July 9: Fairy houses

My niece informs me

fairies are attracted to

blue forget-me-nots.

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July 5: Eleven

Eleventh birthday.

Three boxes of sparklers

then, fireflies.

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November 27: Beech Hill

Along the trail up--

sharing fragrant bayberries

with an amazed child.

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November 26: Thanksgiving Day

Before the family feast

I beat a nine-year-old

at the Game of Life.

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October 31: Halloween walk at Merryspring

The child carries around

the chestnut husk

as if it were a new pet.

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August 7: Herring Gut Learning Center

My nine-year-old niece attended marine biology day camp at the Herring Gut Learning Center in Port Clyde this week, and today the kids shared with their families what they'd been up to. This included showing off their art works as well as various creatures in the classroom aquarium and a touch tank.

 

My niece and her friends

show us scallop's fifty eyes,

hold stars in their hands.

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April 5: Easter morning

Cardinal's loud whistle.

Kids in down jackets

race around for Easter eggs.

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July 22: Out with my niece

Waiting for our food
at the Waterfront,
we play Mad Libs.

March 25: Pierced ears

Ah, the old rites of passage... My seven-year-old niece got her ears pierced!

A sign of spring:
little gold studs
in newly pierced ears.

October 20: After they saw the Wizard of Oz exhibit at the Farnsworth Museum

My mom and I took my two young nieces up the chair lift at the Camden Snow Bowl this morning, to enjoy the view from on high on Ragged Mountain: burnished golds of the foliage, glimpse of the bay and its islands.

She had to wear
her shiny new red shoes
up the mountain.

[Information on the Farnsworth's Wizard of Oz exhibit, which I haven't yet seen, here.]

July 5: Fiona's birthday

My niece turned seven today, and we had a family celebration at her parents' camp on a lake in Union. As we were all feasting with much merriment, a spectacular sunset was bubbling up behind the trees, turning the water pink. Later, the neighbors set off loud by pretty fireworks. And all around the camp, illusory fireflies glittered in the darkness.

Diffusing sunset.
Fiona blows out candles.
Fireflies blink on... off...

February 19: Elephants

My mom took my two young nieces and I to Hope Elephants this morning to see Rosie and Opal, a pair of beautiful old circus elephants who have been retired to a farm here in coastal Maine to be given a unique form of water therapy and rehabilitation for joint issues. They are 41 and 43 respectively, and their wrinkled heads and and wide-open, intense eyes lent them the full wisdom of age. The educator at the farm told us that an elephant is one of the few animals that can recognize itself in the mirror. Maybe because my birthday's coming up, I couldn't help but wonder if they look older to themselves now than they used to.

Watching two old elephants--
tomorrow I will be older
than either of them.

November 22: Thanksgiving

Things I am thankful for (so far) today:

Being awakened by my affectionate cat
Blue sky
the New York Times crossword puzzle
Walk up Beech Hill with my mother, sister, and two nieces
Two mice mating, playing, or otherwise squabbling in the weeds, trailside
My niece's fascination with bayberries
The scent of crushed bayberries
My other niece's joy in banging two rocks together
Distant red of autumn-burnished blueberry fields
Good health
Free time for my husband to write
A little free time for me to write too
Not losing the Thanksgiving turkey, brining on my parents' porch this morning, to a fox
Crows on the lawn
Cat's amusing attempts to jump through the windows at birds and squirrels

Prayer flags and dry leaves
stir in the breeze,
share blessings.

July 23: Ice cream

This is the first post I've written in four days, because I've been on an island with my six-year-old niece. The combination of an intermittent wi fi link out there and having to focus all my energy on a small, active person prevented posts, though there were certainly many poetic moments. They will have to remain in my memory for now.

Tonight my poet friend Elizabeth and I met for our monthly poetry session so we could both feel like writers again for a few hours. To prepare for our scheduled time of intense sharing and discussion, we enjoyed drinks and dinner al fresco at a hip bistro near my writing studio, and after dinner, walked to a riverside ice cream stand for dessert.

I had to laugh, because my niece's favorite thing about spending the weekend with me on the island was that I let her get an ice cream for dessert after lunch and dinner every day. She ended up eating five ice cream cones in three days. So you'd think I'd have had enough ice cream. But there's something about walking the sidewalks of our hometown on a warm summer evening that made getting an ice cream cone the natural activity, somehow helping us transition perfectly from the mode of enjoying dinner out with a friend to a serious discussion of each other's writing.

Ice cream cone in hand
I'm in a child's state of mind--
open, word-ready.

July 6: Fireflies

Because of the fog, Fourth of July fireworks were postponed until last night here in Camden. It being my niece's birthday, we spent the evening with my family at the lake instead.

While cruising around the lake in my brother-in-law's boat--outpacing some dragonflies and otherwise making the most of sunset's golden glow at the end of a long, hot day--we came upon a boat full of guys setting off their own fireworks. Nothing fancy, just colored lights fired into the air with a satisfying "bang," but enough to entertain my nieces, ages three and six. Now that purchase of fireworks is legal in Maine, I have a feeling we'll be seeing more these modest "neighborhood" displays on various holidays. Setting off fireworks over a lake seemed the perfect way to enjoy them, and it certainly lit up our twilight boat ride, adding that extra burst of fun to make a little girl's sixth birthday even more special.

As we were heading for home down the long dirt road from the camp, the woods showcased the best fireworks show of the summer: fireflies! A dark grove of spruce trees was particularly illuminated by dozens of blinking, flashing creatures, inspiring one to make wishes as if on falling stars come to earth. As kids my best friend and I used to catch a jar full and bring them into the tent with us whenever we were "camping out" in the back yard. I remember how mystified I was each morning when the magical living lights of the night before turned out to be rather plain-looking black insects.

Driving back into Camden, we passed the fireworks traffic heading out of town. We had missed the big fireworks show over the harbor. But we were graced with some spectacular glimpses of the rising moon, a lopsided orange balloon slowly rising above the hayfields, that made me shout out loud in the car.

Fireflies, orange moon
rising over the harbor--
summer's brief pleasures.

June 30: Youngsters

The other day a very motley-looking titmouse alit on my feeder. Instead of the smooth, plain gray that most titmice sport, this bird was patchy, with brown streaking on its belly and odd feathers sticking out here and there. It took me a few seconds to realize this was a fledgling, recently out of the nest. Already it has learned what a bird feeder is and how to make good use of it. Young-looking chickadees have been appearing at my feeder, as well.

This morning a catbird fledgling was perched on a post at the end of the driveway, whining to another bird waiting in a nearby tree. While the size of a mature bird, it too was a bit ragged around the edges, its sleek adult plumage not yet fully grown in. I've been hearing a catbird singing fragments of song outside my window the past week or so, and now wonder if that bird was a youngster--this one or a nest-mate--practicing its new singing voice.

Meanwhile, at river's edge, a young crow caws with an insistent, whiny pitch that any parent around the world would recognize as begging. On the river, a flotilla of geese, a few smaller and less distinctly patterned than the rest, heads upstream in a tight bunch.

And earlier this week, my two nieces, age three and six, returned to Maine with my sister and brother-in-law to spend the summer at their camp on a nearby lake.

Encouraged by warmth,
young birds try out new feathers,
children learn to swim. 

April 14: Child's play

My nieces, age 2-1/2 and 5-1/2, are visiting this weekend, and today was "Niece Day" for me. I'm not quite up to taking on both of them together for the entire day, so I spent the first half with the younger child, Nola. Our time together, the first she's ever spent completely alone with me, included such simple pleasures as getting purple unicorn sugar cookies for a snack and hiking up Beech Hill. On the way up we discussed blueberries, hurricanes, Alvin and the Chipmunks, building sand castles, and other important matters, pausing often to "rest"--i.e. sit in the trail side grass and toss pebbles at things. She filled her pocket with random bits of gravel she deemed "treasure." During one of our rest stops, a harrier flew over our heads, close enough that even Nola could appreciate it. She also appreciated Beech Nut, the stone hut at the summit that my sisters and I were taken to by our mother starting about when we were Nola's age. Nola imagined the stone-walled rooms inside as good places for Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty to live. Then I gave her a piggy-back ride back down the hill.

After a good healthy lunch of pizza and another cookie, I dropped off Nola and picked up the older niece, Fiona. It was Fiona's idea to go fishing with Uncle Paul so she could watch him and be his fishing helper. So we clambered down to the river and Paul's favorite fishing spot, where he cast a line without much hope because the water level's so low right now. But, surprisingly, he hooked a fish in no time, and Fiona reeled it in--a small, pretty brook trout; her first fish! As this was going on, an osprey flew overhead and perched nearby, perhaps hoping that it could get it on the action after we released the trout. Paul let Fiona pick out the next fly, and though he was skeptical of her choice, she was quickly reeling in her second fish, a little smallmouth bass. Already her lifetime fishing record tops mine.

Later, after more adventures at home and an early dinner at the Waterfront (the usual for Fiona: plain pasta, hot fudge sundae), we walked along the Harbor Park sea wall and were thrilled to see a river otter hanging out in the harbor. Several times it poked its head out of the water to look right at us. It was Fiona's first otter, an event made even more significant by the fact that her last name is van Otterloo, so the family has a strong affinity for otters.

While I'm thoroughly exhausted now, I'm grateful for this day of many small excitements made even better by their being shared with my two favorite little girls.

Young or old, we all
appreciate hawks, otter,
spring's first-caught brookie.

September 8: Lesotho

This morning in my West Bay Rotary meeting a woman involved with Qholaqhoe Mountain Connections gave us an update on a project that my club helps sponsor in Lesotho. We sponsor a child who is attending high school in a rural region of this third world country surrounded by South Africa. Almost a quarter of the people in this tiny country have AIDS, and many of the children the non-profit sponsors are AIDS orphans. She told us that some of the kids walk two hours one way to get to school, because they know that going to school and doing well is their only chance to rise above the poverty and hunger that surrounds them. Because high school is tuition-based, many children cannot attend without scholarships, instead staying home to work to help their families. The scholarship for a year of school is $250. That seems like nothing to us, but some kids who had to leave school and work were only earning the equivalent of $7.50 a year. I'm pretty sure I heard that correctly.

As I was listening to the presentation and seeing the slides of the beaming students in their crisp uniforms, I couldn't help but think of my niece attending her first full day of kindergarten today. Despite all the crazy ups and downs of the economy and our current political scene, we are still so fortunate, so privileged--and it's rather sad that it takes exposure to life in a third world country to drive that fact home for me. We take our schooling--at least through high school--for granted. We take our water for granted, while this village had just built a water containment thing that now meant the kids didn't have to walk two hours to fill gallon jugs from a creek to water their gardens. Some of the children who are orphans live with relatives or family friends, but others live alone in what was their family home. I think of some child arriving to an empty cinder block house after a two-hour walk from school, having already eaten her one meal of the day at school (maize-based mash with kale for protein). What can her dreams be? Does she have any hopes for her future? Does she dare?

I think of Lesotho and love my niece, thankful that she is one child in the world who is well-loved and well taken care of. She'll get a good education. Opportunity lies before her. She won't go hungry. And maybe when she's older, she'll help some of those, like the children of Lesotho, who are less fortunate than she. Forgive me if this all sounds a bit melodramatic. But these children are real. They're out there, millions of them.

Poor crops, hungry child.
As we harvest fall bounty,
let's not forget her.

August 22: Just some eagles

Late yesterday afternoon we visited my sister and family at their lakeside camp. My brother-in-law, father, and two nieces were out in the little beat-up motorboat that my brother-in-law had somehow coaxed back to life, making the most of the day's dying light with one last ride. When they landed at the dock, my five-year-old niece came running up to see us. "How was the boat ride?" we asked her. "What did you see out there?" "Oh, just some eagles," she replied nonchalantly.

Shortly thereafter, as we shared hors d'oeuvres on the deck, we did indeed see a bald eagle, soaring majestically over the island directly across from us. My niece informed us that she wasn't a fan of eagles because they "look mean." As best we can tell, her only frame of reference for an eagle's facial expression is the wooden eagle sculpture that was hanging near our table at The Waterfront Restaurant when we took her out to dinner there recently. For a child, however, the devil's in the details.

What I love is that seeing "some eagles" is almost a non-event for her. I don't think I saw my first bald eagle here in Maine until I was in high school. And it was years more before I began seeing them on a regular basis. Maine's eagle population has made an incredible comeback from the days of DDT--there are over 500 breeding pairs in the state now, and the species has been federally delisted. Eagles soaring over Maine's lakes are becoming a common sight, one that I hope will remain so for my nieces for many years to come.

A wish for my niece:
may bald eagles always soar
in your summer skies.

August 13: Early Morning Clamor

My niece Fiona slept-over last night--in my bed with me, in fact, while my poor husband (who snores) was relegated to the inflatable spare bed in his office. Because we stayed up so late watching a movie she'd brought, she fortunately fell asleep almost immediately, after my reading only two pages of "Little House in the Big Woods." This morning, we both woke up at 6:00 a.m., but thankfully she decided that was too early to get up and so fell back asleep.

I was almost asleep again myself, when it started: the blue jay racket. Right outside the bedroom window, several jays were yelling loudly and incessantly at something and they were not relenting. I kept thinking that any minute they'd stop, having moved along an intruding cat (usually what instigates such a racket) or hawk. But they kept going, and I worried they'd wake up my niece. Being a good auntie (who wants more sleep herself), I went outside to see what it was and if I could help move it along so the birds would shut up. I was very surprised, when I got out there, to look up and see a young porcupine hanging out in a tree just above our shed. I wasn't going to have much influence with that situation. So I went back in to bed hoping Fiona would somehow sleep through the noise now augmented by a family of cardinals and a couple of crows. Of course she didn't.

But she was very interested in going out to see the baby porcupine. So we watched it for a while, and then began our day. When my husband woke up an hour later it was still there. Two hours later it was still there, only having shifted position a bit. But when we returned from a day's outing with my niece and her family late this afternoon, it appeared to have moved on--from our yard, at least. Since porcupines are slow creatures, it's probably not far away. (My niece astutely compared it to a sloth.)

I'm still not entirely sure why the birds were so agitated about the porcupine, which was probably just looking for a place to hang out and nap for the day (they're generally nocturnal). My husband thinks it would eat birds' eggs if it found them, but I think they're mostly herbivores. Perhaps the birds just don't like a bulky mammal hanging out in their trees.

Real life angry birds
disturbing the porcupine's
sleep and mine--for what?