05.12.19

We were home for one of the finest sunsets, ever.  Joy, Duncan and Anna stayed with us for a couple of nights–traveling across the state for Joy’s work and more soccer– so we all got to photograph it together and revel in the fabulous warm May night.  Ahhh…good to be home.  Everything is growing by leaps and bounds now.  Dandelions dot the spring green fields and Don has already mowed the lawn.  The hummingbirds dart in and out of the feeder hanging on the porch, and there are so many bird songs, including the distinctive Wilson’s Snipe, we heard at the shoreline.  We walked along the head of the lake this morning to the Flathead River, on packed sand which will soon be covered by snow melt from the mountains.  I hung sheets to dry on the clothesline today, took a bike ride, and canoed down the lake for a bit.  With Memorial Day week-end but two weeks away, it really truly feels like summer is around the bend.

So many birthday celebrations this month, and Don and I are officially another year older.  Fletcher’s high school graduation takes place over Memorial Day week-end–a reminder of just how fast the years go by.  In what feels like a miracle, the trees are bursting with new leaves for another season, yet, at my age, there is a whiff of melancholy in this time of year.  As the  poet, Phillip Larkin writes, “Their greenness is a kind of grief.”   But, still, and yet, we get to begin “afresh” once again.  Afresh, Afresh, Afresh–such hope, and grace, in beginning afresh in this new season.

The Trees, Phillip Larkin

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.