I was awakened this morning in two stages by two separate sounds. The first was the song sparrow, marking the 8:00 hour on the bird song clock; the second was the buzz of my iPhone under my pillow with birthday wishes from a friend.
I love having a summer birthday.
Because we are travelers, I have celebrated my birthday in many places—at summer camps, in Boston on the Freedom Trail, at Gettysburg and Cape Cod, on Route #66 in Arizona, in Montana and Wyoming, on the Oregon Trail, and more than once, here at the cottage.
Yep, a summer birthday is good.
It’s cool and sunny here today. The lake is smooth and calm. The water reflects up into the green of the trees making them look like electrical neon trees. There’s a swan on the lake in my front yard. HJohn reads on the dock. Ben is putting together small cardboard animal models. Charlie is eating a big fat chocolate donut from the Elk Rapids Bakery. Ron Jolly is hyping the weekend air show on WTCM. The dogs loll in the sun.
Our plan today is to maybe go in to Traverse and see a movie, eat out, spend several hours at a book store. A slow, relaxing day that was enhanced by over 40 birthday wishes first thing this morning.
“No man is a failure who has friends.”
—Frank Capra
Hey, Chris, happy birthday and many happy returns of the day!
ReplyDeleteChris: I tried to post this yesterday in wishing you happy birthday but I think: fail. some of your writing here reminded me of this poem. I was thinking of my short time at the lake (see: Ordinary People) and how much it is imprinted on my memory. happy birthday.
ReplyDeleteOrion's belt
I dreamt a man made of darkness,
his back to me
in a room made of night
turned towards me,
and his belt, slung across his hips,
was Orion's:
three bright stars, and the mighty hunter
did not flinch, and a fool might have mistook his form
for a statute, Keatsian arm forever cradling his weapon,
and youth might mistake him as unformed,
his limbs incomplete in the roiling shadows,
but although foolish, i despaired
and the storm of his visage
stole the warm air from my beautiful lungs
and arrested the clear beat of my gorgeous heart
and shuttered the light in my perfect brown eyes
and in the time that unravels while the furred rabbit in
the winter woods registers in the twitch of her skin
the furtive shadow of the fox
Orion was upon me and
the last I knew of this earth
was my tipped head in the summer field
the grass scratchy on my bare legs
the trickle of popsicle
on my freckled arms,
the flashlight abandoned,
my eyes straining reason in the stars above for constellations,
easy to spot in the grade school exam,
impossible to be sure in the night sky,
the big dipper,
the north star,
Orion's belt.