my mother turned 75 years-old yesterday
and that’s all i know,
about her
anymore
in mid-July, the summer-resident barn swallows who had successfully raised and launched four fledglings by June 23rd, 2025, attempted to raise a second brood;
while i am not absolutely sure if it was the same set of parents or another in the barn swallow community that utilized the nest — as there is a collective of more than a dozen swallows that visits and assists in feeding sometimes too — it is most likely they are the same parent pair;
this is the second summer the barn swallows have nested here in my barn — using last year’s well-constructed nest which they attached to one of the joists like a balcony cantilevered on a Chicago highrise;
i began leaving the overhead barn door open when i first noticed them circling and investigating the barn a few years back; and i was thrilled last year when they began construction of their nest — they were so very welcomed and wanted here — i now know to leave the barn door raised from mid May through July to give them access.
i watched Aftersun,
making my way thru films, on lists, i’ve apparently missed
when it ended,
it was 12:34 am
as i glanced at the clock on the stove;
and went outside
to sit on the dark stoop and cry
and then, said aloud,
“i am not okay”,
and i may never be, again;
i saw, i am more like my father,
than my mother,
than i knew, than i ever thought,
and that, is stunning, in itself ///
that he, was more the human being, of the two, than her.
Continue reading “as the crow flies, as the apple falls.”
July
is always
for remembering
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón
woman, comrade, artist, disability activist, icon,
born this day in 1907, the sixth of July.
Continue reading “july is for remembering Frida Kahlo”good sunday afternoon,
everyone was exceptionally smiley at me and just sweet and friendly at my local and
very crowded grocery store chain today —
so much so,
that i had to check my sandals — to see if they were matching,
and make sure i had put my pants on,
and that i had brushed through my dirty-ish,
bedhead, dry-shampooed hair before leaving the house,
and that my mascara wasn’t bleeding from my lashes and running down my face from this morning’s exceedingly sweaty gardening session (no, that’s not a euphemism),
that, maybe their shining eyes and smiles were merely expressions of some
sy/e/mpathy for me//
but nope, all good — at quick glance in a full-length mirror of the super store clothing section ///
it seems people were just being universally lovely this sunday, and to me, for no apparent reason, at all,
after all.
////
Continue reading “aha!”Last night
the US dropped bombs on Iran,
but still, two of the four barn swallow nestlings were ready to fledge, and did,
this morning
Last night
the US dropped bombs on Iran,
but still, i washed the hummingbird feeders meticulously with bottle brushes, as if they were my own once-baby-son’s bottles, and filled them with fresh, sugared well water,
this morning
Last night
the US dropped bombs on Iran,
but still, i tried to stake the seven foot,
no eight foot, tall hollyhocks, bent over by overnight wind gusts,
this morning
Last night
the US dropped bombs on Iran,
but still, Israel was committed to its holocaust of Gaza,
this morning
Last night
the US dropped bombs on Iran,
and i earnestly searched reddit for military opinions about possible conscription of our young people,
both this morning — and last night
One experience of living rurally — without any obstructions of buildings or infrastructure — and with a full southern exposure out my front door, generous windows and an unencumbered view of all four cardinal directions — it’s like i am in the center of a beautiful compass at all times — is, that i have been able to observe and better understand the obliquity of the ecliptic:
marking the farthest northeastern point of the Sun’s eager rise and the farthest northwestern point of the Sun’s leisurely set at the Summer solstice with my own eyes — the Sun making a deep, high horseshoe arc on those long Summer days,
and to watch the Sun’s progression/regression daily,
and, to witness how at the Winter solstice, the Sun just sleeps in, lazily rising in southeastern Sky, just barely making an appearance for us in the northern latitudes — offering us the shallowest, little arc of light before quickly bedding down again in the southwestern Sky;
Darkness is so precious in the Summer and the light is so precious in the Winter. The darkness is so gloriously abundant in the Winter and the light is so gloriously a abundant in Summer;
i am so grateful and privileged to have experienced this solar panorama and time lapse in real life for eight years now, after living many decades in a major North American city — Chicago, without it;
and,
below is my favorite ever foto to share on the Solstice: Attila Kálmán faithfully and wondrously captured the obliquity of the ecliptic — his camera tracking the Sun’s path from a point on the Northern Hemisphere of Earth from Summer to Winter Solstice in 2012.
and a few of my own favorite Summer Solstice experiences:
it’s snowing cottonwood,
the oranges i purchased for orioles, catbirds,
are so sweet
that i begin to gnaw on and then eat the unbitter peel,
the crows only half-entrust their baby to me,
left here alone *with me*, yet high up in elm, babbling like babies do, i am listening, watching,
it is my solemn duty to fully raise the barn door for the nesting swallows every morning in June, to lower it just enough at sunset, and to make a soft, clean pallet beneath the nest — in case one may fall,
the dog has startled the sweet red doe and her June fawn as they approach the salt lick and water trough — and they turn and trot away,
your gait and mine, is a biometric, but i knew that already,
i could spot his walk in a crowd, anywhere, it’s one of his most distinctive, memorable traits,
Sun-warmed roses tempt me to taste their soft petals, so i do,
there is a spot here where the scent of rose and damsel rocket creates a fleeting aromatic symphony,
each step now is my bare foot cushioned deep into white clover,
there are still no leaves on my potted fig trees on June 15th — some things, like fig trees, turtles and people — living along the perimeters of the Great Lakes, will never emerge alive again from the cold of dormancy, torpor, hibernation or loss,
every poppy plant here is giving art nouveau, The Glasgow School, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and i’m so here for it,
is the cancellation of a family phone plan
an end of a family, or just the end of an era?
the black cat*, the feral one, is two weeks absent as of today,
and i just know she’s dead*, i feel it.
every thing,
every one, just ends.
i carry on in absentia
dialogues
monologues — rhetoric, socratic, analytic,
with — and for, people i once
knew,
had,
loved,
who i have lost or misplaced,
or
who have lost or misplaced me,
in some way,
the absurdity of the beauty of this dawn moment,
the absurdity
of the normalization of any moment or day, in life,
of the uninhibited and unselfconscious public documentation of both the ordinary and the excesses of life
simultaneous to
the People of Gaza documenting
Israeli Zionists
confining, starving, shooting, bombing, maiming, killing
and
incinerating
children,
in Palestine.
motherhood and childhood are complex, complicated and heart-expanding, heart-breaking and heart-full journeys — but mostly elusive destinations, in our rose-colored or cracked rearview mirrors /
today is an exceptional day for revisiting motherhood, childhood and mother-child relationships //
Mothers’ Day, for many mothers and children often feels unbearable from physical loss or heavy with physical absence; it may be pregnant with disappointment, misunderstandings, unrealistic or unmet expectations; reminiscent of failures, judgment and estrangement;— or worse, it may be painful with the memory or ongoing experience of neglect, abuse, betrayal or disownment ///
these golden beings that we, mothers, carry and birth from our bodies and raise up with our arms and hearts into a world that is too often, dark and heavy /
mothers were once golden beings too //
mothers can be|come dark and heavy worlds too ///
Continue reading “Mother’s Day: also a day for the children of mothers”originally published May Day 2024, revised May Day 2025
To The Comfortably-Numbed,
Petit Bourgeoisie:
“No Business As Usual During Genocide” — or — FASCISM!
15,000
no 30,000
Palestinian children, were murdered, not “died”
in seven, nineteen, months’ time.
300,000 — or more in Gaza on threshold of death by intentional starvation with consent of The West
you flaunt your epicurean life
while the workers and students and poets
and artists, all,
groundswell, to resist this violent, white tide,
// of the IDF
home and abroad,
training ICE
& your local SWAT precinct,
to disappear and deport //
and crucially, to liberate you — of the occupier & cop — living in your mind.
this is in fact,
the marketplace of one [1] singular idea:
the limineen | earthling, poet & crone 