Last night was one of those rare-ish central Maine events when it stays hot enough to leave the windows open all night. Paul and Tom and I spent the evening watching clips of the 1975 Red Sox, which were enough to break anyone's heart, though ours managed to remain melancholy yet intact. And then I went to bed and dreamed of shopping, of all things.

Now the Fourth of July has dawned, and I am thinking about stuffing grape leaves and making cold carrot soup. I am also thinking about my secret garden, and about the poem I wrote on the morning I woke up to discover that George W. Bush had been reelected. I know I've posted it here before, but I'll post it again, because it's the Fourth of July and I love my country; and by country, I mean country.

Exile

Dawn Potter

On the morning I left

my country, sunlight

thrust through the clouds

the way it does after a raw

autumn rain, sky stippled

with blue like a young mackerel,

leaf puddles blinking silver,

sweet western wind gusting

fresh as paint, and a flock

of giddy hens rushing pell-mell

into the mud; and I knelt

in the sodden grass and gathered

my acres close, like starched

skirts; I shook out the golden

tamaracks, and a scuffle of jays

tumbled into my spread apron;

I tucked a weary child into each coat

pocket, wrapped the quiet

garden neat as a shroud

round my lover’s warm heart,

cut the sun from its moorings

and hung it, burnished and fierce,

over my shield arm—a ponderous

weight to ferry so far across the waste—

though long nights ahead, I’ll bless

its brave and crazy fire.

[from How the Crimes Happened (CavanKerry Press, 2010)]