August 11

All day, waiting for my friend to die, for her pain to stop, for her husband, her sister to sleep. Now awake close to midnight, out in the driveway, looking for shooting stars. The night bugs sing all around: summer is ending. A short flick of light; another; a longer one speeds by. Then a blue and gold Roman candle, headed East.

Lightning bugs faintly

glow in the grass--meteors

come to rest at last.

August 1

Rain again. The skies are pressing down on the fruit trees, already laden with apples and peaches, and the trees press toward the earth in turn. The stewardship committee at the nature preserve voted secretly whether or not to kill some trees they think might die in order to finance an attempt to save some other trees they think might die. They vote in secret on everything important now, since the gas drilling debate ended in hatred and shouting.

Cancer is eating

up my friend. Peach tree splits and

falls--too full to live.

July 20

It has been so hot for so long I think this is the first year in all time when the end of July does not bring an hour’s taste of autumn. I am painting the house obsessively, eyeing the wild raspberries that ripen along the trail. They may not wait for me to make jam. Paint or jam? Paint or jam? I can only obsess on one thing at a time.

Then, suddenly--I

wake to no swelter. Up! Quick!

Must call for hay! Now!

July 13

Along the trail near the picnic grove, a strange insect, very large, the color of old bark, perched atop a grass stem. Its wings are twice as long as its body, more than enough to carry that broad head and far-flung eyes. What on earth can it be? Next day, painting the picnic table, we paint around the leg where someone similar but bright green is stuck to a partial case made of paper and spider silk.

My son sees the news.

“That cicada is so late.

He should be dead now.”

July 6

The first groundhog pup was dead before it could squeak. The second, larger, shaken violently and flung down and shaken again, landed on its feet, spun to the attacking dogs, lunged forward and barked up their flared black nostrils.

Remember this face:

Never bother me again.

First Groundhog Rights Day.