Mary McCloskey

Pondering Light

The sky the last week has been the most vivid blue slate, absolutely ethereal. It speaks September, but I don't want to listen. Just a few more days of heat and color and, in the evening, the murmur of cicadas, I think, to fill my larder with blue-sky visions before the long days of chill and bluster really begin.

The wild vine

The wild vine ramps through the old cement floor, meandering in the cracks of time.

Study of light and shadow

Playing with combining two photographs.

Drinking in Summer

These are the days of lolling on the patio at 6 p.m., listening to the cicadas as they hum their tune, watching the butterflies drifting in and out among the milkweed, sipping sweet nectar.

Deadheading the Lobelia

Deadheading the Lobelia

5:45 of an August evening,
I sit on the patio,
the blue lobelia in my mother’s white ceramic pots
becoming sparse and leggy.

I should have pinched the blooms back days ago.
Now it’s uncertain if
the perfect periwinkle blossoms
will ever return.

Winter nights,
I dream of tubs of delicate lobelia,
clouds of blue heaven
flourishing in my mother’s creamy white pots

Sixty-nine last month,
Next year: 70
Next summer, I think, will be the summer of blessings
The pots will have tallied another year’s cracks and veins,
But a year’s patina can only make those indigo blooms more precious.

 

The force of water

I wish I could include the sound of this lake water crashing against the concrete as it falls from one level in the lake into a retaining pond.

Water-logged

Thatcher Woods was still awash in deep water this afternoon, the result of just too much rain in June and July. The reflection of the downed limbs in the swampy water gave the scene an otherworldly look.

August 1st: evening on the porch

As I sit on the porch in the early evening, I notice shadows of blossoms from the flowerpots lining the walk. A cooling breeze soughs through the leaves from the maple out front. August 1st.