the last blue iris

 It is Christmas Eve, the Solstice come and gone, our tree up, the house quiet and child-less. Teen-less. My phone has pinged twice this week to let me know I was exposed to COVID while in the Denver airport; aside from the times I vomited (migraine, I hope) in the bathroom and in the plane's barf bag, I wore a K95 mask. I am vaxxed and boosted.  My son is in Michigan in a quarantined house, his stepsister with COVID but so far, everyone else okay. Her mother is a nurse, her mother loves her daughters fiercely and from all accounts is kind to J. I must believe things will be all right. Today I crocheted a hat (it isn't great, but it sort of fits my pumpkin sized head), I ran, I walked the old dog through drizzle, unlit Christmas lights. R. and I drove out to Kelley Point park, down Portland Highway past encampment after encampment near container yards, in low-lying wet places, near the road. At the park, a school bus with the side torn off, a light on, a stove; a minivan with ...

August, 2021, South Haven, Michigan I am on the back deck in Somewhere, Great Lakes America listening to thunder roll in off Lake Michigan, cicadas and katydids and crickets whir in the trees above me. A giant silver maple in the middle of the yard, young catalpa and sumac and a tree I have forgotten the name of. Hostas with giant white flowers, giant hostas;  rose of sharon gone wild, virginia creeper and locust trees and the hum of air conditioners,  mosquitoes and tiny black flies and silverfish in the bathroom. Air like soup. November 20, 2021,  Kentwood, Michigan I am again in an airport hotel room 1,700 miles away from home, having delivered J. to his father for the week. Tomorrow I fly home again, and then repeat the whole thing in reverse next weekend. I want to write but lately I feel empty, a windblown field, the way the countryside drops away doe-brown as I drive from my mediocre airport hotel to the Lake, only oaks and beeches holding their leaves, the fields ...