June 2009

Just inside the woods’ edge, three mushrooms weather the downpour, umbrellas for no one. The soaked bark of a maple turns patchy blue.

The red climbing rose is just coming into bloom, but it’s the garlic tops I’m admiring, those coiled green snakes with the heads of birds.

The black-robed cowbird at the top of the dead elm burbles authoritatively, like the Grand Ayatollah of the yard taking credit for the rain.