Yellow gibbous waxing moon and more

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Hanging Nasturiums at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Hanging nasturtiums at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The moon rose waxy yellow in the sky. I wiped down the car windows, got in , turned on the defoggers, the lights, the music, and the windshield wipers for good measure. Good thing for a coyote soon crossed the road on the opposite lane, then ran up the yellow dividing line on the highway, before crossing my lane. I braked,waiting for it to lope back to the woods.

The morning was still pitch black, but it was the first warm day in a long while. It would hit 72 in the city,but not for hours yet. Now, a frightened doe hopped across the highway. I just made the bus, and bus made it to the city early, where I worked for several hours before heading out to the Fenway.

April 14  is Isabella Stewart Gardener‘s birthday, and the nasturtiums are up at the Gardner Museum.  Anytime of the year, if your name is Isabella, you can attend the Gardner for free.

The flowers are carefully tended over the winter, and their voluminous lengths are carried like Vassar’s graduation Daisy Chain to hang from the balconies of the museum. They are only around for a few precious weeks , and last year, there had been some horticultural problem. Now, they blaze bright, plumes of orange and yellow and green, rich as Rapunzel’s hair, were it made entirely of flowers.

If you are in the area, run to the Gardner, but not on Tuesdays, when they close.

There’s also cake in the cafe, made with nasturtiums and strawberries.

 

Ceremonies

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There is a need for ceremony. Today I saw new writers inducted into the world via the PEN New England Literary Awards with a rare sense of homage to the written words. I wish all of our parents had been there, to see how a world might receive a writer’s words, an act of defiance against the dark. All of us mad scribblers, we chafe against one another, hustling, jostling for place, while others remove themselves from the fray. Envy always bites just a little when someone else wins a prize; we could all be contenders. Today, though, I saw a brave young woman from Zimbabwe walk up to the podium to receive her prize and read to us, proving beyond a doubt, for at least a moment, that words are right in the world. I felt proud, and thought, this how we should be received, us foolish people who try to form words and tell a story, and somehow sometimes, amaze with the result. That one win means we all win.

Coyotes

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Indira Ganesan, Noon Like Moon, 2014

Indira Ganesan, Noon Like Moon, 2014

 

I heard the coyotes again last night– arise of yelps pitched high with barks. I once saw them a year ago circle in the horse farm, late at night. Was it coyotes New Englanders heard when they condemned women as witches at Salem? They did the same in England. The sound is unearthly, frightening, because there is an edge of agitation, animal unease. I thought my cats would dive under the bed at the sound last night, but they were merely alert, curious for a while.

Now it is later, and it has been raining since yesterday. A gaggle of geese and ducks are swimming in the neighbor’s lake that two days ago was a field. The horses still have pasture, but I their coats are wet and dirty from rolling in the mud. The white horse died a month back, from age, I think. She did not want to get up, but when pushed, her owners walked her around the pasture. I spied from a window, unable to move away, as they called the vet. Later, a day later, a bulldozer came to dig a grave, and she was buried. She was old. When I fed her carrots last summer, she was hungry, but could barely chew. A new horse came to stay in the fall. So the number is back to five. I wanted to offer my condolences, but did not know what to say, or how. Still, I might have gone down to the farm, to show my respect.

A circle of condos surround the horse farm, and I have been told that long ago, children rode horses where I live now. I am in my third and possibly final spring at the Long Term Residency at The Fine Arts Work Center, and since I moved in, I have been grateful for the presence of the horses. Today I am grateful for the rain which seems to finally usher in the season, though there might be urban flooding.

If this were a Garcia Marquez story, a very old man with enormous wings would appear in a backyard. Maybe he already has. As it is, the geese honk, the rain patters, and  the cats are busy watching and bathing.

As I finish up this post, the rain has given way to wind, howling.