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.
Nov 26
We’d come to the compost heap to harvest a poke of genetically dubious
volunteer squash and melons.
Shot a shaggy shadow self.
Lifting eyes to the hills,
the compost enjoys a 360° sweep,
when the hay’s cut,
of all our ring of mountains.
Everywhere, first signs of the retarded deployment of fall colors.
October 15th used to be middle of the range for peak color
in the middle elevations,
but in this ever-warming century it’s past Halloween,
sliding towards Thanksgiving.
While, beside the monitor, the last of the color
drains from compost-ready cut flowers,
in splendid decadence.
We had a visitor, for the first time in many years,
we stalked her for an hour, just the one.
A decade ago, we’d have hundreds flock through.
If the snake can’t see you, you can’t see the snake,
brunching on burrowing mammals.
Over the south ridge, also mostly hidden,
up at ravens’ croft, a pillowy agent of change
assesses the coming of the colors
in the cerulean October sky.
The Monarch even made a movie, too big to post here.
Oct 6
If you haven’t got a Kindle Device, one shall be prepared for you.
Amazon sends a drone to your home (they know when you are sleeping)
that upgrades your refrigerator with a Kindle-reader app,
also for your computers, tablets, mobile phones (free of charge).
This modest incursion opens access to hundreds of thousands of free titles,
classic and modern, not just to mine.
Kindle Direct Publishing invites authors on their platform to trade income for exposure, tooffer their books for free every few months. It’s a simultaneous worldwide deal on all the Amazon stores (US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, India, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Brazil). People will take a chance on free stuff who’d hesitate to pay for a book from an author unknown to them.
Give either or both of these a try and let me know what you think.
Comment here, or email me at mystery@budcrawford.com.
The Asheville Story.
The Williamsburg Story.
A few clips from readers,
carefully culled from
from favorable reviews on Amazon
.
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?
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.
COMING SOON:
Sep 24
Colors just happen in the fall.
Abundance of don’t-forget-to-touch-mes,
but calming now, no longer explosive.
Truth, beauty, decay.
Sumac works through orange
into its final reds.
Spent and pulling back, residue of bloom.
Quiet all summer, the chimney rose seizes the day.
Still just a scatter, it’s early days.
Weeds are flowers
you don’t have to cultivate.
Sometimes the best colors
aren’t hardly colors at all.
Sep 24
Sep 24
The day of the recent rally
a couple guys in a big ol’ red pickup
set up their sales station.
Hundreds of Made-in-China “Make America” hats
in red and white and blue
plus a dozen cases of t-shirts and banners rolled up.
When they first arrived the wind was perfect,
all four banners pulled out straight south down Haywood Street:
Trump/Pence
Don’t Tread on Me
Old Glory
and the Battle Banner of the Late Failed Secession.
Then the wind shifted ever which way
and they all went a little twitchy.
American democracy
in all its grandeur
history itself
at the curb.
Sep 24
The Asheville Ballet’s annual free performance in the park.
3-400 people watched and, if clapping and hooting count,
they enjoyed what they saw.
Photos are from last night’s performance (Friday, 23 Sept 2016).
One more show, tonight, Saturday, at 7:30 pm.
8 dances from 6 choreographers using 15 dancers,
beautiful work with poised and professional dancing.
Well-done tech — lights and recorded sound and live music
— wonderful venue, perfect weather.
Don’t miss tonight’s show, bring friends and family, maybe folding chairs.
Performance details at the Asheville Ballet website.
Sep 6
Four pictures of the same
heap of discarded flowerheads.
You have to pull the finished flowers
so the next generation of buds
will have nutrients and space enough to bloom.
The jumble of fading stems and petals
like a heap of exhausted partygoers
collapsed after the champaign’s gone
caught by the rising sun.
They’d make a lovely jigsaw puzzle.
Sep 6
Sep 6
Sep 5
Sep 5
Jul 31
The tall flowers, all at once.
![IMG_20160716_121834238[1]](https://03175fb.netsolhost.com/WordPress/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/IMG_20160716_1218342381.jpg)
A rose leaning languorously on the wire.
Everything is full out.
The day lilies go
on
and on
in an almost silly abundance.
Hydrangea row
shows no signs of slacking off
in any of the varieties.
On and on.
The timid little flowers in the rail pot have filled out.
The under story is at maximum,
from the ground reaching up among the low branches of the trees,
all the little weeds, all the middle weeds, all the giant weeds.
And this, of course, is the first sign of the end of summer
the fullness before the finish.
Jul 31
Not much, but the bit of rain,
got the suspended droplets and the light just right,
![IMG_20160729_202240242_HDR[1]](https://03175fb.netsolhost.com/WordPress/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/IMG_20160729_202240242_HDR1.jpg)
shined up the ornament in the grass,
of cloudy crystal quartz,
and awakened the giants underground,
to upthrust their sort-of flowers here and there,
sharing sometimes with a bird
some seeming prematurely aged,
scarlet and stark whites,
with accidental happy faces,
and with delicious detail.
While, on a different scale, walking on the grass,
the lone doe, Bones, feasts warily on bird-scattered seeds.
Later, down the lawn, shy Esmeralda and her still-spotted twins
from a finch eye view.
After nightfall, on the counter, yes, katydid,
she thought my camera might be a snack.
Outside, the affable ongoing everyday pillage of the feeders.
Our neighbor was sure he saw a bear’s butt slip into the brush
about halfway between our house and his,
a little fellow, 150 pounds max.
Jul 31
When the scarves are completed, the weft packed into the shifting sheds of the warp,
the whole cloth cut from the loom, soaped and agitated, washer-dryer finish,
cut and hemmed, imperfections clipped and made right,
only then is the trademark and care label sewn on.
A novel at the end — The End — well, there are similarities to a pile of new scarves.
Checking for broken threads, keeping tension up as long as possible.
And an editor’s like a washing machine, I suppose.
But all those plates spinning on their sticks
events unfolding because the characters are themselves,
so many ways of falling short,
the finish is never so conclusive as a scarf.
Work space, with roses red and gold.
Luckiest man.
If you haven’t got a Kindle Device, one will be prepared for you.
Amazon will send one of their drones to your home (they know when you are sleeping)
which upgrades your dishwasher and installs Kindle-reader aps on all your computers, tablets,
and mobile phones (totally free of charge).
This modest incursion opens access to hundreds thousands of titles, not just to mine.
Kindle Direct Publishing invites authors on their platform to trade income for exposure and offer their books for free every few months. It’s a simultaneous worldwide deal on all the Amazon stores (US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, India, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Brazil). People take a chance on free stuff who wouldn’t pay for a book from an unknown author.
Give either or both a try and let me know what you think.
Comment here, or email me at mystery@budcrawford.com.
The Asheville Story.
The Williamsburg Story.
Here are a few clips from readers,
from favorable reviews on Amazon
.
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?
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.
COMING SOON:
Ghost Walk sample Little Fishes sample
The Charleston Story: seeking agent.
The Atlanta Story, editor ready.
Jul 3
Clamoring against the hog wire at the bottom of the herb garden
a forest of daylilies.
Most of the hydrangeas (3 of 5) were burned by the final frost,
but one, spectacularly, was not.
The yellow clusters swell and turn blue by stages.
Cousin of the giant corsage blooms
there’s the nobblier cluster clump variety.
Weeds cut close simulate a lawn and frame
the peripheral plantings and the visitors
(rabbit at 12 o’clock).
The new planters half the way towards
thrillers and spillers and fillers.
Between the leaf canopy and the marigold companions,
five jalapenos growing shoulders.
Pretty is as
pretty is.
Jun 19
walkabout, this afternoon, to find deep red with busy bee,
pale red with kanji characters,
poppy world full of self,
rising from a bed thought lost,
while yellow bush roses,
and blue fingers, which our maidens know by a grosser name,
showing some purple shared, in the same pot
or shared with satiny iridescence
shimmering around a black hole,
in purple waves
and glitter,
while at rows end, marigold companions
and almost a blooming leaf, twinning stacks climb orthogonally towards sun
and a tannish leaf kind of flowerish
all of which have names that are common
and the uncommon names are all scientific
Jun 19
Food, in process here, uses the instructions coded in the seeds
with water and nutrients pulled from soil,
drawing gasses from the air and photosynthetic magic from the sun
transubstantiates through the leaves, to become
tomatos and potatos and cucumbers and eggplant and peppers and peas.
Watching from below, a volunteer stand of fennel, seven feet high,
hunkers by the swamp and wonders about its own lush abandon.
The basil is table-ready.
While, stepping carefully down the steps in the herb garden
or rock garden, or perennial garden,
steeper than it looks,
you meet a hundred varieties of flower and herb
ground cover, moss and lichen putting on their summer dress,
and waiting appreciation, weeding and water.
Another variety of long-row work, when the wrens had stolen all
the strands of shredded coconut for their nests
from the sister of this pot,
the wool yarn left from a dozen projects was knit big
and felted small enough to snug into the basket.
While indoors, at the keyboard, I hoe my own long row, the WIP,
graced by, nourished by, the roses set beside me
by that gardener, and knitter, and 43-year companion of my heart.
Creeping buttercup is an invasive species,
not so much as we are,
but in the universe where a yard, a lawn,
must be grass blades only,
and also when it chokes
your flowers, herbs, or vegetables.
It is unfazed by mower blades.
Golden ragwort may be
discouraged by a mower,
for several days,
and prefers to make its stand
just out of reach.
Finally, the queen of lawn ornamentals
can only be controlled by broadleaf defoliants.
When we have absorbed enough toxicity from herbicides
to end our term here,
the ultimate yellow yard wort
— dandelion —
will roar back, thriving on our ashes.
In evidence, its survival guarantee.
At the edges, over the lawn line
the compositions of bloom and native grasses
are free to make and keep what friends they can.
We leave them be
beyond the perimeter of encroachment.
Our rapprochement.
May 8
Clematis clings and climbs up its arbor
clutching at the chimlee.
Almost … 
… and all the way open.
Azealia bumper bloom this year, in red.
so red,
and pink,
and whatever color this is
from the new bush down the lawn.
Calycanthus has too many common names:
carolina allspice, strawberry-bush,
sweet bubby, sweet betsy, and spicebush.
Money plant is one common name for a dozen little bushes,
mostly succulents,
that produce some sort of coin shape from the flowers.
This version makes translucent papery discs
later in the summer.
Now it’s purely purple blooms.
Cucumber magnolia flowers,
ten feet to sixty up the tree,
the first bloom are big enough for salad.
Another month, big enough to make a dinner plate.
A new-sprouted dahlia, beginning the long climb
up the flower cage.
Comfrey accidentally thriving in its own
little village of native weeds.
A lovely composition to which our contribution
was the not cutting down.
Apr 24
Spring overwhelms, reeling from so much at once.
A blurred yellow cartoon appears across the room,
fluffed out double size,
reverts to goldfinch when the preening is done
and I’ve stepped too close.
Behind the dense butt of Mr. Tom,
testing the grass, Lady Claudia Cardinal.
I’m not where they think I am.
Hornbeam fully leafed out, just in time for the hummingbird nests
of the first dozen or sixteen who’ve settled in this week.
Sugar maple seeds shower in astonishing profusion, likewise pinecones.
As every seed is sacred, we must plant them all.
Hawksbeard everywhere, a bumper bloom.
Money plants, in the pre-currency, violet phase.
Azelea not distressed at all by last week’s frost.
17 of the 20 blueberry bushes we planted 40 years ago
still flower and bear fruit.
This year we will implement some simple sharing rules
with the jays and crows and turkeys.
Dogwoods have become scarce, since the blight,
but a few young trees hang on.
Leaves ascending to the ridge.
By next week, an apparent mass of solid green,
but in the hundred shades of spring yellow greens
gradually coalescing into the grayer summer palette
of fewer darker hues.
And that will sign the end of spring.
