The angle of the light has shifted, pouring down from a deep blue sky. The first deep red dahlias have shown up at the florist, and the first tiny, early Vista Bella apples (!) at the farmers’ market.
The black-eyed Susans, hydrangeas and day lilies are pools of vivid color along the sidewalks. And we have moved, for the second time in a year – to a third-floor apartment in a new neighborhood. Hello August.
As she does every year, Susannah Conway is hosting her wonderful August Break photo project, and I’m planning to participate on Instagram (I’m @katiengibson) and here on the blog.
The first prompt is “morning,” and I snapped the calendar photo above (in my new kitchen) and two more:
Transplanted and happy (like me): my beloved red geraniums are settling into their new spot on the back porch. (This is the view out my bedroom window.)
I’m catching the trolley to the train in the mornings now, and these Queen Anne’s lace greeted me as I walked up today. They remind me of summers at my grandparents’ Ohio farm, and of a friend who loves them.
Happy August, friends. Hope it treats you right.
cakes, tea and dreams 
I can’t remember if you’ve mentioned this Barbara Ras poem before, but just in case you haven’t read it yet, I’ll hand you this lovely little pail of her words. 🙂
YOU CAN’T HAVE IT ALL
But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands
gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger
on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.
You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look
of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite
every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August,
you can have it August and abundantly so.
…. And when adulthood fails you,
you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond
of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas
your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept.
There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother’s,
it will always whisper, you can’t have it all,
but there is this.
– from Bite Every Sorrow (1998), p.3-4
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(In the poetry class Naomi Shihab-Nye taught, she says she would ask students to write the phrase “you can’t have it all, but you can have this,” following it with all the simple things in their own lives that they could have. I love that idea for a poem/list prompt.)
This is absolutely stunning. Thank you, Kate.
Beautiful! Queen Anne’s lace reminds me of my grandmother, too. We used to go for long walks near the lake where my family has our camps, and she would point out the wikdflowers and tell me their stories. I loved the story of Queen Anne’s lace the most. (Also on those walks, we gave our favorite spots names straight out of Anne of Green Gables. We had Violet Vale, Lover’s Lane, and – of course – the Lake of Shining Waters.) You just brought back so many memories with that snap! Thank you!
Oh, I love that. And naming places like Anne! Wonderful.