I never realized how watery Cape Cod really was until this weekend, which is perhaps a testament to my blissful, willful Midwestern naivete. The trees here are all basically the same, though: lots of pines and oaks. Not that I know anything about trees (I don't), but they're pleasantly familiar and nonthreatening in a way that much of the New England landscape isn't. The forests here feel dense and indifferent, as though they're older than those of Missouri simply by virtue of being further east.
But because my mind is drifting rapidly, inevitably back to the mountain of schoolwork that awaits me, I cut this short with a few words by Amy Lowell. In the fifty-degree air this morning, I took an outdoor shower, which was exactly as exhilarating as one would guess. This sounds exaggerated, but it was a simple reminder that the feelings of certain seasons are nearly always inside our heads, somewhere, if we can only dig them out. Even in late November.
This poem, to me, exemplifies that feeling well.
"Spring Day [Bath]"
The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the air.- by Amy Lowell, from Men, Women, and Ghosts (1916)
The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and bores through the water in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It cleaves the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.
Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of the water and dance, dance, and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir of my finger sets them whirring, reeling. I move a foot and the planes of light in the water jar. I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white water, the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me. The day is almost too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright day. I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots. The sky is blue and high. A crow flaps by the window, and there is a whiff of tulips and narcissus in the air.
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