Summer Pleasures

Hey...Happy July!  Summer is a great time to celebrate Poetry Friday. My summer duties are accomplished and I'm relaxing into a summer lull. Behold two summer pleasures:

In March of 2020 I wrote about elderberries, but since then we planted some bushes in our yard. This is their third year and the bushes are heavy with berries. We are very excited because it looks like we will have enough for elderberry jelly. Take a look:

Burgeoning elderberries

Here's my poem about elderberry jelly. (Reminder, elderberries must be cooked.)

Elderberry Jelly

Pick some plumpish elderberries

Deeply purple, almost black

Cook them in a jelly pot

Make a jellied berry snack

Squeeze the berry juice out slowly

Bubble liquid 'til it's thick

Pour the jellied juice in jars

Pop the top on quick

Taste the deep rich berry flavor

I think no jelly could excel it

Wear your berry purple smile

Who cares if grape outsells it?

© Karen Eastlund

Our hands will be purple when we make jelly... a good rich purple that speaks of earth and health and joy. Isn't that what summer's all about? When deep in berries, laugh and enjoy.  

And then I ran across this little poem that I had written and tucked away, long forgotten. We don't have hammock facilities now, and my grandkids are mostly grown, but I love the memory. Here's hoping it brings a smile to you also:

In My Hammock

Hammock like a giant sling
In its cradle siblings swing
Whispers, laughs or loud harangue
In summer's lull it's cool to hang.

- Karen Eastlund, 2017

My hilarious grandkids

Poetry Friday is hosted by Jan Godown Annino today. Find her post and the links to others in the Poetry Friday community HERE.  Jan imagines floating like a manatee for maximum relaxation and renewal.

Thanks for stopping in. I hope you find time and space to dig into nature, swing in a hammock, and just breathe and float. 

Still Waters

 

Welcome to the July 2025 edition of Spiritual Journey Thursday. We are a small group of poets writing each month about the inner life. This month I'm hosting, and I offered the prompt of Still Waters. 

My husband and I bought a canoe and took a number of trips into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) in Minnesota when we were first married. We loved it. The BWCA is a protected area, open to those in canoes and kayaks. Except for a few entry lakes, motors are forbidden. 

Paddling is a quiet enterprise, just the dipping of paddles and swish of water. You hear all the chirping and thrumming of nature. We learned to keep our eyes and ears open and were often rewarded. Early one morning a moose passed within feet of our tent just after clompping out of the lake. Even though our Duluth pack of food was hoisted high over a limb, the moose had to lower its huge rack to get under it. Moose are ENORMOUS! We've seen beaver pulling young branches across a lake, no doubt busy at home improvement, and we were thrilled to see otters glide sleekly through the water. 

We watched kingfishers flit from tree to tree, and saw them dive and come up with breakfast in their beaks. We startled great blue herons, their huge wings flapping to a roost in the trees. We heard the pileated woodpecker knocking on an old pine and noticed its resemblance to the ancient pterodactyl.

While exploring a quiet bay we suddenly came upon a loon on a nest, its head hung down near the water. Loons will play dead as a defensive behavior if they feel threatened, and we had come upon it unaware, just a few feet away. We didn't want to scare it from the nest so we went quietly by. I still wonder if those eggs hatched successfully. In the BWCA you can hear loons day and night. Some evenings their parties are loud and raucous with calls echoing from lake to lake. There's nothing like the ancient and eerie calls of loons. They signal that all is well in the north woods.

We had all these wonderful adventures in and around water. What a blessing we have in water. The cooling splash on a warm day. The gentle bobbing. The sunset reflected on the shiny surface. I can think of nothing more beautiful and life-giving than water.

We loved the waters of Minnesota, though they were not always still. We had waves that bounced us and a few white caps to teach us respect. We had roiling gray waters, and water dimpled with rain. We scraped our canoe on any number of rocks. Mainly, though, we were lucky. Blessed. We were amateurs, learning along the way. By the grace of God, we never flipped into the water.  

I am deeply thankful for our adventures in still waters. We two in the canoe are some of my most treasured memories.

This summer we decided to put our old aluminum canoe up for sale. It's in great shape and will last another 50 years. I'm a little sad, but we have other adventures ahead of us. Whoever gets our canoe will make their own adventures, and I will wish them still waters and happy paddling.

"He leads me beside still waters."  

Yes!

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