in the quiet corner room and ran my hand down her body and listened to the sounds of the vet clinic: The doctors and techs talking, phones ringing, a dog barking. I knew it was time for her, before pain or panic or wasting. She spent the weekend being cuddled, she spent an inordinate amount of time on my lap, she curled beside me on the bed and snoozed.

These pictures are from one year ago, shortly after we got them. When they had decided we were alright and this new house was full of comforts and surprises and, aside from that lady singing to us, we were okay. Safe. Cozy. Loved.

Be safe, be kind, sing a song for your cats.

A short, sad morning

 

Part of the world of responsible pet ownership is knowing, or trying to be compassionate enough to know, when it is enough for a being in your care. Ursula was diagnosed in September of last year with cancer and we’ve had fits and starts getting her comfortable and eating and into routines. The past week or two we’ve been actively watching her day to day and she has deteriorated, she eats somedays and not others, most of the day is involved in laying low and sleeping. This past week she’s gotten shaky and disoriented. So, we decided let’s spoil her over the weekend, let’s give her as much loving and kisses as one cat can stand and let her go. Tough but necessary. My biggest concern was Zora, she’s Ursula’s biggest fan. They’ve been together since kittenhood, apparently bottle-fed by their first person. That’s why this morning, after our initial “how are you doing kitties?”, everyone getting a head rub and a back scritch and they were offered food and Zora ate a bite, I was surprised to find Zora shortly afterwards, hiding out, obviously distressed; in distress. It’s extremely sad to say, that we had to let Zora go this morning. The vet(s) were kind, as usual, and when we looked at the X-ray, they had no idea how or why her body had deceived her. All I knew (know) is I couldn’t let her suffer. Poor little one.

I feel sad for her and for me, as I told Jerry when I got home, I didn’t even sing her song today or bend down low and touch noses as happened most days. And now we go forward with one, again, for a few more days.

A few of my favorite shots of Zora. If you’d like to sing her song it goes “Zora-roona, Zora-rue” to whatever tune you like and operatically if possible.

Maybe it is all magic

 

If you need a little light, I can offer the goldfinch.

If you need a little hope, the first young cardinal has visited.

Surprise? Dragonflies have paused their mad flight;

are posed by the garden, balanced on slender bamboo poles.

Their wings filter the Cosmos, softening the fire of orange.

Maybe it is all magic, wonder, grace. Or just the turn summer

takes. Last night a slice of moon, engraved

with the jumping horse, glowed in the angry sky

and cicada music swung through the warm air.

A song in need of tuning, but loud and vibrant.

Before the last rain, the last deluge, a few

exoskeletons hung on the bark of the lonely pine

amber shells strangely emptied; life broken out

for a brief reign.

Look, just now, the squirrel has shooed sparrows

off the feeder and is busily eating,

grooming and mocking the groundhog, Otto, who loves

the sunflowers too, but must wait for whatever

falls. And, on the roof, shadow shows me

that another squirrel is running down

the eaves, her tail flicking wildly the whole journey.

If you need a little light, I can offer this:

every movement is a dance, a chance to claim

what must be done. Get up and go.

Eadweard Muybridge motions

 

An older piece of something I found today while I was working on some fiction. Well it is fiction as well, I can't remember why I wrote it, but I remembered looking at these photos. 

Muybridgean Reanimation

 “Muybridge’s stop-motion technique was an early form of animation that helped pave the way for the motion-picture industry, born a short decade later.”

The work horse was Daddy’s favorite, that’s why he let that man take the pictures. The horse wasn’t just Daddy’s favorite horse or Daddy’s favorite animal on the farm. The horse was his favorite of anything in the world: me, Mama, the farm. When the man came with the camera, Daddy took the horse out and brushed him ‘til his dappled hide looked like marble. He even took his Sunday handkerchief, the one Mama washed and ironed, and wiped the horse’s nose. Mama cried when I brought it back to the house and told her what he did.

When the man asked Papa to put the collar on the horse and work him, Papa smiled, winked at me and started telling the man what a good horse he had. I stood in the background, breathing in the stale warmth of the leather and how when Daddy put the bit in the horse’s mouth his tongue made the snaffle click like gooseberries hitting the pail. The horse turned to look at me, like he was saying, “Hey, what do you do around here?”

I knew I didn’t do much, Mama said the fever hurt my heart and I needed to stay out of the sun and stay cool and not strain too much. Daddy didn’t like me because I couldn’t work, and he thought less of Mama ‘because she couldn’t give him boys. The horse was his worker and his son. He sometimes stayed the night in the barn when Mama talked too much, her loneliness driving him away.

The man with the camera asked Daddy to walk the horse across the barn. He rigged lots of lights and then started taking picture after picture. Daddy was a smiling monkey, if he’d had a tail he would have swung over the beams and hooted; he would move us out of the house and the horse in if he could. The man with the camera said. “That’s all I need” and he told Daddy to take the horse back outside.

While he was gone the man with the camera looked at me. “What’s your story?” he asked, like girls my age shouldn’t still be at home or at least not hanging out in a barn, watching their father parade his plow horse as if it was Joe Cotton. I dipped my head and told him I was too sick to work, too sick to marry. He asked if I wanted my picture taken, make an impression that would last forever. This like I was important. I guess I nodded, okay.

He had props: dresses, fans, hats and a parasol. He tells me I can pick what I want. I step into the granary and change into a long white gown, it feels like sugar, it’s lighter than cheesecloth and swishes and waves as I walk. When I return, the man with the camera takes the mop of my hair in his hand, up close he smells like cumin and lye. He twists my hair over my head, and somehow, it stays in place. Then he tells me to walk.

I start to walk, holding the dress on one side, to keep from tripping and I don’t want the dress dragging where the cows walk every day. It’s hot and the flies follow me, even in the new outfit. The man tosses me a fan, I walk and wave the fan over my head, a one-armed bird. That’s when Daddy returns, his horse on the lead behind him and they both startle at me in the white dress. The man with the camera stops taking pictures, turns to him and says, “These will be an important addition, thousands of people will see these pictures.”

So that’s how it happened, that years after we both have died, I’m stuck with the big, dumb horse walking through the barn over and over again; stuck in eternity with my father’s favorite.