Dripping maples, full birdbaths, flowers bowing their heads.
Since yesterday morning, the temperature hasn’t gone up or down more than two degrees. We leave the house open. Last night, we could hear the crickets. Rain or no rain, now is their time.
Thoreau’s journal, February 1854. One day, he followed the tracks of a fox in the snow over a mile.
No phone, no map, no app. Strolling vs. scrolling.
Upon returning from a walk this morning, I noticed that our enormous dark-red coleus plant, which had recently begun to bloom, had broken in three or four places from the weight of the rain. The breaks were at the base, where the branches are woody and at least half an inch in diameter. I made a few cuttings, brought them inside, and put them in a small vase filled with water. The rest I disposed of. Then I cut back the remaining branches, to a height of about two and a half feet.
The wildflowers in the garden are all but done, but a new crop of seeds has sprouted; by their appearance, they’re mostly alyssum.
How near the word alyssum is to asylum. Sweet asylum.
Read the fifth chapter of Middlemarch.
September 1, 2023.
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[ 1854 ]
Categories: If It Had A Name
Tags: Asylum, Birdbaths, Coleus, Crickets, Flowers, Gardens, George Eliot, Journals, Maples, Middlemarch, Rain, Reading, Snow, Sweet Alyssum, Thoreau, Walking, Wildflowers, Words
William Michaelian 