Full Spicebush Swallowtail Chasing Barn Swallows Moon

The Full SSCBS Moon rises about 830 Thursday night. Get out and enjoy it y'all. P and I enjoyed a extended weekend with my sister at her ranch near Navasota, Tx over Father's Day. I'm telling you our time there was so quiet and unhurried. P and Celest visited and cooked and visited and cooked having the best of sister-times. While there we were constanly swarmed by Barn Swallows who were tending nestlings in mud nests up under the eaves of the porch, pretty cool and interesting. More than a few times I would look up from a book or conversation to see a Spicebush Swallowtail, that is a butterfly y'all, in full Top Gun combat mode in persuit of a Barn Swallow, I mean hot on his tail. Never in my life have I whitnessed such and I am not sure what that was all about or that is what I actually saw. The ranch house is set in the middle of 100ac and surrounded by hundreds more, neighbors were scarce as hen's teeth and not visible from our vantage point. I'd call this the edge of the Texas Hill Country and wildflowers were abundant, the grass was growing because of much rain of late, more than normal. Lots of smiling cows too. Last full moon was on May 26. Shortly after that on June 1 and June 15 I had cataract repair on right then left eyes. Yay! Y'all, things were getting fuzzy. 5-26-21 At 745pm I whitnessed the first Locust of our summer in our yard, it just popped out and started singing soon to be answered by a scraggly chorus. Jake and our friend Catherine G have been talking about the swarming Cicadas in the NE, ours though are annual and expected and welcomed. 5-27-21 And from all places y'all, Smiley's column in the Acadiana Advocate: A Summer Haiku Turn on the Faucet The water never gets cold Summertime is here Pat Cougevan, Mandeville, La Yep Pat, that just about sums it up. 5-29-21 Tough work but someone has to do it, P and I went to Cecelia after church Saturday pm, for a crawfish boil in honor of our pretty songbird granddaughter Maggie a new HS graduate. It was drizzling on and off but that was not an issue. I told anyone who would listen that these "levee people" can eat crawfish in the rain, no problem, they are built for that. 5-30-21 Like I said it is tough work, P and I took off this Sunday am for Dutchtown and a second crawfish boil. This one for my two beautiful grandchildren, poor things have BD in the same week, 15yrs and 13yrs. Fortunatly the weather has cleared off because we have this pool party too. Crawfish and water, but not the type falling from the sky. Yay! -Cataracts gone, Yay! I can see, I can see, Gratitude! 6-17-21 Navasota bound, whew, that is quite a drive. 6-19-21 Spicebush Swallowtail chasing Barn Swallows, fun! Juneteenth yall, especially meaningful if you had been enslaved your entire existence. 6-20-21 Happy Father's Day, Yay! 1 MIKI over the creek bottom, not as common as in lower upper St Martin Parish, way more vultures though. Due to a lack of FD poems here are two found poems I failed to publish for Mother's Day: From Margaret- For My Mother --after May Sarton Once more I listen to the music of my past with harmony rising in my throat. At the piano or stereo, from choir to opera, your notes entered my bones. Keeping a distance, my ears remember the vibrations of the walls I closed myself in. Your song brought us through flood waters. I remember laying out sheet music to dry. Then you made a home with new walls. Today I find the box of cards you collected and choose one to send you. Maybe you will recognize the paper, the handwriting, or the return address. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter. I remember your song and that is enough. Margaret Simon, draft From my buddy Melissa: NOËLIE Catholic saints cluster at the end of the long silver chain. Thick like janitor’s keys, they jingle on my grandmother’s bountiful breasts. The blessed medals glue to her cleavage in August heat. Louisiana sweat makes her gold cotton dress catch in all the wrong places. Sundays she prepares lunch for grown children and grandchildren. Silver saints come alive, shimmy and shake to rolling pin rhythms as she leans into the wet croquecignole dough plopped inside a wreath of white flour. Deep fat fries to the perfect amber. Then drizzle and coat with chocolate, powdered sugar or dark, sharp Steen’s cane syrup. The night my puppy died she held me. Saints floated on a skim of tears. Chants of archaic French swaddled me in Iye, iye, iye, Ah! The creak of the oak rocker’s hips kept time. Her song rose from her chest and seeded inside me, my ear cupped against her skin to hear the voices of my ancestors fill the room with wandering songs, lullabies and refugee refrains, with whispers of saints and silver medals and everything I needed to remember. Iye, iye, iye, Ah! Melissa Bonin Painter, Dancer, Poet *croquecignole, French cake donut *La Grande Dérangement expulsion of the Acadians from Canada. Also known as the great upheaval. The largest ethnic cleansing of people of European decent in North America. Ahhh Melissa, when i close my eyes I can see your MawMaw, thank you. 6-21-21 Summer Solstice Y'all. In this heat I like to dream of us racing back to the short days of winter after this the longest day's length (and the shortest night's length) of this cycle around the sun. 6-24-21 Full Spicebush Swallowtail Chasing Barn Swallows Moon y'all! OF PRAYER NOW a poem by Andrea Potos After cocooning myself in my comforter before sleep comes, I lay with eyes open in the dark. One by one I conjure them all, finding again their magnanimous, smiling faces-- my queue of beloveds, returned. This is the way of prayer now-- to remember Love in all its past and present forms. Like Wendell Barry said in Manifesto "Be joyful even though you've considered all the facts" peace love possumhugs BT