jumpingfish

She sometimes talks about volcanology with a hint of lament in her voice. What her plans were. What might have otherwise been. I sometimes think about otherwise, too. With a hint of lament. What might have been but isn’t. Plans gone by.

But she didn’t do that. And I didn’t do those.

Instead, we met outside a restaurant that is no longer there, she walking with a confident swagger that spoke of the volcanologist in her. With a smile on her face and a glint in her eyes.

And it makes me glad for the this. For the what did. For the what is. With no hint of regret.

On a cold, cloudy day. With wishes that winter be gone.

Oh certainly these aren’t the trees we’d be wishing for. And the sun-baked sand brings problems of its own. But how about green things sprouting up and sun shining down and white clouds going by? How about that?

1.

There’s a butter-yellow butterfly fluttering among the Irises. The blossoms came out of nowhere and opened last night. And the butterfly has found them, uncertain about the white fall, intrigued by the yellow anther.

And there is an orange butterfly in the Lacey Oak, resting on a branch, opening and closing its wings. As the breeze blows  and the brown-orange leaves of the tree glow in the late afternoon light, it’s hard to find that butterfly if you look away.

There are Mason Bees buzzing around the holes in our bee house. I didn’t notice any overwintering there this year, so maybe these bees are lost, looking for some other holes in some other place in some other puddle of warm sunlight.

And there is a lizard stopping for a drink at the birdbath. The sunlight is glinting off the water’s surface, and the lizard’s silhouette strikes a micro-Jurrassic pose.

2.

After the race, after taking a shower, we sit on a patio drinking tea and orange juice in the warm weather of the early afternoon. It was hot running, and we ran slowly with sweat running down our cheeks. (Ok, the sweat was mine. The fair and industrious Trudy barely breaks one, ever.)

The leaves on the side walk begin to stir. A breeze whips around the corner of the building. High above us, a construction crane turns in the wind like a weather vane.

And in twenty minutes, the temperature drops twenty degrees, and our warm afternoon is gone.

3.

“Maybe the tomatoes will be ok,” she says. “Ben covered them. Maybe they were warm enough.”

I shake my head. “It got too cold.”

The night before, the temperatures continued dropping, and from a high in the upper seventies yesterday, it got down to 26 last night. I peek at the tomatoes, removing the stones, lifting the burlap, picking up the overturned bucket. They are dead, dark green lying limp on the ground.

Even the tomatoes in the green house couldn’t make it. And the dozen or so Iris blossoms are gone. Pale green lying limp on the ground. And the Spiderword, too. When we left, one was beginning to open its purple blossoms. They’re on the ground, too.

And there are no lizard or butterflies to be seen.

4.

But you know the lizard is there somewhere. And the butterflies. Waiting for the water in the birdbaths to melt. Waiting for the next wave of blossoms.

Indeed, here comes the next wave. The Agarita is covered in yellow, and its fragrance fills the air. The the Mexican Redbud buds are beginning to open. And the Prairie Verbena. And the Anemones.

Another warm day comes. Blue skies. Sun. But then the cold again. Cloudy gray. Rain falling from the sky. Thunder and hail.

Thank heavens for the rain. We can deal with the cold. But hail? I could do without the hail. 

My grandfather was born in 1907, I told the kids. I was on the floor, and they were on pillows in a semicircle around me. I told them how in the summers we would camp in the woods in Michigan. How we had campfires in the evening.

Imagine it, I said. There we were in a clearing in the woods with trees all around us and a circle of stones with a fire burning in the middle. And there were old pine stumps in the fire from when they cleared the White Pine long ago, and that wood burned hot and bright, and fingers of orange flames danced toward the sky and lit our faces as we sat there in that clearing under the stars.

And sometimes, I told them, my grandfather would remember a poem he memorized when he was young. Because he was born in 1907, and they did things differently back then. Kids had to memorize poems. Long poems. Serious poems. And they had to get up in class and recite them from memory.

So sometimes he would remember one of those poems and start reciting a few lines, and we would all be quiet. Because if we said anything he might stop. Imagine it, I said. Sitting there with orange firelight on our faces.

Have you ever been in the dark someone would shine a flashlight on their face up from their chin and go, “Boo hoo hoo ha ha ha!” I asked. Yes! they shouted. Well it was kind of like that, I said. (Although truth be told, I was now mixing various childhood memories into a single story.) The orange light would be shining on him where he sat, and shadows would dance on his face as we sat in silence listening to his poetry.

I said all this as a way to explain why I was in their class that day. As a way to explain why I was there to recite poetry. 

I told them about the woods and the fire and the dark starry skies of a lifetime ago. And I told them about my grandfather’s poems.

And they sat in their semicircle in silence. Watching me with wide eyes. Waiting for a poem.

I’m remembering this. Almost two years ago.

An excuse to draw, I suppose. But not a bad something to remember. Do you?