May 9, 2015

Gray day. The fate of Commencement rests upon whether the gray is just a color or the veil of rain. Our new chancellor covered herself with glory by returning the ceremonies to the Quad after an outcry from graduates and alumni. Let’s hope it wasn’t vain grace.

Friday afternoon the first hummingbirds came to their feeders. It was a day of intense gardening, as though departure for Rome tomorrow were some sort of deadline. Destroyed half of Stewart’s hosta monoculture in the back, uncovering four roses from their barriers of leaf, planting lupines, morning primroses, scabiosa, leaving great spaces open for the light to penetrate. Woke sore, taking a minute to understand why– an old man at hard labor who neglects to stretch afterward. The last bag of topsoil had developed an ant colony, and when I poured it out it boiled with shiny black ants. Happily they seemed to be too confused to bite as I spread their erstwhile empire around.

The herbacious peonies bloom. The black iris blooms.