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

Mr. Blue

Mr. Blue / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

THE BIRDS DON'T KNOW that there's a pandemic. They pay no heed to social distance. They crowd the feeders, gather in big flocks on the lawn, string themselves side by each by dozens on the telephone wires. 

And if someone tells you that you eat like a bird, they probably mean to say you don't eat much, but they would be so wrong. The birds at my feeders are pigs! And I love them for it. They come back 100 times in an hour. They stuff their beaks full. They toss the seeds they don't like to the ground so they can get at the ones they do like. And they fight the other birds for food, and for the best spots at the troughs. 

It's how we are in our deep, dark souls, isn't it? 

***

For Today

The Pasture

I'm going out to clear the pasture spring;

I'll only stop to rake the leaves away

(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):

I sha'n't be gone long. - You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf

That's standing by the mother. It's so young,

It totters when she licks it with her tongue.

I sha'n't be gone long. - You come too. 

-Robert Frost

Blue Jay

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

sold! 

IN THE EVENING YESTERDAY, Justin came and mowed the lawn. It was chilly and windy, and he was dressed like the Unabomber, in a dun-colored jacket with the hood pulled up, and a baseball hat underneath. 

My yard is tiny, but the grass was high, unmowed since October. Justin buzzed through in his huge lawnmower, finishing in moments, then whacked the weeds and blew the pine needles off the little back decking area, and then he was gone. 

As dusk lowered into night, the rich, deep smell of the spring soil, cooling after the day's warmth, underlined the fresh, bright-green smell of the grass. I stood in the nearly dark yard and watched the dogs race around, surprised and delighted by the short lawn, and I thought about Peter, and how he would have stood here with me, enjoying this simple, lovely moment. 

***

For Today

Refugee

Loneliness terrific beats on my heart,

Bending the bitter broken boughs of pain.

Stunned by the onslaught that tears the sky apart

I stand with unprotected head against the rain. 

Loneliness terrific turns to panic and to fear.

I hear my footsteps on the stairs of yesteryear,

Where are you?  Oh, where are you?

Once so dear.

- Langston Hughes