Drought

The foliage of my neighbor's tulip trees was the first to yellow.  The little leaf maples were the first to shed their leaves, littering the streets of the neighborhood with evidence of drought.

In my garden, the red buckeye turned brown and gold.  The dogwood's leaves wilted and died.  The coneflowers were crispy.

The ferns looked fried, their burnt fronds brittle against the soil.

I came into the house and telephoned my sister.  I asked about her son, who is not well.  Her voice brightened as she announced that she was finished worrying, because nothing could be done about it.



When life sends a drought, what are we to do?

Only to endure. 

To persevere. 

And to wait for rain.

Seduction

The cat is black with a rich dark coat and eyes the color of moss in autumn. He steps softly on the pathway and jumps gracefully onto the porch, where he surveys the garden with a smooth turn of his head.

He's looking for prey.  Cats are enemies to the wildlife in my garden, killing for pleasure.  I shoo the  cat away, but instead of heading out for the neighbors yard, he runs to the center of my garden and hides in a thicket of shrubs. 


He wears a collar and has a shiny red name tag in the shape of a heart.  "Pickles," it says.


"Lucifer" would be more appropriate.

Yet when I go out to the garden, the cat runs to me, like we are old friends.  He follows me and rubs against my legs, crying in a tiny voice.  He flops on the pavement at my feet, begging me to pet him.  Sometimes he climbs onto my lap, relishing the feel of my hand on his fur. 


Some cats are too tame to kill.  At least, that is what their owners say. 


When I drove home from work, I saw a black shape on the side of the driveway, staring at something under the Abelia.  He startled when he saw the car.  When I stepped out, he ran to the center of the garden and watched me cross the threshold into the house and close the door.

The next day, he was back, sitting quietly under the impatiens, watching a yellow butterfly.  Soon after, I noticed the flowers, stems broken, dangling over the pot.


Later I saw him crouched down with something between his paws.   It was a tiger swallowtail butterfly.  He ate the body first, then chewed on the wings.  When he was finished, there were only shards of the hind wings on the pavement.

Then he went back into the shrubbery to wait. 

Granary Burying Ground

In the late afternoon, I wandered the narrow streets of historic Boston.  The lanes were crowded with taxis and cars, horns honking.  People in suits and shorts filled the sidewalks.  Buildings were a mixture of architectural styles -- classical, art deco, post modern. 


The sun was setting as I passed an old red brick building nestled among office towers.  A sign identified the Old State House where the Declaration of Independence was first read from a balcony to the citizens below.  Handmade bricks were patched in places and at the top of the facade, a lion and unicorn posed with a gilded clock.  On the roof, a white spire was capped with a small gold dome.



The Old State House is now a museum.  The white balcony no longer looks over a public gathering spot, but a busy traffic intersection, with electric lights and signs, and an unending stream of cars.


Nearby a plaque marks the location of the Boston Massacre.


Several blocks away, beside Park Street Church is the Granary Burying Ground, established in 1660, the final resting place of key people from the colonial period, including Paul Revere, Samuel Adams and John Hancock.  Five victims of the Boston Massacre are buried here, including Crispus Attucks.



It was twilight as we passed the burying ground and the metal gates were locked. Under tall trees, the dim light respected the wishes of the departed for a peaceful resting spot.

The burying ground is four feet above street level and from where we stood, we could read the names of notable people.


Benjamin Franklin's parents and other relatives are buried here, although Ben himself lies in Philadelphia.  The family erected this oblisk in 1827 in their honor.

The headstone in the foreground is for John Phillips, the first mayor of the city of Boston.  As we watched, a flock of small brown birds swooped down and dove into the sandy soil near the headstone, splashing the dust around their feathers.

James Otis, revolutionary war patriot is buried here.  As is Mary Goose, writer of children's poems, commonly known as Mother Goose.



The Old Town Trolley Tour made a bus stop in a cloud of diesel fuel.  Tourists filed onto the narrow street to view the final destination of a group of Bostonians who created a nation that grew to be richer and more powerful than any other.

Florist roses

I received an email from facebook, a friend-me request from a high school classmate.  She was from the reigning cabal of girls from Catholic High School in the late 60's. 

These were the girls with long straight hair and clear skin, and even though we wore uniforms, there were still markers to separate the in-crowd from the invisibles -- oxblood Bass Weejuns and matching Aigner belts.

From a distance of 40 years, I know that the arrogance and oppression of those girls were largely unconscious. 

I peer at her facebook photo.  There are three women. My classmate is in the center, hair still dark.  On her left and right, pressing forward, are two twenty-something bottle blonds with tanned skin against their dresses, one in a pink halter and the other in a white strapless.  They assume practiced poses for the camera and smile confidently, displaying perfect sets of white teeth.

Bass Weejuns and Aigner belts disappeared years ago.  Now my classmate offers two florist roses, one pink, one white, their petals tightly circling the sepals, making them useless to bees. These roses are the fussy sort, trained and trellised, pruned and pampered, fertilized and fogged to prevent various wilts and spots that plague their species.

To say nothing about the thorns.

Despite opportunities and freedom for women since the 1960's, so much remains the same for these total women of the third millennium, rooted in the past, with the younger generation grafted onto the same old rootstock.

It is a long way from the wildness of nature, where raw beauty thrives in unpredictable places.