Oct 23
While clearing the lower logging road
of wind-dropped branches and downed trunks,
we found some pretty saprophyte shelves,
just perched on logs here,
or on a tree trunk there (one eye kept on us?),
pulling all they need to live
from the air and from the woody stuff
they’ve latched onto
like a baby on a breast,
growing so much more slowly
but just as tenacious, just as brave.
Oct 23
Getting ready for it.
With frosts and freezes in the near forecast,
it’s time to close out summer.
The last little eggplant hides shy among
the sweet yellow/green/orange/red peppers
banana variants, mostly,
and the bowl of heat, chilli & jalapeno,
and sweet poblano.
The last tomatoes on the vine
and unready clusters of red and orange cherries;
while still ripening on the sill, last week’s blacks and oranges.
Rosemary was just going from her summer on the porch
to upstairs winter quarters,
but she shared a few springs on her way,
invited herself to dinner.
Just for drill,
drained the hoses,
drained the valves,
checked the heater in the pump room.
Ready, not ready, I guess.
Winter is icummen in, lhude sing gol darn.
Everything is mowed.
Oct 15
Sometimes they help with the stories; really, they do.
Even as they’re pure distraction, to rest and pleasure the eyes
for as long as their season lasts,
as long as they are rich and luscious,
and emit from within a plush and regal depth,
every petal sumptuous, every stamen and pistil
glamorous in the infolding fibonacci wound so tight
three dimensions cannot contain their splendor.
Oct 15
Oct 15
The home tub of this philodendron
is on the other side of the door
across a small landing,
up a flight of 8 steps,
across another larger landing,
and up a flight of twelve steps.
About 28 feet, as the vine crawls.
The self-locking latch was open.
From a FB friend’s postings (Bryan S. Reid).
The end times probably:
we all got to get out of this place.
Lucky in life
to be blessed with table flowers
watching me work.
Every few months authors may trade royalties for readers
from the US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands,
Canada, Mexico, Brazil, India, Japan, Australia.
Oct 5
If you don’t have a Kindle Reader,
free apps are available from the Kindle Store for all tablets, phones, & computers,
so there is no escape.
It’s the Kindle deal.
Every few months authors can trade royalties for new readers.
It’s (almost) worldwide: US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands,
Canada, Mexico, Brazil, India, Japan, Australia.
You never know who’s going to pop up, inexplicable little clusters.
Fit to Curve is a skillfully written mystery with complex characters and such a fascinating plot that I’m way behind on my chores.
This series is a favorite with interesting plots and wonderfully drawn characters. Wish the author would write more of them. The type of book you don’t want to end.
A bed-and-breakfast mystery. Super characters, well developed. You’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. A mouth-watering, good read. Love the old lady with the sharp wit. I’d like the recipes, too. The plot builds very slowly. But once I got into it, I was hooked. I liked the characters, and you get a lot of insight into them.
This is too fine a novel to be mired in the mystery/suspense ghetto. It’s a good mystery, with a complex plot, all the mystery trappings, but the characters are rounded and attractive. The theme seems to me to be a consideration of morality – not just sexual morality (or immorality), though there’s some of that too, for those who like to read such descriptions, but all kinds of morality: for how high a price might you sell your soul?
I think the characters, subtleties, and philosophy make it much more than “just a mystery” or “just a novel”, though the mystery is fine for people who only want that, and the characters and their individual voices or patterns of thought are most thoroughly entwined with with the mysteries, necessary to the story.
Heart Attack is a great read!
This couple are a great addition to the mystery genre. Sharp and interesting with a bit of humor and spice.
Snappy dialog. Geoff and Ellen are a great team. He has a definite intuitive method of assessing info and arriving at conclusions that baffle and irk his cohorts. Ellen is more conventional and together are a great team. Unusual mystery not easily solved.
Charleston Story: seeking agent.
Atlanta story: final edit.
Currently simmering:
Drosselmeyer Chronicles (finished, first draft), a Roanoke story;
Just Rewards (current work in progress), a Caribbean story.
Sample chapters available, at www.budcrawford.com
Sep 11
Black ball maters turn half red when they’re ripe.
Not quite the season’s last ones, but getting close.
Keeping the path clear, through the hay field,
past the garden shed, to the compost.
Can be seen from space.
Mowing standard: grass no more than one snake deep.
Sterilized old chimney rocks built around the culvert
over the north branch of the branch,
forty years ago, all grown in.
Chocolate veined ferns.
The warning, the promise,
it’s starting to fall fast.
Sep 2
Stem-fed stem-feeding factories alive in the air
pull energy from the sun
pull water and minerals from the earth
to build themselves
and roots and flowers and fruit.
An exquisite geometry
grooms every petal and vein
fans up in three dimensions
while competing in four
with every neighbor
for airspace and sunlight.
They employ strategies
of shape and color and texture,
delicacy or density,
to finish cycles of a minute or a day or a year
as they thrive
to amaze and delight human eyes.
Sep 2
In summer, everyday, all around the house,
in pots, in beds,
on bushes, climbing trellises,
color explodes.
Full sun,
part shade,
all shade,
the white and yellow
and orange blooms
grab human eyes
and pull in pollinators.
Deep red
and rose
and lavender
explode
then slowly fade.
Pale blue
soft lavender,
down,
darker, to deep violet.
No blessing comes to us
as charmed
as a partner who brings forth flowers.
Aug 28
Creatures great and small
tracked the chilies
and cherry tomatoes;
they gnawed the beets and potatoes
and destroyed the sunflowers
before the first bloom.
We lost most of the blueberries, probably 50 quarts, to three avian cartels:
the blue-jay gang, the catbird mob, and the brown-thrasher syndicate.
Some fresh magic comes up free to compensate,
a mushroom with the face of a planet that’s not one of ours,
or a globe of bubble glass.
It’s all still good under the moon.
A ring of endless light,
by a yellow thrust shot through with white expostulations,
just across from pendulant nightmare pods
beside a slimy shiny scary hungry thing,
as I look down into the honey trap,
my reflection looks up at lunch
Oh, pretty flowers,
pure sex, no shame.
Delighting dappled things
and purple
and tan (!)
and deep dappled blue,
plus a pinky purple
over the aisle from red velvet
more thrusters, down and all around sideward
white petals with flower tips bringing on
nightmare again, tumescent reds
converging yellow fronds.
Purple reign looks nice.
It’s time to find the shuttle bus
to parking area C3
unless we stay to find out what happens here in the dark
under an eclipsing moon.
Aug 27
Swollen by recent rain
the creek is animal restless
but seldom gets out of bed;
planted hard, but on its way
to pushing Mississippi mud
through the Gulf of Mexico.
Hard to know what he might be looking out for;
not me, evidently, not in any way that matters.
Trying out a new browser
whose eyes look out straight
even eating birdseed from the ground.
She guesses she’ll slip into the trees now
if I’m so persistently inquisitive.
Maybe a little bigger than a fist
probably the one getting through the fence
to eat the beets.
At the bottom of the lawn
we watched the sharp shinned hawk
lunching upon,
as it turned out, a blue jay.
Jul 9
Just two days left. Of course you can purchase the books any time,
but the world-wide free-for-all price special ends Monday midnight,
10 July 2017, 12:00 pm AST (amazon standard time),
a potential savings of hundreds of pennies.
Why resist?
With all the rain,
mushrooms large and not very large
rise from the roots below,
pink and yellow,
white
and red,
and shy,
while well above the ground the butterfly bush flowers
are at full bloom
but it’s a year of hardly any butterflies.
And fallen to the ground, here and there,
reminders that the green season
is not forever
that winter, as ever, plays with us.
Jul 5
Fit to Curve is a skillfully written mystery with complex characters and such a fascinating plot that I’m way behind on my chores.
This series is a favorite with interesting plots and wonderfully drawn characters. Wish the author would write more of them. The type of book you don’t want to end.
A bed-and-breakfast mystery. Super characters, well developed. You’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. A mouth-watering, good read. Love the old lady with the sharp wit. I’d like the recipes, too. The plot builds very slowly. But once I got into it, I was hooked. I liked the characters, and you get a lot of insight into them.
This is too fine a novel to be mired in the mystery/suspense ghetto. It’s a good mystery, with a complex plot, all the mystery trappings, but the characters are rounded and attractive. The theme seems to me to be a consideration of morality – not just sexual morality (or immorality), though there’s some of that too, for those who like to read such descriptions, but all kinds of morality: for how high a price might you sell your soul?
I think the characters, subtleties, and philosophy make it much more than “just a mystery” or “just a novel”, though the mystery is fine for people who only want that, and the characters and their individual voices or patterns of thought are most thoroughly entwined with with the mysteries, necessary to the story.
Heart Attack is a great read!
This couple are a great addition to the mystery genre. Sharp and interesting with a bit of humor and spice.
Snappy dialog. Geoff and Ellen are a great team. He has a definite intuitive method of assessing info and arriving at conclusions that baffle and irk his cohorts. Ellen is more conventional and together are a great team. Unusual mystery not easily solved.
Charleston Story: seeking agent.
Atlanta story: final edit.
Drosselmeyer Chronicles (finished, first draft). Roanoke story.
Just Rewards (current work in progress). Ocean story.
Good night, Gracie.
.
Jul 2
Jul 2
His look a lite a-side, in swich manere,
Ascaunces, `What! May I not stonden here?’
I eat every day,
you know that, right?
Just like you
and all your big-finger buddies inside.
Such delectable fare it is
despite the troubling presentation,
cutsey little houses, really?
my apologies for robbing Geoffrey Chaucer
Jul 1
Early summer’s chromatic abundance,
is everywhere,
in wild exuberance;
somewhere there’s a bleak
landscape of grays and browns
that all the bright colors have been
sucked away from and sent here;
all the shades, all the strategies,
to reach towards the sun
luxuriant unfurling
of flower DNA into petals
presenting their organs of generation
to all pollinators,
come up and see me, right now.
Jun 18
Might be a possum with superior climbing skills,
who’s wearing a mask.
More likely one of the racoons,
we’re up to four at least,
cleaning out the bird feeders
with impressive industry
and thoroughness,
sharing uninvited from our several dangling attractive nuisances.
When sufficiently frightened, no easy thing,
they dive under the house for safety,
looking resentfully back over their shoulders.
Jun 18
Not always green,
or not only green,
unfurling from the core,
despiralating,
as if their coils of DNA had been compressed, then let go.
A few of Earth’s three trillion trees, under white clouds,
mostly voting green
— more trees here than stars in the galaxy
as recently reckoned —
while the green then gray berries
fatten into blue
and we and a thousand wild birds wait together
poised to strike.
Jun 18
A quick circuit of the house
all the ripeness newly sprung,
no special effort required,
lean in and click.
Some are done and disassembling,
theme and variations,
every foot,
all the way around
but wait,
each one perfection of its kind,
from bud to bloom
yet each lovelier than the last.
Soul washed, and eyes washed,
in the rising gyer of another circuit.
May 5
Tapestry yarn and embroidery floss
come in 500 shades —
200 of them are greens.
This is the time of year when you know why.
They’re lighter yellower now,
settling in summer to darker bluer tones.
Except for a few with a different plan
Downhill towards the weeping cherry
not growing up like most trees
but ever wider
making a tree house on the ground.
May 5
Best not step anywhere —
whatever new life you didn’t crush
just means you’ve crushed another
— so dense our biosphere
in the temperate rain forest of Appalachia.
New flowers push up
from the forest floor
from the composting transmutation
of leaves and branches not dead exactly.
A few (money) plants set at the top edge
spill wider and deeper every year,
compounding, while feeding and sharing sex with butterflies.
Thousands of them are marching now,
the apples of May,
but these were the first.
A predictable perpetual surprise.
The new leaves and the understory have not yet
closed the view of the old shacks down the hill.
The herbs and flowers wake up
to a new arbor and a gate,
so new nothing’s climbed it yet.
The pattern can be seen from space,
or at least from Google maps,
cut through the hay; the loop around the shed,
the three branches — to the road, to the compost, to the barn.
Walk softly on the poaceae-glyph,
(poaceae, the family of grasses),
but bring your long shadow.
May 5
They still seem to me to be jewel rocks,
all the forms of quartz,
perched here and there, watching what we do.
Quartz can enclose emeralds and sapphires,
unless they’re crystal and you can see they don’t.
.
Posed wherever they are pleased to,
milky white and rose and clear and tawny brown,
quartz is a family of precious, semi-precious, and mundane,
amethyst, chalcedony, agate, citrine, tourmaline, beryl.
Clutched by roots, bedded in the road,
or in the branch, simply there,
inhabited by life forms, some that share their surfaces,
some that invade and digest them at the old pace of gaciers.
The ants, both black and red,
which probably will bring trouble,
are building a metropolis in the middle of the path.
A human body with a camera looming over their city
sends them underground in an instant,
quicker than a Cooper’s hawk clears a yard of birds.
There were thousands crossing and crissing as I approached,
then there were none.
Zoom in on the picture and you’ll see,
in nearly every hole, ant heads looking up,
waiting for the all-clear.
The holes are new, they have no hills yet to shed rain.
Every couple of weeks they will be overrun by a 700 pound mower.
This was not an auspicious siting.
Perhaps they will endure regardless,
or be crushed, or move a few feet sidewards.
I’m betting they will outlast me, one way or another, as will the rocks.
A few clips from readers,
carefully culled from
favorable reviews on Amazon.
Mar 18
The last moments before springs blows open.
Spongiform moss thing.
Burst chestnuts, gone purple.
Chestnuts, burst, natural.
Before the leaves.
Where grass-like weeds once thrived.
Mossy carpet.
Carpet close.
Weeping cherry, self-selected structure.
The white-bellies that fly in the night.
Just is.
There’s no explanation.
Feb 4
Ellen watches Geoff bump down the gravel drive, ‘the roughest part of the trip,’ he’d said, last night. Thirty yards out, he disappears entirely into the trees. If she waits a minute longer she’ll see a last quick flash of his diminishing figure where the drive crosses the power-line cut. Okay. There he goes, going, gone. Bon voyage, husband.
His gear is state-of-the-art, self-built, idiosyncratic, but top-grade. From his helmet, his slick reflective lycra top, padded patent spandex shorts, to his custom fitted biker shoes—all well worn in—he should be okay. His franken-bike, heavy-duty components, way too hefty for a racer, is solid and comfortable for touring. Stuffed into his saddle-bags, panniers, are expertly rolled civilian clothes, repair tools, travel food, weapons. He’ll be fine.
She turns back into the house. It’s 7:15, time for a second cup of coffee. The day will be soft and lovely. But the damp chill of the morning hasn’t yet burned off. When she ran her loop, an hour ago, it had been a struggle to breathe through the blanketing mist. It’s better now; it will be all gone by the time Geoff gets to the city limits. That will be the real ‘roughest part,’ crossing Roanoke through early traffic until he gets to the trail. US Bike Route One, from Roanoke to the coast at Charleston is almost 400 miles; it’s supposed to take 35 hours. Geoff plans to make it in 25, in two days of riding. He probably can, if he avoids accidents and injuries. Which he probably will. He rides to work every day, 14 miles down the mountain, 14 miles back up, often 5-10 miles across town. Just like commuting, he said, except you keep going. Charleston is not his longest nor his first solo ride. He’ll be fine. She wishes she could summon a force field to repel chasing dogs and aggressive angry drivers.
She will join him at Riverrun next week, as soon as she wraps up her current TravelAmerica assignment; not in time for the bridal shower, but a couple of days before the wedding. She’ll drive the car, to spare him having to bicycle back. It’s nearly eight hours of highway driving. He’s flat out crazy, Geoff is, every once in a while.
Riverrun is Savion Gage’s plantation, half reconstruction, half new-built. It’s perched on uncommonly solid ground, at a confluence of rivers, in the coastal swamp. She spent two days there, several years ago. Geoff gets down every year, pretty much, except he’s missed two in a row. Outsize people engaged in a strange and outsize enterprise. Geoff will enjoy a long stay, probably she will, too. Nah, for sure she will. Savion’s a bit of a blowhard, but his three-quarter brother, Gordon is gold. Lottie’s awesome capability keeps it all together. The boys, the older one gorgeous and bad, the younger one sweet and shy. And the lovely Alicia. Two girl children now, besides Carrie, the one who’s getting married. All the kids were kidnapped into adoption, according to Geoff. The names will come back to her. Lots of blanks to fill in, and fantastical tales to deconstruct.
She’ll be happy to see the family. She’s not so sure about dealing with dozens of hangers-on and hundreds of strangers. Carrie’s wedding will be the social event of the year in Charleston—Gage is Low Country royalty—a media circus will jumble up the family sacrament. The groom, not a local guy, a rap star, is no doubt hauling down an entourage of his own.
The coffee helps. Her head is clearing, like the vanishing tendrils of mist down the valley. Geoff will be fine. Probably make his time. Probably walk funny for a week. She does like what the stretchy shorts do for his butt. Worry be gone!
Currently showing off at the Earth Guild store.
Jan 7
The Asheville Story
The Williamsburg Story
COMING SOON:
Dec 4
The truck is coming in the morning,
we’ll put it all together tomorrow.
Tech Tuesday, dress Wednesday, school show Thursday morning,
Friday evening, Saturday both matinee and evening, Sunday matinee
2:30 and 7:30 at the Diana Wortham Theatre.
New idea for this year, first step,
12 foot tall chocolate sundaes.
Not shown: 70 dancers
from 4 years old to 70-some
performing around 180 parts
180 costumes, averaging 7 pieces each
1300 items, more or less,
plus a few hundred props.
In the corner, left alone,
the tutus pause for calming breaths.
Yeah, it’s Nutcracker 2016
from the Asheville Ballet
December 9th, 10th, 11th.
We’re not going to miss it,
you shouldn’t either.
When I see an outhouse lean
across the line of straight white trees
I like to think some birches pull it,
birches too far from town to know
of septic tanks or perforated pipes
whose only game is what they make and play alone.
Shot straight up,
the november sky,
clean as a pantone chip.
Sky bisected by a phone line
under a power line
beside the tree line.
Winter is coming
but not today.
Nov 26
The Ginko hangs on to the last.
Lavender leaf,
and red.
Some saplings hold on in protected pockets.
But, it’s over, really.
Except for the oaks,
last to emerge, last to drop.
It is all the leaves on the ground
that feed our surround of forest fires.
Depending on which way the wind blows,
the sun cuts through the drifting smoke in streaks
and we get warnings not to breathe.
