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Happy Birthday Tune!

I wasn’t planning on posting anything else before our trip but this sweet, beautiful girl turns 10-years old tomorrow and that deserves a mention.  Even though we’ve only had her a few short months, she has already worked her way deep into my heart.  If you missed the story of our rescue of Abbess Petunia, read here and here and here.  I will miss her a great deal while we are away.

Thanks so very much for all the beautiful wishes you have left in comments and emails for my upcoming trip– they mean a lot to me! The last few days have been a flurry of packing and last-minute details.  I look forward to returning with lots of gifts in image and word.

So as long as I am posting I can’t resist sharing one more poem with you for these summer days coming upon us:

Watermelon 

You know
what summer
tastes like—the pink flesh
of a generous earth,
this rounded life
fully ripe, fully flavored.
How could you be ashamed
at the tug of desire?
The world has opened itself to you,
season after season.
What is summer’s sweetness
but an invitation to respond?
There is only one way
to eat a watermelon.
Bury your face
in the wetness
of that rosy slab
and bite.

-Lynn Ungar from Blessing the Bread 

A few days ago I received an unexpected package in the mail from Bette, she had found a copy of Lynn Ungar’s out-of-print book (that I have long been coveting) and sent it to me as an early  present for my birthday and I was giddy with delight.  In my quiet moments between packing and running errands I have been drinking in Lynn’s amazing poems and this one is my current favorite. (Thank you again Bette!) :-)

May each of your journeys unfold with a thousand delightful surprises.  May the Solstice bring you the gift of illumination.  May the sweetness of summer elicit a response from the deepest places of your being.

Until July. . .

-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

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