Everything Happens in April.

I am skipping right to events in my small, important, life. We all know about the horrors of this month in Boston and West, Texas. We know about the shameful failure of the gun background check in a cowardly Senate, but it is also National Poetry month, and it's been gorgeous on the Florida panhandle. We got a new cat--a tortoise shell with a cauliflower ear, who was lost on the streets until my brother Drago took her home. My brother Robert visited for a week and I was out and about in an unhermitty (sp?) way. My niece got married on a day bursting with love, and I read some poetry to people who looked sad or laughed when I hoped they would. I wrote some new poems, too. Here's one of them:

The Song of Jerome

Jerome, a young cricket, 

grown strong over summer, chirps 

his loudest and longest to lure Lilah,
his chosen, to him, only him. 

His wings, up and open, send his calls 
sailing to the shy siren’s shrub. She hears them,
comes closer, and he courts her with a new song
in a voice low and private. Jerome's chirping 

persuades her to choose him, only him.

Later, in the meadow, all the Gryllidae 

cousins hear “My love is with eggs!” 

Jerome’s song of copulation joins 

thousands of others as couples commingle 

all through the night, the hot August night.

This is a photo of Robert by Nonnie. He visited in the beginning of April.

This is a photo of Nonnie by Robert. I'm 63. Have I mentioned that ever? 

This is Tula, the cat that mesmerized my brother Drago into bringing her home

This is Tullie (her name's evolved) being mesmerizing.

This is my one and only niece, Lia, at her wedding  party with my one and only nephew, Nick.

This is Blossom with her 3 cats on my messy bed.

This is Gracy licking my brother Drago's head. We think she is trying to turn him into a cat. She does this trick most nights.