A collection of impressions

Another Saturday at the farmers market, but a rainy one. My pants were soaked from ankle to knee, knee to thigh. I think I will like the rainy winter, if only because it mines and polishes the moments I love - the warmth of the first brittle spray of the shower, a sun breaking through heavy clouds, the sounds of traffic and leaves swaying.

Some tea trivia:

the most coveted form of oolong is called monkey-picked because the monks used to train monkeys to climb to the top of the trees to pick the young and sun-saturated leaves from their crowns.

Puer tea is a little knot of leaves, bundled in crisp, sheer paper and stored for twenty years in little rows capped with twisted paper tufts.

I love long, silent afternoons alone, wandering through streets and stores, imagining I see people from my past in the backs of others' heads - my grandpa's hat and gait, an ex-boyfriend's red hair and big ears - and being overly deliberative about produce, inspecting each apple from stem to its green fringed belly button, reading books in the aisles of the library while people maneuver around me, breathing soft apologies.

First thirty seconds of fall

I wake up to the surprise of cool, crisp air
the first break in the heat,
it's as sweet and smooth as brown sugar.

It makes me miss you.
More than the sultry, heavy heat of summer,
more than the cold twinge-bitter winter,
this crisp air, of new beginnings, of escape into blue
makes me close my eyes to thoughts of you.

A soft suede sky extends overhead,
flat, not arching and distant, but close, almost caressing the
tops of heads, touching the peeks of skin bared by cool weather clothes – hands, noses,
a flash of ankle on a steep hill,
a strip of back when a shoe is tied,
the white of teeth in a wide open laugh.