What do you do when your best friend moves away forever?
What do you do?
What do you do?
He swings high—
and I swing low—
I’ll always love my friend— my friend—
I’ll always love my friend— you know—
We have always run here holding hands
since we first learned to run.
Excepting the part with the puddle.
What do you do?
On your marks—
get set—
You go first!
Will I ever see Joshua again?
What do you do?
Akiva calls him Zha-Zha and loves him too.
RUN
RUN
RUN
I will always run to you.
To whomever left the great bouquet of parsley in the garden—
thank you.
We heard some engine sound from far across the field
and went to see
and saw
a tractor, red, turning soil into silk
tilling long, slow rows and turning long, slow turns
and with each turn the garden turned from crumpled earth to silk.
And there before the tractor was
the parsley.
A great mound of green—
a beacon green amidst a sea of soil.
And I imagined rabbits
dancing
holding hands in the light of last Sunday’s round orange moon
praising parsley sacred as the cows of India—
so sacred it should go untouched all through the frosts
and through the snows of winter.
Untouched—
but then there was that tractor, turning
plowing slow rows, slow.
And so I stepped into, onto, unto the unturned earth
and took
your parsley (sacred parsley)
just before the tractor turned its turn
to mow.
So.
If you would like one last bite of this year’s parsley—
sacred parsley—
sacred as the cows of India—
parsley praised by
rabbits far and wide—
please, do come visit.
We have some in our fridge.
We shall be eating it
and feeding it to friends
and to family
and to rabbits who dance
by the light of the hunter’s moon.
This museum, so close, is one of the things that makes our location in Shelburne so amazing.
Someday, there will be a last visit for ever and ever.
I hope this was not it.
While Iris is at school, Akiva studies volume.
Which cars fit into which trucks?
How will they all get where they need to go?
Later, I take an opportunity to photograph myself with my son.
While I try to point my fancy camera at us, he just goes ahead and looks cute.
Last winter, all the apple trees at the museum had their low branches pruned to keep people from picking their fruits.
And among the dozens of apple trees at the museum, there was only one tree full of apples this autumn.
Which, without a picker, left us very little to pick at all. On the ground, a few old apples lay in various states of decay.
Apples in various states of decay acquire unique flavors and textures, interesting to explore with the palate.
We did a little exploring.
Uncle Dan visited.
He brought us apple picking.
He and Iris picked a lot of apples!
Akiva appreciated their efforts.
“Apom-bay! Apom-bay!” he said.
Dan is the one who figured it out: “I think he’s trying to say ‘apple.'”
You’d think I’d have found that obvious.
* * *
Later, we took Dan for a walk. He didn’t end up in any photos, tho. Sorry, Dan!
