Poem for Wednesday and 1999 South Mountain

Planting a Dogwood
By Roy Scheele

Tree, we take leave of you; you’re on your own.
Put down your taproot with its probing hairs
that sluice the darkness and create unseen
the tree that mirrors you below the ground.
For when we plant a tree, two trees take root:
the one that lifts its leaves into the air,
and the inverted one that cleaves the soil
to find the runnel’s sweet, dull silver trace
and spreads not up but down, each drop a leaf
in the eternal blackness of that sky.
The leaves you show uncurl like tiny fists
and bear small button blossoms, greenish white,
that quicken you. Now put your roots down deep;
draw light from shadow, break in on earth’s sleep.

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Tuesday: chilly, mostly overcast, not at all exciting. Photos scanned, neighborhood enjoyed. Politics were enraging both in the news and on social media. I did get to chat online with a friend in London for a long time, so that was lovely. We went for a walk around our lovely neighborhood with lots of dogwood and azaleas emerging, then had Bengali food, similar to Indian including Malai Kofta, from a restaurant in Silver Spring because it was Pahela Baishakh in Bangladesh.

We tried two new shows, Belgravia (the most predictable historical soap of all time, I was shouting predictions at the TV and they were all correct) then Run (I like the actors but she ditched her CHILDREN as well as her husband for Domhnall Gleeson? nope) before catching up on The Plot Against America (engrossing but way too stressful for evening). Here are some recently scanned photos from South Mountain at Washington Monument and Gambrill State Parks in October 1999: