March 8, 2025

Shoulder tender from yesterday’s vaccines– an unusual reaction for me. Back into the garden: weeding, uprooting of wicked vines, planting of white rhododendron and hellebore. Left unfinished (a hole dug and fertilized, but the last rhododendron not eased into it) because of the shoulder and a faint flu-ache that I think must also be related to the shots. 

The hawk-shape flying over my shoulder as I worked was not Sweetboi, but a Cooper’s hawk– sleek, silvery, more compact than the red-shouldered, and with a faster– maybe more orderly–flight. 

Listening to Russian sacred music. Holy Russia is not to blame. 

Dream during a brief nap. I heard slow, firm footsteps outside my bedroom window. I rose and saw a huge antlered creature–an Irish elk, perhaps-- making its way under my dogwoods. 

Some great emotion builds in me. I don’t know when or in what form it will fountain forth.