Like Fire

The sun came up like fire today...I don't mean just red. I mean red like the heart of a dark blood orange. I mean trailing twisted veils of cloud like fingers of smoke reaching far across the sky. There were sirens.....

Always sirens. Seems as if our hearts know the call of every firehouse for miles around now. Maybe they are just pumping cellars...lots of cellars to pump these days. But the bridge went down in Rotterdam yesterday. And the power was out last night. I take the phone upstairs nights now...never know who might call or why. So I flipped it open, checked the time, and reset the clock there in the dark.

This is the river yesterday. Don't know about you, but I am getting tired of ropes of thick, brown water. Liz finally made it home...hadn't been here since the day before yesterday because the county was in a state of emergency and every single road was either under water or under rock and mud slides. The boss went up on the TOP of the heifer pasture hill to bring down cows yesterday and was sinking almost to his knees on the grass, on the highest part. Just nuts. Can't put a tire in a field. Harvest is halted halfway through and may never start again. Winter is too close by far for my taste.

I take a little heart though, here and there. Although there are few birds left around, a spotted sandpiper has moved in and hunts under the manure shed and on the bridge between the house and barn. It is loud and lovely and so exotic (not that we don't see them around but this one comes so close.) A great blue heron pulses ponderously by. A phoebe flicks its tail and cheeps at me from very near; must be one of the babies from the trees by the bridge, because it shows no fear..... (between the sandpiper and him there was a lot of tail flicking going on that day).

They are worth a smile among the grim I guess.