Trees

Sycamore branches high above me. Green leaves, blue sky. A breeze moves the branches.

Lydia's Island #1

From Lydia's deck she can see the mainland. On a sunny day, she can see details. The high pier with barnacles spread over the wet wood pilings. Fishermen's trucks parked along the pier in a row, old and laden down with bait buckets, broken traps, and odds and ends. Lydia does not see these things in the truck beds, but she knows they are there. Dinghies are tied up at a side dock, closer to shore. Lobster boats rock at their moorings when the whalewatch boat goes out.

She sees Charlie's restaurant, with its big picture windows along the front. At night the windows are lit up, casting blocks of light across the water. Right now, the windows are opaque, reflecting blue sky only. Steam rises from thick stacks as one of Charlie's staff cooks lobsters outside. Lydia can see the green hill rising behind Charlie's, the clock in the middle of the park, the big Victorian hotel to the left of the small town beach. She can see people all over the hill, the beach, the pier.

On a sunny day, the water is navy blue. The wind whips up whitecaps. Lydia sits on her deck, at her weathered picnic table, and drinks her tea. When she finishes the tea she might walk through the woods, listening to the birds and the chipmunks and the wind. She might find the one spot where she can't see the ocean, but just the trees towering above her. She doesn't like to stay there for long. So she might walk through the woods to the back of the island, where she can't see any land ahead of her. Just ocean and horizon, a fine line separating them. She might walk along the perimeter of the island, feeling the rocks through her worn-out sneakers. She will be careful not to fall.

She might near the spot where the rock rises straight up from the water at high tide, twenty feet or more. Nobody could land a boat here. There's no room, not even in low tide. She will stop before the beach runs out and climb the hill. Climbing is harder than it once was, but she goes slow. She knows the footholds. At the top, the view rewards her. She stands in her woods, trees all around, the cliff right in front of her. She holds onto a beech tree for balance and looks down at the water foaming against the jagged rocks. If her children saw her here they would rush at her like anxious mothers, shuffling her away from danger. But they are not here. She looks at the water sucking at the rocks, foaming up, pulling out. She feels the wind lift the brim of her sunhat. Here she does not think about her past or her future. There is only the wind in the trees and the waves on the rocks.

Gone By

Dead flowers rattle in the trees tonight, as I walk along the Parkway.

Trip Home

I stand on my parents' deck, neck aching, looking at the stars as long as I can. Loons call across the lake.


From the bed on the porch we can see the starlight through bare trees.


The next morning, after everyone leaves, I go down to the lake. I hear running water, an outboard motor, wind chimes. A woodpecker knocks on a tree. Sunlight shines where water meets rocks, a bright outline.


I drive to Orono alone, as I did every week. At Connie's funeral, the minister's big gold cross reflects the light.


In Saco, where we will stay with my boyfriend's family. He and his brother and I go to Old Orchard Beach at night. The tide is way out. The waves are bright white and come in threes. They roll in from each side and connect in the middle before hitting the beach. When Luke and Trav walk toward the water, I see their reflections in the wet sand. The fair rides rise, inert and skeletal, behind us.


It rains on Sunday. The car breaks down in Connecticut. The windows fog while we wait for a tow truck. The car shakes when trucks pass.


My aunt and uncle rescue us. On the way to their house, a flooded bridge and standing water in the fields. My aunt has made blueberry pie.


Back in the city the next day, we return the rental car. Sunlight slants through new green leaves. Both places feel like home.

Turtles

As I walked across the bridge this morning, I noticed what I thought was a dark brown duck in the river below. But when I stopped to look I saw the duck was underwater, and then I realized it was a turtle, and that there was another turtle in front of it. I stood there as long as I could, watching one turtle, then the other take the lead. When they were above water the sunlight shone on their shells. I could see the white bottoms of their feet as they paddled upstream.

Easter

As the sun goes down, the river is almost flat calm. A duck swims over the reflection of the Cira building. Fish come to the surface for flies, leaving circular ripples to expand and disappear.

Lake

One of those fall days when the air is so clear I can see each leaf in detail against the blue sky. I float around the cove in my inner tube. After a while I roll off, fling the tube onto the dock, drop below the surface. I swim through columns of light, knowing where all the rocks are, where the patches of waterlilies are, everything about the cove. I go down deep, roll onto my back, hold my nose and look at the sky and the trees through the water as I rise. When I get close to the surface, I can see my reflection for a second, and then I'm out.

Later, I will wrap up in a big towel and sit on the dock to watch the loons and the boats. When I hear Mom ring the bell, I'll go up the path to the house for dinner. After dark, Dad might come back down with me to look at the stars.

Petals

The afternoon was cloudy but not cold. I stood by the river and watched a patch of weak silver sunlight on the dark grey water. It almost, but not quite, touched the darker grey reflection of the Cira building.

Near the Four Seasons, the air was full of little white petals. I liked the idea of them landing in my hair and staying there.

Yesterday the same kind of petals swirled in a corner, against the dark rose color of the Verizon building.

Daffodils

Today, on my way to work, daffodils on a hillside glowing with sunlight. A white-flowered tree dropping petals in the breeze and a train going by.

Rain

I can hear the ocean in cars' tires on wet street. Drops hit the balcony railing hard, splash up. Between drops, a calm mirror-pool on the railing's silver surface. Bright grey light all around. A good day to stay inside, but my friend has died, and I am restless. At the art museum, I will sit by the paintings she'd like best. I might even write her a letter, pretending.

Connie

We sit on low benches at the thick wooden table, drinking tea. We open letters with a wood-handled ice pick. I cut my finger on an envelope. I ask Connie for a band-aid. She gets one, takes the paper off, wraps it around my finger. I smile, thank her, and start another letter:

Dear X, Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately, this doesn't quite suit our needs. Best of luck. Sincerely. I give it to Connie to sign. "You write the best rejection letters," she says.

One Christmas I gave her a glass swan with gold-tipped wings and beak. She hung it in the window, where it filled with light and glowed. I loved giving her presents. Writing paper or notecards for each birthday. For Christmas, a silver scarf. A Tiffany address book. A picture of her elderly cat in a little gold-painted frame. Last year, a round flowered box for a roll of stamps.

Connie puts on her jacket and work gloves, goes out to the shed to get wood to fill the stove. She doesn't want help, so I don't ask. She feeds the fire. When she's done, she sits on the window seat and strokes her cat.

"Anything good?" she says.
"Maybe. This one might work."
"It's so nice," she says, "to work with someone who has such similar taste."

Later we will talk about my novel, about what we're reading, about movies and the weather and travel. Maybe she will even read our horoscopes from Vogue. Connie will make us open-faced toasted cheese sandwiches. She will cut them diagonally and serve them with a paper dinner napkin and cookies.

But for now, the fire is warm at my back. Connie, across from me at the table, has her glasses on and a pen between index and middle finger. We both have things to read. I will remember this moment forever.

Cira

The top of the glass building is dark pink. The rest is pre-sunrise grey-blue. The smell of breakfast cooking in the silver street trucks below me.