Gulls

Gulls / Oil on black canvas / 8x10 / $88 including shipping

sold! 

I'VE PROPPED OPEN THE BACK DOOR this morning and the dogs are celebrating by running in and out, just because they can. 

It's the first cool morning of the summer, and I am enjoying feeling the chilly air wash in. There are not many days in which I can prop the door open. Not many days in which the temperature is right and the bug quotient is right. So I celebrate with the dogs. 

It's 61 degrees and I am dressed for our walk in shorts and a T-shirt. I know I will be cold, but I haven't been cold for so long that it feels like a luxury. I will have all fall and all winter to wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts, so I shall sail through the open door and continue the celebration a little as I shiver. 

***
A Last Thought

September Tomatoes

The whiskey stink of rot has settled

in the garden, and a burst of fruit flies rises

when I touch the dying tomato plants.

Still, the claws of tiny yellow blossoms

flail in the air as I pull the vines up by the roots

and toss them in the compost.

It feels cruel. Something in me isn't ready

to let go of summer so easily. To destroy

what I've carefully cultivated all these months.

Those pale flowers might still have time to fruit.

My great-grandmother sang with the girls of her village

as they pulled the flax. Songs so old

and so tied to the season that the very sound

seemed to turn the weather.

- Karina Borowicz