Blue Jay

 Blue Jay / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

(I've been having trouble with the PayPal buttons, so if you want to buy this lovely little bluejay and the button doesn't work, please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com!)

THE SUMMER'S HUMMINGBIRDS left on Thursday. I put new nectar out at the start of the week, and I saw hummers at the feeders through Wednesday, and then - none. 

They were my friends and companions here all summer, humming around my head, entertaining me with their antics at the feeder, amazing me with their speed and agility. 

How I miss them! 

Saturday is the one-year anniversary of Peter's death. When the hummingbirds left, it felt like they took summer with them. When he died, it felt like he took everything with him. 

So I am going away, with my friend Carol and her mother, to a clean Air B&B where we stay every year during the show in Crozet. There's no show, but we had the reservation, and so we are going anyways. He would be proud of me. 

***

A Final Thought

 Thank You

If you find yourself half naked

and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing, 

again, the earth's great, sonorous moan that says

you are the air of the now and gone, that says

all you love will turn to dust,

and will meet you there, do not

raise your fist. Do not raise

your small voice against it. And do not

take cover. Instead, curl your toes

ito the grass watch the cloud

ascending from your lips. Walk

through the garden's dormant splendor.

Say only, thank you. 

Thank you. 

- Ross Gay