on the lushness of June

and how to weave summer into your writing

In case you are thinking about coming to the workshop today is the last day to sign up!

This morning I rode across town to deadhead roses at the school garden. This is the kind of luxury that only can happen on a Tuesday morning in June. It is made possible by the western bluebirds landing inquisitively on the windowsill.

The lushness of the rose bushes quiet on the school grounds absent of children.

It is marked by the sweat sliding down my helmet.

The familiar sound of a friend on the phone.

I stretch high to the kindergarten gate working quickly cutting off blooms that are gone and the ones just about to go into my basket.

I get distracted by the last of the sweet peas. I unearth the peach tree again that is being conquered by vetch, lemon balm, and thistle.

Also out with me is a man walking back and forth watching a comedy show on his phone. It is in Spanish and I can hear the cadence of the jokes that are riddles from Yucatan because at the end of the delivery the comedian says, “bomba.”

I am making lists in my head. Sometimes I stop and watch my hands do their work. Rose bush. Rose petal. Rose thorn. Rose hip. Rose leaf.

This is my morning poem, the quiet art making of in between moments, the calling in now. I ride home with my basket full. I will sort them this afternoon and cover some of them with home for the winter when I need all the June sunshine to run through me thick and sweet.

Someone told me recently that they don’t go to their garden to enjoy it very much, they find themselves working on or through or with something each time. Weed. Process this. Plant, replant. I find myself doing that too. I wonder about this, the moving, the constant motion, but I think for me that I find the most imagination happens when my hands are moving. They know what to do and my mind wanders along finding the topography of imagination because it is real, because there are tangible actions, because I am feeling the way through it.

This is part of how summer works. It is part of the invitation. Come play tomorrow!