Tiny Pretty Things: One Deep Breath

This weekend, I finally got the camping trip I'd been looking forward to for so long. Even including the heavy thunderstorm on Saturday night, it was lovely. There was a hummingbird that regularly visited the campsite, feeding at delicate orange flowers around the site (and double checking anything red in our gear - you never know, it could be meant for hummingbirds.) There was a really fat chipmunk that had made its burrow right next to the laundry line support that the park had set up, and there was a little skunk that drifted through the campsite at night to be sure that we hadn't perhaps left some skunk treats out. On the last night, he expressed his displeasure with our habit of cleaning up carefully after dinner by moving one of my sandals - although, to be fair, said sandals were under my tent's vestibule, next to a wild grapevine, so he could have been trying to get to a dropped grape.

Red Daddy Longlegs
Crawls over the tent at dusk
Looking for dinner...

Slim green walking stick
Strikes a vogue on my sandals

Black and white surprise
Waddles through campsites, wild trails
Looking for dinner.
Will he get chocolate chips
Or wild sweet concord grapes?

Iridescent green
Dancing in the morning breeze,
Drinking sweet nectar
Flicks invisible wings
To dance away again.

Tiny round head
Peeks out from the ground
Then is gone again
Doesn't anyone here
want to give me a treat?

Sunlight on purple
Round fat sweet grape bunches
Forest jewels.

Memories of green shade
Soft purple phox trembing in the breeze
That tiptoes between the trees
Tickling the hair on my neck

Moss-covered limestone bones
Hold the prints of ancient years,
Beside the ironwood tree
My resting, hiding, me-place

Deep clay in the valley,
Carved by long-ago glacier waters,
Still holds Johnny Crick,
Cool water for restless feet

Tangled berry brambles,
Long meadow grasses,
Cows gaze in bemusement
As I embrace the summer wind

A busy day

Went to the Smithsonian today and took in the Portuguese exhibit at the Freer and Sackler, and the National Museum of African Art (One of the neat things about the Smithsonian is that these three museums all connect underground, so you can start wandering in one of them and come up to the outside again in another. Technically, there wasn't any of the exhibit in the Freer, but that's where we came in, and they're always mentioned together anyway...)

The Freer and Sackler have long been favorite haunts of mine - they tend to be quieter than the Air and Space Museum, for instance, or even the main galleries of the Natural History Museum in summer. And space is divided in interesting ways, and there are plenty of nicely padded benches for sitting and contemplating on (or for resting feet that have carried you through a maze of marble hallways and stairs). And best of all, if you make it all the way down to the bottom of the Sackler, there is the pottery room. The pottery room has a lovely, quiet fountain in it, and a few, exquisite pieces of modern pottery.

Hushed footfalls pause
Listen to silent whispers
Feel a painted breeze

And, of course, once you are out of the galleries, there are truly beautiful gardens, walkways, and decorative pools to enjoy, behind the castle. Flowers everywhere, and benches scattered to catch the shades of different times of day. Marble walks give way to brick, and clever gardeners have sculpted a fantasia from hedge.

Under an arched hedge,
Afternoon shadows tiptoe
Toward bright water.

The National Mall is growing dry and dusty from the heat, and from the millions of visitors who stroll across the grass, but even here, the trees spread shade, and there are vendors selling ices. And if you know where to go, there are sunken sculpture gardens with some shade, and quiet walkways. Plus, of course, the tall marble porches of the museums seem to offer relief.

Robins flick dust,
Watching tourists come and go.
Maybe scraps will fall.

After all that walking, I was glad to catch a train back out of the city, and stop to pick up the last few items for tomorrow from the grocery.

Beltway traffic crawls.
Cornflowers dancing in the rain
Delight a poet.

One Deep Breath: Wildflowers

Red clover and grass
Growing in the summer sun
Simple, free, alive.

Trillium, blue phlox
Inviting me to come back
Into the forest.