if you want to experience days flying away with all of us on their back

just love a child over the years, and the secret workings of time will be
laid out to your wondering, grieving, eyes.

I feel such tenderness

for these hold outs.

We swim through

a scatter of brightness.

The texture of the day:

a curiously unrepeatable mix of light and emotional weather.

Sometimes everything falls into place

A family resemblance

Already looking back on this summer

The curve of her wrist

tells me it was summer.

Two years ago, a century ago --

Her endless unfolding, my tender witness. 

Vertigo all around.

Sometimes we dream the same dream

One version of grace:

standing still in the middle of all that moving water.

Back when this summer was new:

Sometimes the real world looks painted

and sometimes you can walk into a painting and discover a new way forward.

Summer both inside and out

One evening in summer,

the breeze came up and all I could hear was the fish jumping.

In passing,

a brightness that seems to predict good fortune.

(thanks to K and D for sharing)

All the same, in a wonderful way

a few Julys ago.

Lucie's birthday:

When summer comes around again

it's always more beautiful than I remembered.

We go to the coast for the light

and a sense of scale that leaves me feeling small, yet essential.

Summer reading:

how else can we know another's life from the inside?

We return to the same places year after year

A force of nature

Seeing her and the horse under the same hot sky, 

I suddenly understood so much more about this time.

Stretch out wherever you find yourself at the end of the day.

When we go to the beach, the waves carry me into another state of mind--and once again, 

I’m in my kid-body--just noticing how the water feels, combing the sand for shells 

and shark teeth, oblivious to wild hair and the layer of salt and grit 

that coats my legs and everything I own.

The game of Life

Evidence

I've always enjoyed reading the signs of life when I go to a friend's house, or even 

wandering through my own digs. A kind of sideways portrait emerges.

A dance that is always new

One thing leads to another

Once you fall in love with Dutch still-lifes

you begin to see them everywhere, and to hear the cry of time fleeing 

as you gaze at fruit so ripe, flowers that open for one bright day. 

I'm beginning to cherish

all that I don't know.

I had a dream like this, except

we were flying instead of climbing, and the bamboo went on for miles.

Enveloped

The heart inclines towards hope

In fourth grade, they're studying women explorers

and it's easy to imagine her setting off into uncharted waters.

In between the rains

Persephone's postcard:

We curve around our sleep like bulbs in the ground
with their invisible, incipient, leaves--not ready to push into the world above.

A certain gesture

will sometimes throw me back to another time with another love.

Her collector's eye is like my sister's, and the delicate seed pods 

with their ghostly sheen, remind me how quickly it all speeds by.

A halo of light around all things.

When it snows all plans are off

and it's astonishing how happy this makes me. All my neighbors were out in the park

with their kids and their dogs and suddenly we were an impromptu tribe, and I was

almost drunk with a sense of possibility that is rare in my jam-packed grown-up life. 

Standing at the edge of something big

I hold onto these brilliant afternoons when I'm feeling shrouded and directionless. 

Somewhere this pulse continues and we're all standing close to the edge, 

ready to step out in joy.

After a week of change,

a chance to settle in again.

Fur and sunlight

The first day of the year