The stripped and shapely
Maple grieves
The loss of her
Departed leaves.
The ground is hard
As hard as stone.
The year is old
The birds are flown.
And yet the world,
Nevertheless,
Displays a certain
Loveliness.
The beauty of
The bone. Tall God
Must see our souls
This way, and nod.
Give thanks: we do,
Each in his place
Around the table
During Grace.
—John Updike
Aunt Marge
What is better medicine than to gaze early each morning upon hummingbirds, chipmunks, and silvery water?
Sometimes when we have breakfast outside, a mockingbird lands on the Japanese maple in front of the house, then hops down to the porch flower box and eyes our plates. After an offering of scone or toast, he/she flies off with it, then returns for more. I wonder if there are little ones in a nearby nest? One morning I had my sketchbook with me.
Perhaps because he’s such a water-lover himself, this is my husband’s favorite of the illustrated poems in our family dinner-table verse book. From Prayers from the Ark, by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold.
I was sitting in the garden sketching plants when I became aware of a persistent rat-tat…rat-tat-tat…rat-tat… I finally looked up, and there on the tree trunk a few feet away was a female (no red patch on the head) downy woodpecker pecking for her breakfast. I had been sitting so still that she hadn’t paid attention to me. So I ve-e-e-ry slowly turned the page in my sketchbook and drew her instead.
When the news is truly terrible and you have sent off your donation and listened with awe and respect to those hastening selflessly to the rescue, and you are wondering what, what to do next, there can be a kind of hope in observing, after the overwhelming catastrophes of nature, its small surprises. Like the downy woodpecker that just showed up on our urban patio, and the juvenile Cooper’s hawk (!) on the telephone pole in the alley behind the house. Although the innocent grub and the songbird would undoubtedly regard these as catastrophes.
Mom’s and Aunt Bett’s “other” birthday
