in the yard

Irises and More

Rae Spencer4 Comments

Today’s survey of the yard found an abundance of irises, a few sleepy roses, and a single amaryllis.

There’s also a new species of dragonfly–one made of spoons. (Thank you, Sharon!)

And, ruling over it all, a grumpy robin. I’ve been attacked by nesting blue jays more than once, but today’s robin attack was a first. The irony is that I never would have found her nest, had the robin ignored me. Instead, she chirped and complained and tried to pull my hair as I knelt in the irises, which made me very curious…

Publication note:  Poetry Breakfast posted my poem “Rinse and Repeat” today. Many thanks to editor Isabel Sylvan!

A Quiet Day

Rae Spencer4 Comments

Today has been almost summer-like. Very warm, very breezy, and very sleepy.  A paper wasp worked under the eaves, a damselfly hunted in the irises, and something mantis-like prowled through the hydrangea. I did small, invisible chores in the house and in my office. Now I’m ready to find a quiet corner, curl up with the cats, and open the new book on my nightstand. Page one…

In case you’re wondering, the book is Rocks of Ages by Stephen Jay Gould.

Cold Again

Rae Spencer3 Comments

Winter made another run through the yard last night, and today finds me yearning for the sun-filled, dragonfly days of summer. This photo, from last July, was one of the first I took with my iPhone camera. I was experimenting with the Photoshop Express application…

More Nests

Rae Spencer5 Comments

The blue jays have retired to their nest next door, abandoning the yard to robins and rabbits. Both seem satisfied to stay a while. The robins are building a nest in the pear tree, and the rabbits have excavated a series of test-nests. I’m ridiculously excited, almost giddy with anticipation…

Local News

Rae Spencer8 Comments

Navy jets are a fixture in the yard. Their roar punctuates life in Virginia Beach, which is home to Naval Air Station Oceana.

Today, one of the jets crashed. A fiery crash involving apartment buildings. I keep turning the news on, then turning the news off.

I don’t know this instinct, can’t name the impulse that forces me to look and look away and look again. It’s a sour, hollow place in my chest. Cold hands and burning eyes and a restless path from kitchen to television to yard to office to kitchen. It’s a dark weight in my mind, an unfocused pall of helplessness.

For lack of a better word, it’s grief. But why? The accident doesn’t belong to me. And yet I feel an urge to own it, to fold it into my life alongside all the other things that don’t belong to me but touch me anyway.