Northeast Ohio had a mid-level drought all summer. By the middle of September the trees had already started turning due to stress and acorns covered the ground under small oak tree near to a quiet spot where I like sit. The vernal pond has been a lush green field visited only by deer who scoot across the road from the woods.

This deer is only passing through just as we now only pass through the lovely, cultivated Courtyard Garden. In the garden the bench below is overhung with wisteria from a special cutting of the vine that survived the bomb in Hiroshima. Behind the bench is a wind chime with long tubes that keep ring-ing-ing in the fall breezes that are also passing through.

I am busily involved in another project with my creative photography partner, Rebecca. This time our focus is on water. She not only has photos of creatures living in and nourished by water from around the planet, but also exquisite pictures of water in patterns, frozen and misty, roaring African waterfalls, and captured in the white landscape of a single polar bear looking in her direction.

I have written about water in poems and songs for many years. My contributions to our program include offerings from my past albums as well as new songs I have written since coming to Kendal. Instead of water falling down mountains to the Hudson River where I grew up, I now live in the wetlands of drainage from Lake Erie. An indigenous speaker last year pointed out on a map what his people called The Great Black Swamp- which included northern land across the midwestern states below where the Great Lakes lie. He grinned at us as he said, “You know what I’m talking about.” As we have seven ponds created for drainage to create our campus, we laughed and assured him that we did.

Between coordinating slides with my poems and song lyrics on them, I am also tapping into the local talent to create song arrangements with a resident clarinet/sax player and a pianist player/arranger from the town of Oberlin. It is fun and challenging as my stamina is limited. I will also do a sitting-in my-wheelchair-dance to one of my pre-recorded songs. I treasure the opportunity as I cannot know how much longer I might be able to attempt this in the future.

I am fulfilled, ever grateful that I live in a place where I am cared for on every level. Shana Tova for those who celebrate Rosh Hashana. May we all find sweetness to hold alongside the political turmoil and our yearly tilt away from the sun as this year unfolds.

The Sea Walks (Kendal 1/4/2021)

The ocean

crawled out onto a sunny shore

over millennia

breathtaking

walking within warm skin.

Hold a body up

to an empty seashell.

Listen.

The brine of cerebral spinal fluid

washes your brain

2,000 gallons of blood gushes

daily through your heart.

Lymph river systems hitch rides,

surf your every move.

Billions of neurons flash

through chemical currents

molecular mermaids and mermen

partner the waves, choreographing

internal body ballets.

We return to those first waters

as tourists on beaches

beside rivers, ponds

diving into pools, gazing down into

sinkholes, sloshing through swamps-

pay homage.

All holding the sea of emergence

the flux of our beginning,

the ebb of our end.

We never forget

our eternal tides

still listening

to every drop.