House

You can just barely see the legs of this common arachnid, known as the house spider (Achaearanea tepidariorum). I think this is a house spider. It is common across my yard, in every corner. Sticky silky webs with a hiding cone in the center. You can see this individual's former exo-skeleton in the foreground of the photograph. Everyone runs from spiders, but they are a beneficial addition to any garden. Only a few uncommon and easily identified spiders bite humans, most simply hunt insects and keep pests at bay. This one, like its cousin across the yard, has had to contend with squirrel droppings - seeds and husks from stolen vegetables in the neighborhood. The squirrels rest on the top of the post at the corner of the fence, thowing away what they don't want into the sticky corner web made by this corner-loving creature. The two objects in the lower part of this photograph are shells from sunflower seeds stolen from my sunflower plant that grew in the front yard this summer. Spiders are not insects. But they like to eat insects, and other spiders. They are hunters, all spiders are. They are like us in many ways. Solitary, protective of their nest eggs, clever and creative with their talents. They build their own homes, elaborately. There are other spiders in my yard besides this one. A garden spider built a large traditional spider's web between the wires running for electricity and those running for the telephone. I did not see it until a misting rain highlighted it with water droplets one morning. This one used to live by the gate latch, but its web was torn so many times by the opening of the door, it moved over here to the corner. Watch a spider some time. They know you are there. This spider knows my moves better than I do.

It is a rainy and stormy day in metro-west Massachusetts. From light fluffy winter-looking clouds this morning to a thick blanket of water-drenched monsters this afternoon. Remnants, no doubt, of Rita. As this storm blows out to sea another one is upstaged in Washington. Architect of the Texas Republican revolution, Tom DeLay has been indicted for election-related crimes in Texas. He has had to step down as Majority Leader in the House of Representatives. This incredible story was pushed off the front page almost before it got there by a vote on John Roberts to become the next Supreme Court Justice and his immediate swearing in ceremony. Both stories drowned out the 62 killed by car bombs in Iraq today. And the hundreds of thousands still homeless from the past month of storms. It is almost too much to glean all at once and certainly today's one-story buzz-line media cannot do any of it justice. The cusp of an epoch has been passed and yet we keep building webs where the latch will surely tear them up again.

Tilia

When I photographed this sapling, which has been growing all summer adjascent to the red oak (Quercus rubra) sapling I transplanted from Somerville, I had an instinctive sense that it might be some kind of hawthorn. I pawed through the tree guide. It is not a hawthorn. It is not an alder. The leaf looked familiar to me, but I couldn't pin it down. Is it a shrub? Is it not part of the tree species identification guide? Wait. Here it is on a well-thumbed page. This is the familiar linden tree, or American basswood, (Tilia americana). Its parent tree was earlier mistaken as a mulberry tree (by me). This common native species will produce flowers one day that will attract bees; basswood flowers, it seems, are the bees' favorite flower. Its wood was used for food boxes and wood fiber (paper). Indians used to weave a sturdy rope out its inner bark. This basswood will grow side by side with the red oak (behind it in the photograph) and one day shade the far corner of my property with drooping branches and that distinctive bee-attracting flower. Above it today, the sky hangs in the first deep cool gray of autumn. It suggests November today, even with green still mostly everywhere and temperatures in the high 60s. Muted sun, a gusting wind. You can almost hear the cackle of settling ice.

Or the cracking and breaking of patience. There are long waits for things and then there's this present set of circumstances. We confuse basswood and mulberry, something I assure you a bee would never do. We call all conifers "pine" and may be able to distinguish oak from maple, but not white from black or red from striped. There is marching death in Iraq as another week begins. Another kind of march this past weekend drew thousands to Washington, but not the millions who should have been there, out of conviction if nothing else. Today he utters the word conservation. I thought I was reading satire. And the days shorten into fall light and the linden tree reaches skyward.

Stability

Is this a showy aster (Aster spectabilis)? I was confused before about this very same plant. On August 19, under the heading "Asters" I wondered whether it might be a New England aster (Aster novae angliae), and doubted myself. This is the strength of good record-keeping. Now I know the flowers, and I was mistaken, but not to the degree I believed in August. This species of aster grows in dry and sandy places, like the pile of sandy soil across my right-of-way. This characteristic makes it a soil conservationist by nature. Its roots hold together otherwise erodable soils across Massachusetts and New York, and as far south as Georgia. It grows slowly through the summer. This one appeared in June and leafed out in July. Then suddenly here at the end of September, following a brilliant wave of yellow from its goldenrod (Solidago rugosa) neighbor, these purpish flowers have bloomed. Probably the last flowering of the year before we begin our descent into the inertia of winter. Fall solstice passed yesterday.

"This is what happens," She says as she carefully paints a patina on already painted paneling. "All of the shit comes around and back again." A bus exploded in traffic on a highway outside of Dallas. At least 20 dead. "They have made killing like a game," she says bitterly, exposing her intolerance for United States policies, having suffered at the hands of them in childhood and youth and young adulthood in a South American city. "It mirrors their actions elsewhere." Buses exploding in Texas, car bombs in Bagdag, munitions in Iraq. There are hurricanes bearing down on the Gulf Coast and all eyes are watching. Nature has suddenly become a great metaphor for global cultural frustrations. In history, watersheds are turning points, moment after which everything simply cannot be the same. Stories and then pictures of emaciated Jews being liberated from death camps in the 1940s was one of those moments. The image of a frail blue ball hovering in the vast nothingness of outerspace, was another. Poverty-stricken Americans perishing in southern cities by the thousands may be yet another. Here at the cusp of summer and fall when the balance of day and night is near equal, we have to reflect on the shifts in consciousness potentially underway. Our actions and conscience may become like the showy aster, holding fragile soils in place, making the wild flourish.

Cycles

This flower, the cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus) is native to Texas and the southern United States, but has begun to flourish here in the north these past few decades. They are a stunning display, growing like wiry weeds, carrot fluff, skyward for months. Two inches, four, a foot, two, four, then in August, like a slow motion fireworks display, the blooms started popping out. Lavender and pink and colors in between. The seeds were a gift from a friend and colleague, who had picked them the year before from her pollinated buds. This year we carefully gathered the seed to pass along to a new circle of friends. This flower likes hot sun for as much of the day as it can receive it. It doesn't need water, but, like any reasonable plant, it will take advantage of having water. This one got pampered through our past summer's drought. Another cluster of cosmos a few blocks away got no water at all and seems to have flowered as vigorously. The Texas landscape, it would appear, makes tenacity a virtue.

A hurricane bears down on the central Gulf of Mexico where warm waters promise to spin it into a dangerous frenzy. Killings persist in Iraq. Refugees are becoming refugees again. Permanent transportees. The overwhelming evidence is drowning out the success of their pep rally politics. Americans are willing to believe the myth and embrace its special brand of narcissism, but only to a point. Too many have died at the hands of this foolishness. Nothing was what they said it was, and everything has turned sour in the ways more reasonable men have predicted for years now. The facts are a nagging bunch of hecklers, like the cosmos in August, they have suddenly bloomed in a wave of bright colors attracting the eye.

Common

This apple tree (Malus sylvestris) was only two inches high and four leaves old last year at this time. I have it on video tape. We decided to let it grow, once it started because it was so nicely centered in the planting area next to the porch. Many believe that the European crab apple is the original native species from which this huge variety of cultivated domesticated temperate tree species came. This one has shot straight up into the air this summer. During July and August, when it was about half as high as it is today, it was infested with mites of some kind, which were in turn eaten by black ants. Originally, I thought the black ants were eating the top of the tree, but someone insisted that I look closer and I saw them eating the tiny insects that were eating the top of the plant. Did it grow from the seed of the tree across the right-of-way, or in the yard next door? Or did the seed for this tree come from elswhere? This specific tree has a story I may never know; the species has a story as old as human beings, at least. This bearer of wordly knowledge in the Old Testament, as old as civilization. Varieties were brought to Massachusetts by pilgrims in 1626, growing in numbers by 1630. Is this a blue blood descendant? Or is it one of innumerable variations on the theme? Is it a native, an American crab apple? All it tells me this year is that it responds well to regular watering and desires to grow taller. I am hoping it opens next season with some branching. For now it does not seem even to have developed buds. Domesticated plants require an entirely different regimen, having been allowed to flourish at the careful hands of cultivation and husbandry. They are not used to going it alone. Their simple quality of storing for long periods of time gave them early favor with humans. The Romans loved them as we do today. What do I have before me here?

There is a lull afoot. Not that tides have turned, mind you, but the noise is down, somehow, the volume adjusted for human ears. Violence still marks every day in Iraq and an entire city of homeless people wait still for permanent re-location, home or otherwise. The President promised millions, billions to aid all the victims of this "random unexpected natural disaster" as he called it at the outset. One can grant a certain amount of uncertainty in any outcome, and so his rhetorical turn seems successful again. But uncertainty was precisely our point before the war, before the certainty they said they had to move. The problem with this Presidency is no longer episodic, it is chronic. Their episodic responses make them appear even more out of step than we thought. This lull, then, is a careful catching of our collective breaths as we digest everything that has happened since Katrina struck, since Iraq began, since that horrible morning when those fanatical men flew those planes into the sides of the World Trade Centers. The tide has not turned, but it is about to. This quiet you hear, this calm you sense, it is the gathering of something, I think. Justice and civility are as much a part of civilization as the common apple tree; we must turn to what we know and recognize our common ends.

Long-tail

This mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) might or might not be the same one of a pair that fed from the finch-spill of seed underneath our backyard birdfeeder this year. I don't believe they had a hatchling, so this wouldn't be him. The nest they made in our gutter lasted only until the next rain. Sadly, that was almost six weeks of time. The same pair visited once while I painted a window. This may also be an entirely different bird - individual, not species, I'm certain it's a mourning dove. You've heard them. They live everywhere in the United States. That late afternoon melancholic cooing: Òcoo-OOH, Ooo-Ooo-OooÓ. You know the one I mean. That sound of sorrow. The birds, both male and female, produce a crop milk, a regurgitation material higher in protein and fat than both cow and human mik. They produce it for three days for their hatchlings before gradually replacing it with foraged seeds. These doves are a native to the continent and have filled parts of every ecosystem. In some places, this bird is protected by local and state laws as a valuable song bird. In other states, it is hunted for game meat. Yet it remains among the ten most abundant birds in the United States. Òcoo-OOH, Ooo-Ooo-OooÓ Is it because its wings whistle in flight from its short bursts of wingbeat? They are not afraid of people, for the most part, and seem even to recognize some individuals. They suggest a friendly and peaceful nature. They are unassuming in their beauty. This one is thirty yards away on a wire in the rain. You can make out by his shape and his body movements that he is a mourning dove. But you miss the beauty of his colors and the sound of his call. Nevermind. He will be somewhere near you again tomorrow.

All the schisms are coming bare, and his enemies are leaping for opportunities. Now it's a matter of raw power and renewed manipulation. Iraq is in Civil War and Ireland seems on the brink of escalating violence and our own ghettos are shameful to behold and at the same time Hollywood and MTV exploit the deep angst that armchair oppression can hold for us. The race is not over. The battles are still well ahead. It is not the sudden explosive bursts, the smartbombs, the shock or the awe that herald final victory. It is stamina. Steady tides, intermittant winds and rains. I wonder, in darker moments on rainy Friday nights, whether a threatened Bush isn't somehow even more frightening than an assured Bush. I long to be the plaintive mourning dove today, Òcoo-OOH, Ooo-Ooo-OooÓ.

Seamsog

This wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella) has thrived in singular bunches in one section of the yard where the fence makes a corner. It can be found both inside and outside the fence, which makes me think it preceeds the fence's existence. If you've ever bitten into one of these leaves, also sometimes called shamrock, you'll remember the sour tangy taste, the same flavor sensation as rhubard, and composed, they say, of the same chemical (a salt, binoxolate of potash). It is a tender looking plant and it has tender habits. Its sets of three heart shaped leaves are creased in the center and will only open fully in shade. In the sunlight they fold toward the stalk, shielding the leaf from direct light, and perhaps too much evaporation. It is rumored that at night and during storms, the leaves fold completely, leaving only half the surface to face winds and dew. The light green plant stands out amongst crab grass and clover and blue stem. And they give a lovely unexpected tang to summer salad.

He pretends, now, to be responsible. Oddly timed. Maybe. Now that money is being shoveled out of the Treasury into no-bid contracts for some familiar names, the logic of their timing comes clear. Now that a social disaster has been converted into cash opportunity for large construction and reconstruction firms, the true meaning of Bush-style charity becomes plain as day. As if it weren't plain enough already. And responsibility is the only thing left to take from these circumstances now. And, still, we wait. Folding our leaves completely to protect ourselves from wind and heavy dew.

Indian-bean

This northern catalpa (Catalpa speciosa) tree has sprouted in amongst a thicket of wild cherries and Norway maples. Its leaves come latest in the season. There is another catalpa of the same species, perhaps even a relative, on the other corner of the property next to mine. It is growing on the west side of an enormous white oak. This one hasn't matured and hasn't flowered, but it has grown for several years now, reaching out from underneath the cherry towering to its east. Every leaf it makes it makes to face the open air of the right-of-way and potential sunlight. The maples in its vicinity have all got brown rotted splotches covering their leaves, some sort of fungus, I suppose, but the catalpa appears fungus-free. It isn't a native to the north. This large-leaved showy, flowering tree was named by the native Americans. Catalpa are a tropical tree, who once had the luxury of growing large leaves, for certainty of sunshine. Now it conserves its energy, coming in late, leaving early and waiting years to flower. It will be back next year. Of this I am certain.

As if his own incompetence were a virtue. It is refreshing, however, to see the nobility of the American people, when pressed. This was not the way Exodusters fleeing Kansas were treated in the Depression, nor is it anything like the unwelcoming that met the Great Migration of sharecroppers in Chicago during the teens. It is a genuine helping hand, it seems, real empathy. Being a cynic, I wonder two things. How long will it last? and Why does it take a disaster to bring it out in us?

Yellow

This black oak (Quercus valutina) sapling is older than it looks. It grows slowly and carefully in the understory of Norway maples, white oaks, and its parent tree, a 30 foot tall black oak. It gets late day sun and its thick green leaves make the most of it, but do not make too much of it. It waits. One leaf or two, patiently riding out the seasons. It has no need to rush, it has confidence in its place. Perhaps, one day, the canopy behind it will open to the east and it will shoot skyward. Or maybe its life will be lived down here at the edge of a right-of-way. Either way, it seems, is fine with this oak. It is known as a black oak, but it is also called a yellow oak. Called the yellow because it produces a yellow substance under its bark that used to be dried and powdered and was used to die clothing yellow. We no longer have such relationships with this tree and most people no longer realize the existence of a yellow skin hidden beneath this nondescript specimen. The bulk do not even see this tree, who pass it every day, pick at it mindlessly with their fingers as they walk chattering on a cellular phone about things happening elsewhere, and jump into their cars.

Are we changed by the visible oppression in New Orleans? Does seeing classism and the despising of the poor jar something in our collective conscience about loving others as ourselves and the like? Does the deep visceral gut-wrenching horror that we feel when we learn that the police and National Gaurd treated the victims like criminals themselves, after they finally arrived on the harrowing scene, leave us reminded of our obligations and stir up that better part of our nature, dormant for so long? Can tragedy make us better people, somehow? The next weeks and months and the way we carefully assess the spin will tell. Just remember, New Orleans was not caused by patience like the understory oak, it came from petulance of the socially sanctioned kind.

Knees

This lady's thumb (Polygonum persicaria) is a member of the barley family, so is rhubard. Lady's thumb was brought to North America from Europe and has become a "naturalized" weed in most of North America south of the Arctic Circle. If you live on this continent, you probably have lady's thumb in your yard, or nearby. Its name comes from the triangular splotch in the center of its lance-like leaves, which looks like a smallish thumbprint, a lady's thumbprint. Its flowers are a light pinkish purple and it is an attractive plant to look at. This one has survived multiple lawn mowings and has flourished into a sturdy upright flowering mature adult. It will go to seed and leave its offspring behind to visit me in future years. I look forward to these meetings. The Latin name for the barley family, Polygonum, means many knees. Every leaf joint on the lady's thumb is bulbous like a knee. Its many names are self-referential. Refreshingly so.

The same cannot be said of our public language today. In this discourse we speak to conceal, we talk to assuage, we chatter to flatter, but we rarely talk truth. No one will say, out loud, for the record, I don't know, or, I am uncertain, or, that hurt me. We are steeled to the real sentiments of life. We are then shocked when the consequences of our indifference float out from flooded cities of our imagination. The things we do come back to us, whether they come to haunt or to comfort depends upon the care we use in our deeds in the first place. I will look for my polygonum next spring.

Linden

American basswood (Tilia americana) has one of the more distinct flowers and fruit formation of the trees in the neighborhood. This is the flower, the pale leafy thing is the petal. In a few more weeks it will drop these berries onto the right-of-way next to my house and color the street for a short time. Last year, when I didn't look carefully, I thought this was a mulberry tree. I didn't look at the flowers or pay attention to the berries, I only saw the spilling of berries all over the ground. Sometimes casual attention is horribly ineffective. Quick conclusions lead to mistakes and misimpressions. Does it matter whether or not it is a basswood or a mulberry? Could it not just have been an oak or a maple, without any difference to anyone or anything? What is one tree, after all? What is knowledge of it? Why such variety of plants and animals if most of us go through our own lives noticing none of them, or only a select few and not even seeing the others. How many corporate logos can you draw from the top of your head? How many different leaf types? Does nuanced information make a difference in the complexity of your thought? Henry thought it did.

The word being used now for New Orleans is murder. The most technologically advanced and militarily ready country in the world could not respond to tens of thousands of its own people starving and suffering and drowning. How many of those poor victims were left to vanquish because of Bush's foolish war in Iraq? How many were left simply because there were no wealthy people to serve in that southern city? The cracks were showing in the armor. This event will rift the whole establishment. There is no excuse for murder. We, even some who once supported this president, are horrified and disgusted. We notice this is not a mulberry tree, it is American basswood, also known as the Linden tree.

Broad

This ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea) spreads from the fence line into the yard. It sends innocent shoots across the surface of the grass and over time they settle in, roots dig in and leaves shoot up to shade out the grass. When you pull out a set of leaves, you find a tangle. They not only flower and waft seeds with the wind, they are perennials, regrowing every spring from root stock and vines. Out from the edges, this plant creeps towards the center, engulfing everything in its path and dominating the surface soil when its roots are firmly in place. It reminds me of the tendencies of right-wing ideas during the past twenty years. The slow creeping towards the center, the engulfing of everything else. One day, a fresh green lawn of social justice and respect for humanity, the next, nattled roots and broad leaves, one single ivy, no grass. We must guard against the invasive species of ideas that threaten the foundation of our republic and the core of our human values. We have it in our hands to do things differently and disallow these corruptions of decency, but we have grown complacent. The ivy doesn't look very threatening one day to the next, it only reveals itself in the long view of seasons and years. Then one day, for example, hundreds of thousands of helpless Americans are left to starve and die in a flood we made possible, and the ivy has crept across every corner of the land and we cannot respond, because we no longer care, institutionally. Sure, from your livingroom, those faces and the stories are wretching. But we no longer have the social tools that allow us to act quickly on our horror. George Bush is merely the culmination. Katrina is just one of those events that pulls back the curtain and reveals the man at the levers, and his feet of clay. We should be ashamed, and begin today to start an invasive set of ideas all our own.

Blur

A splash of green. This strange light. On some days it's a mystery which things to laugh at first: The certainty, or the conviction. Other days it is clearly a gray line, a shaken lens. These are historic events, but what events are not historic? Four days in the sun, four days without water, four days without food and swamped in an uncertain mob of grandmothers and drug dealers. What the hell can one person do this far away? Only one or two people can do what is needed and they seem set to dawdle. In Maynard, this mulberry tree (Morus alba) catches the streetlight on a September evening, its chlorophyl reflects the light into the lens of my digital camera. I upload that data to this server, which you have logged onto and downloaded to your screen. What a path we travel these modern days, instantly connected by representations of representations, each referring to something else in kind. The mulberry is a naturalized tree from China, whose flowers attracted silkworms. These are industrial trees, gone native. I can hear a buzzing insect all through the day, it emits a high frequency, high pitched rattle. Very loud in short bursts after which it rests for a time. Others like it in the distance. This time of year the bird song is less and there are louder buzzsaws. This weekend marks the official end of summer here in the United States. Labor Day weekend. An extra day. As if.

George Bush has caused a humanitarian tragedy. New Orleans residents cannot be left to die. The light reflected on this mulberry tree knows it better than you or I.