July 13, 2023

Studied lines and wrote by the river, at the park pullover. A redneck kid caught a big water snake on the end of a stick, tormented his girlfriend with it for a while, then eased it back into the river.  Pairs of anhingas flew north upstream, but never seemed to come back.

I parked in one of the riverside pullovers and watched a homeless man climb up from the river bank and begin going through the trash can. I got out to give him money. He said to me “I’m just recycling.” He was reluctant to take the money and keep looking about to see if we were being observed. “We could get into trouble,” he said, finally taking the money. The law has apparently been coming down hard on panhandlers, though that’s not what he was doing. 

As I watered the garden, arching the stream over the beebalms, a hummingbird flew close and hovered, stabbing the flying droplets for a drink. I tried to hold the stream steady for her.