After a long plane ride (this one was 11+ hours!), it often feels to me like I am still trailing molecules of myself along the flight path, and it takes awhile to feel reassembled in one place. Today, three days at home, I finally feel here. I celebrated by working on a poem and making a real breakfast from the garden enhanced with salt from the Camargue.
Both the literary and the culinary work were satisfying, with the hens still contributing a few eggs.
As the days get shorter, the egg production decreases, however, and with only four pullets, I won’t have many eggs this winter unless I buy a few young hens.
I posted all the photos from the trip on Facebook, which friends can see–so if you’re not already, you can “friend me” (how I hate that verb!) and look at the lot.
Oh, and that plane ride reminds me of an old favorite poem of mine by Sharon Olds, called Topography:
After we flew across the country we
got in bed, laid our bodies
delicately together, like maps laid
face to face, East to West, my
San Francisco against your New York, your
Fire Island against my Sonoma, my
New Orleans deep in your Texas, your Idaho
bright on my Great Lakes, my Kansas
burning against your Kansas your Kansas
burning against my Kansas, your Eastern
Standard Time pressing into my
Pacific Time, my Mountain Time
beating against your Central Time, your
sun rising swiftly from the right my
sun rising swiftly from the left your
moon rising slowly from the left my
moon rising slowly from the right until
all four bodies of the sky
burn above us, sealing us together,
all our cities twin cities,
all our states united, one
nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Sharon Olds