July 31: While we ate ice cream cones
Kristen Lindquist
Indulgences of summer--
bumblebee
deep in a squash blossom.
bumblebee
deep in a squash blossom.
Book of Days
BOOK OF DAYS: A POET AND NATURALIST TRIES TO FIND POETRY IN EVERY DAY
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Filtering by Tag: ice cream
July 23: Ice cream
Kristen Lindquist
This is the first post I've written in four days, because I've been on an island with my six-year-old niece. The combination of an intermittent wi fi link out there and having to focus all my energy on a small, active person prevented posts, though there were certainly many poetic moments. They will have to remain in my memory for now.
Tonight my poet friend Elizabeth and I met for our monthly poetry session so we could both feel like writers again for a few hours. To prepare for our scheduled time of intense sharing and discussion, we enjoyed drinks and dinner al fresco at a hip bistro near my writing studio, and after dinner, walked to a riverside ice cream stand for dessert.
I had to laugh, because my niece's favorite thing about spending the weekend with me on the island was that I let her get an ice cream for dessert after lunch and dinner every day. She ended up eating five ice cream cones in three days. So you'd think I'd have had enough ice cream. But there's something about walking the sidewalks of our hometown on a warm summer evening that made getting an ice cream cone the natural activity, somehow helping us transition perfectly from the mode of enjoying dinner out with a friend to a serious discussion of each other's writing.
Ice cream cone in hand
I'm in a child's state of mind--
open, word-ready.
Tonight my poet friend Elizabeth and I met for our monthly poetry session so we could both feel like writers again for a few hours. To prepare for our scheduled time of intense sharing and discussion, we enjoyed drinks and dinner al fresco at a hip bistro near my writing studio, and after dinner, walked to a riverside ice cream stand for dessert.
I had to laugh, because my niece's favorite thing about spending the weekend with me on the island was that I let her get an ice cream for dessert after lunch and dinner every day. She ended up eating five ice cream cones in three days. So you'd think I'd have had enough ice cream. But there's something about walking the sidewalks of our hometown on a warm summer evening that made getting an ice cream cone the natural activity, somehow helping us transition perfectly from the mode of enjoying dinner out with a friend to a serious discussion of each other's writing.
Ice cream cone in hand
I'm in a child's state of mind--
open, word-ready.
September 11: Bounty
Kristen Lindquist
A friend spent today grinding, juicing, and otherwise preparing for long-term storage 122 pounds of tomatoes. When she and her husband came by to pick us up for dinner, she brought in a big basket laden with vegetables, including tomatoes looking like red pumpkins, beets, carrots, and a torpedo onion. This was a good year for gardens, and they're now reaping the harvest. I've also enjoyed several of their musk melons and watermelons this summer. And my freezer is still well stocked with strawberries picked several months back.
We went to dinner at a new little Asian restaurant in town, Long Grain, where I had exquisite steamed dumplings filled with a perfect combination of minced pork, shrimp, and seaweed. Despite the exotic ethnicity of the cuisine, the menu says they use produce from local farms whenever they can. After dinner, we got Round Top ice cream cones down the street. Thinking about all this locally grown and/or produced food makes me feel so grateful that not only do I not need to worry about where my next meal is coming from, but odds are it's going to be a good one. I am aware that for many, many people in this world that is not the case--which makes me feel that I should take care to especially enjoy that which I could so easily take for granted: good food and gifts from a friend.
Is it wrong to find
such comfort in tomatoes
on this tragic day?
We went to dinner at a new little Asian restaurant in town, Long Grain, where I had exquisite steamed dumplings filled with a perfect combination of minced pork, shrimp, and seaweed. Despite the exotic ethnicity of the cuisine, the menu says they use produce from local farms whenever they can. After dinner, we got Round Top ice cream cones down the street. Thinking about all this locally grown and/or produced food makes me feel so grateful that not only do I not need to worry about where my next meal is coming from, but odds are it's going to be a good one. I am aware that for many, many people in this world that is not the case--which makes me feel that I should take care to especially enjoy that which I could so easily take for granted: good food and gifts from a friend.
Is it wrong to find
such comfort in tomatoes
on this tragic day?
April 3: Ice Cream and Frogs
Kristen Lindquist
We were in the Freeport area today, so we checked out the hawk watch for a few hours at Bradbury Mountain State Park in Pownal. On the short hike up, brown creepers, juncos, and phoebes sang. From the summit we--along with about ten other birders--watched kestrels zip past overhead, red tails shining in the sun. Sharp-shinned hawks flapped and glided in circles around us. In the distance, red-tailed hawks, an eagle, ospreys, turkey vultures, and a goshawk were picked out one by one by the official observers (and eventually us), each bird recognized by its silhouette and flight pattern. A pileated woodpecker called in the forest below us. Tree swallows darted past, the first I'd seen this year. A golden-crowned kinglet hopped in the branches of a nearby tree, crown flared. It was the kind of birding experience that gets my heart racing, and I had all intentions of writing a poem about it. However, as exciting as it was to see those raptors soaring by on their primeval quest to get north, and to see and/or hear other first-of-year birds, different signs of spring gave me today's "haiku moment."
First cone at Round Top:
two scoops with jimmies. Later,
first peeper chorus!
Friend and fellow poet Carl Little has a great spring poem called "Zones of Peeper," about driving around this time of year with the car window cracked open, passing through literal zones of frog song as you go past each vernal pool or wetland. For a moment, the sound pours over you, your heart thrills to it, and then it's gone. We only passed through one zone this evening, but the first one of the season is always the most exciting. Especially if you do so while finishing off an excellent almond joy and Indian pudding ice cream cone.
First cone at Round Top:
two scoops with jimmies. Later,
first peeper chorus!
Friend and fellow poet Carl Little has a great spring poem called "Zones of Peeper," about driving around this time of year with the car window cracked open, passing through literal zones of frog song as you go past each vernal pool or wetland. For a moment, the sound pours over you, your heart thrills to it, and then it's gone. We only passed through one zone this evening, but the first one of the season is always the most exciting. Especially if you do so while finishing off an excellent almond joy and Indian pudding ice cream cone.