July 4, 2025

I have a favorite poem I wrote 22 years ago when they were learning language and my backyard was filled with Queen Anne's Lace.  They would go in the back and pull it out by its roots and bring it to me.  So much of my poetry was based on their development.  Today my yard is covered in very tall shoots of variations on the theme.  And I spent the day with them engaged by new information they were passing on to me about the beginning of language in humans.  22 years...






The pit is being lined by rock and clay dug from the hole.  The clay bed by the stream is massive.  They've collected buckets.  fire pit; EJ Worth
They've also made the playhouse into a chicken barrack strong enough to keep the most ferocious raccoon out.  What was once a playhouse built by a Dad for his child is now architecture built to out whit chicken eaters. 


We had a nice day together and ignored the 4th and our anger and fear and pain about what has happened this week.  They made me dinner and showed me all the work they've put into the yard this week.   It's a sweet spot up on that creak.  It was nice to just be calm and happy today.  Love you, EJ.   




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
  January 3, 2025 The Complexity (what I refer to as the texture) of Life This is a photo of Michael Whiton, eldest child of Jean O. Whiton.  If you knew our mother, you know whose eyes he inherited.  Picture was taken by Linda Boardman.        I did not take pictures today, nor was my brain very able.  So tonight you get a poem I wrote 25 years ago that is more spirited than I could write tonight. I Believe in Color   I believe in red the changing forever-ness of red.  A pure rich red: cotton tee shirt red, berries on the bushes in the dead of  New England winters, cherries in June next to a slab of ripe brie. Magenta, a little redder than wine, blood as it begins to dry, the curtains I always wanted, floor length heavy velvet. Orange red on the skins of a tangelo; blood oranges in a light blue porcelain bowl on a small table near stark white walls. Dusty rose of an old flannel duvet, the height of fashion in 1980. I believe i...
Read more
Image
January  4, 2025 Michael E. Whiton  June 30, 1944 - January 4, 2025     I always talk about patterns, it is my researcher's brain.  This morning I texted with my niece, Grace, and asked her what her 12 year old was really into. She told me math.  He plays the flute in his school band.  I had an epiphany when the 2 things got put together.  To grow up with music as a constant all through your childhood you are exposed to patterns.  You become aware of what can follow what.  My 3 year old great niece makes up little songs, repetitive musical patterns.  Her father repeats them or adds to them.  She already knows how to put notes together.  That's math.  That's what Liam does.        So what does all that have to do with Michael's leaving us on this plain today.  Well, one pattern is that we all seem to be good with babies.   When Mike was 21, Jason was born.  He was good to babies....
Read more
Image
  January 2, 2025 Time is both too soon and too late.   Just keeps slipping.     I believe it was 1996 or 7 when I flew out to Bainbridge Island to see my brother, Mike.  He was very ill and my Mom was worried and wanted me to go assess the situation, which I did, probably in not such a diplomatic way.  He really was ill.  His liver was failing and he wasn't getting put on the transplant list, yet.  I've never quite understand the whys and the wherefores of all that.  But for the next 4 or so years he maintained, so sick, sometimes optimistic, sometimes beaten, but he made it to a liver transplant in August 2000 in Worchester.       24 years ago, holy shit.  EJ's entire life, a third of mine; and again he kept living, kept listening to music and trying to be kind and never regaining any reliable health.   His story is fascinating, and I'll tell it sometime, but not tonight.  Tonight I just want to ...
Read more