Poems For Summertime
Poems For Summertime
The heat of the summer has me writing poetry and thinking about seasons.
Melting Ice
Like every season, summer is temporary. Temporality is a beautiful thing. Nothing lasts forever. Everything dies and from that death comes new life. It’s terrifying and sublime. It comforts me when I’m stuck, to know that it will pass, and something new will come from the challenges. Growth can be visible and obvious, like a giant sunflower looming over the garden, but it also happens underground, in the dark. Like water we experience states changing - be it emotional or physical - we are always in flux. The ice cube melts in our hand - we can never hold it for long.
Knowing everything is fleeting makes me mindful of a season’s gifts. One of my favorite meals in the summertime is a giant caprese salad with juicy heirloom tomatoes and fresh golden peaches, creamy and spicy cacio e pepe, and blistered shishito peppers. It’s the flavor of summer for me. Other gifts are time spent reading in a hammock under the Japanese maple, sitting around the fit pit with friends, and swimming in the neighborhood lake. It’s a wonderful time, and it’s important to appreciate and be grateful for these moments because they are impermanent.
Coming from California I had a distant relationship with seasons. Santa Maria is a temperate place, and the wind is probably the most extreme natural force to contend with. It would rain, but not much, and it would be hot, but not for long. Of course, the climate has changed drastically since I was a kid, and Santa Maria likely has changed as well. But even so, I find that with each visit back to my hometown I find an equilibrium in the clement weather.
San Francisco is also temperate, but summer is a confusing time for the weather. I lived in the Sunset district and it was almost always overcast and foggy during June, July, and August. As a young adult, I became accustomed to it. At first, it was hard, but I grew to love the microclimate held between the ocean and the hills. Fall was when the warmth came, and while the days were getting shorter, there was something magical about the afternoon light and the warm “summer” nights. Again, things have changed since I was younger. Wildfires on the west coast have become a seasonal feature - so my nostalgia for that time of the year once again predates the realities that now come with the hotter and drier summers.
Now living in Washington I have become acquainted with seasons. Winter is very slow cold and wet, fall is vibrant and crisp, spring is hopeful and full of color and summer is like a warm dream at full speed. I have an appreciation for all the wonders and challenges each season brings. Seasons are in everything. Creativity has seasons - there are fallow times, generative times, and times when I’m collecting ideas or making small progress that eventually leads to something greater. It’s all important and worth acknowledging.
Swimming
A quick ode to Haller Lake. I love this body of water - I think I’m a lake person now. I’m forever a river marm, but I’m also now a lake lover. At least this lake. Proximity is a factor, but there is something special about it. It’s small but deep, full of big fish, swimmers and floaters, luscious lily pads, and on occasion, you see the neighborhood eagle fly above. The Duwamish people call it "Calmed Down a Little" (Lushootseed: seesáhLtub). I love that name for this lake. It is a place where I feel like I move slower, calmer, and find some peace. Swimming and floating is something that rejuvenates me. Water has that power. I am not the strongest swimmer, but I can keep my head above water and I enjoy the weightless constant movement. I also enjoy relaxing in a floaty and baking in the sun in the middle of the lake. All around it’s just one of my favorite things about the summer and I hold a memory of the way it feels throughout all the other seasons.
Borage
This year I haven’t quite had the resources to fully dedicate myself to tending to my garden. I planted some seeds, did a little weeding, and have kept up with watering for the most part, but it’s grown wild in the mild neglect. Borage is especially prolific in this little plot. It doesn’t need much from me to grow tall and have bountiful flowers. In other years I’ve wrangled it a bit, pulling some out to allow other plants to thrive, but this year I’ve let it go buck. The great thing about it is that the bees LOVE it. The garden is full of pollinators, happily buzzing along, and that reminds me that the natural world hardly needs me. Sure the water has helped during this dry and warm summer, but these plants self-sow, and they come back abundantly each year. I even gave myself a small borage flower tattoo on a full moon to honor this resilient and determined plant.
The Fellow Ship Residency
I’m very excited to share that I will be doing a week-long artist residency at The Fellow Ship on Guemes Island in Washington. From September 1st - the 8th I will be retreating to the woods and setting up an outdoor studio. My plan is to explore non-toxic printmaking techniques. I’m going to experiment with kitchen lithography - where you use soda to process the plate and mono-printing techniques like reductive, tracing, and suminagashi marbling. I’m also bringing a typewriter - so we’ll see what sort of visuals and poetry is pulled out of me in this space. I am very grateful for the opportunity and am looking forward to dedicating time and space to my art practice.