Asakiyume mita

Because yesterday and last night were unseasonably cold but the air was warmer this morning, there was mist everywhere when I went out.

Everywhere was gauzy.





Up the street, down the street--ethereal





It seems that otherworldly dancers passed through, too, leaving behind their handkerchiefs, as they often do, on lawns, beside paths, and in the woods:

skateboarder
We went to a housewarming the other day--a lovely housewarming, lovely house, lovely guests. One of the guests was a skinny seven-year-old girl who was experimenting with a skateboard on the slightly inclined driveway. She may have had glasses; I can't recall. She had skinny short blond-brown hair to match her frame, and a big grin, and missing teeth because that's the age when you lose your teeth.

"I had brain surgery," she confided in me. "In PT I have to do balancing, forward and backward and side to side. This is like that."
She was really good! When the skateboard picked up speed, she'd crouch down.

"She's not supposed to do anything like this," said her mom, "but I want her to be able to try things out."



earrings
The youngest daughter of the house, who is only three, had stubbed her toe and was concerned with the blub, as she called it. "Blub!" she said, very seriously, pointing at the trace of blood left on her toe. She liked my dangly earrings, so I made her some of her own out of some hosta flowers. I bent them around her earlobe, like a hearing aid, with the flowers dangling forward. They looked pretty fetching, if I do say so myself.

misty moisty
Also the other day, it was a misty moisty morning.



One misty, moisty, morning,
When cloudy was the weather,
There I met an old man
All clothed in leather

I didn't meet such a man. But the joe pyeweed is quite tall now.



And in the mist, wild cucumber flowers shine like candles

"STAY ON TRAIL," the sign commands.
Or does it warn?
Or does it plead?





A cold-iron road runs through this land...





Here are pails of detritus from angelic rail repair:



And here are the footprints of a traveler who walks alongside, not on, the iron road: