Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Mary Lee HERE. She has turned one of Lindas “clunkers” into delightful verse about green beans. Thank you, Mary Lee, for hosting!
Today I sat on my porch with a glass of iced coffee, water dripping from the glass, thinking about summer and the 92 degree heat, listening to the sounds of insects, imagining the heat rippling upward from my suburban street.
The heavy air bore down and the loud chirp of the crickets or cicadas in the trees did too, in peaked crescendoes.
I documented the day in haiku:
HEAT rippling off asphalt practically invisible— searching for water WATER In all things alive. Clear, cool, modest miracle quietly cycles. SUMMER SOUNDS Sweltering back porch. Leaves wave as cricket sounds flow like ocean waters.
I wanted to celebrate the living things around me and the interdependence in nature that supports us.
Everything everyone does, day to day, involves water. Water is part of all that is alive and beautiful in the world. I am grateful for heat, too, appreciating as the temps rise how it is moderated so it doesn’t hurt us, balanced by water in lakes, rivers and oceans.
Below is Skaneateles Lake in the Fingerlakes, where I can practically see the water cycling and cooling the air. I recently read how, in the 1800’s, as America grew westward, acres of swamps and wetlands, considered useless and even dangerous, were destroyed to create farmland. White settlers moving out west didn’t appreciate the role wetlands play as thermostat. We know more now about the need for wetlands.
Skaneateles Lake in the Fingerlakes of New York State
On my road trip to California earlier this year, I passed through South Dakota, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, and saw many hot places with few trees, endless rocks, and little water, like the Badlands National Park in South Dakota, or parts of the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.
The Badlands
The Petrified Forest National Park
So I’m celebrating water and I know I’m not the only one feeling the urgency to protect our environment.
Thank you Mary Lee for hosting!
What a WONDERFUL post. I love, “searching for water” in your first haiku. It seems that is what Earth is doing while we silly humans squander it. This past year I learned the word ‘swale’ and fell in love with it. Urban areas (I was in Salt Lake City) use vacant lots to plant vegetation that will absorb run-off. Not all humans are silly! Thanks for the photo of Skaneatlas. I so love pics of home.
Thank you, Janice, for focusing our attention on the necessity of water for life, and to Linda, for reminding us that all the news isn’t bad news. In a corner of a park a few blocks from my house is a tiny constructed wetland that collects rainwater in a useful way, providing a thriving micro-habitat right here in the middle of the city!
Water, Yes, such a source of life. “modest miracle” indeed. I appreciated your comments about the importance of wetlands. I live in the west, so water is scarce and greatly appreciated here. Glad to see you back this week. Hope all are healthy.
Oh, I love your haiku. “quietly cycles” is really staying with me!
Oh Janice, as an Arizona (and sometimes California) resident, I know how precious water is — and I fear it will be fought over in the future. As I write this reply, I can hear the gurgle of our nearby creek, I kayaked in the lake this morning, I watch a summer thunderstorm accumulate across the shore. Pray that we learn to revere the precious resource!