Windmills

For some reason, windmills tinge my mood with melancholic nostalgia. Not sure why - I'm not Dutch - but seeing these strong yet graceful structures flail at the air reassures me. Perhaps it's that windmills turn something invisible - the air - and transforms it into power that intrigues me. We visited Williamsburg on the way home and this mill was my first glimpse of the village.

Spring break took us down to North Carolina to celebrate my father's 71st birthday. He still looked frail, though better than three months ago, his spindly arms listing at his side, the skin of his face drooping from the 7 weeks of radiation and chemo. But he stood there, stalwart, stubborn, pushing his breath over his candled cake.

A good trip.

The Reading... The Nudgers are full throttle again, running our novels through each other's discerning eyes and itchy red pens. So far I've read the first chapters of Among Us, a sci-fi story; Under the Devil's Club, a mystery; and Flashes from the Hot Zone, women's lit/comedy. All great stuff.

The Writing... Twelve pages away from finishing beta-reader revisions on Brighter than Bright; tomorrow, the book will rest before a final run-through for typos. I find myself emotional as I near the end, as if parting with a dear friend. The first chapter of PURE almost ready for posting to my Nudgers. And of course, a poem a day. Fell behind over vacation, but caught up late last night.

I leave you with inspiration found in the garden and in response to the prompt: a memory.

Mother Memory

Cutting rhubarb in the rain,
the mottled leaves
thick with mud and slugs,
I wonder if these five plants,
robust now, will stand
another season
in this shaded corner.

If not, next spring
my husband will surprise me,
bearing rhizomes, golden
gifts, then plant them
so my garden will be
as my mother’s, and her
mother’s, and, perhaps, all
our mothers’ before.

Later, like my mother,
I’ll slice the stalks
into chunks for pie.
Mine has strawberries,
though she says
‘ruins the rhubarb’,
so she’d make sauce
and eat from the pot,
still warm, spoon
clanking against the sides,
a sigh of a smile
trespassing her face.

In her eyes, my mixed fruit
splendor makes me a bit
of a rebel; she taught me well.
But tendering these stalks,
making the pie,
heralds me a holder
of apron strings,
honoring our history
unmarked with words
or trophies, and therefore,
all the more important.

I wonder how my daughter
will make her pie.



Peace, Linda