Evening yesterday was warm and calm, everything coated by the yellow pine pollen that has covered North Carolina the last week. I stepped out onto the back deck to survey the grass that’s coming up around the house. Carpenter bees were buzzing about, bumping into the flashing above the screen porch and crawling up into their holes.
Today, rain. I got home from work as a deluge was flooding the road and yard, overwhelming the new French drain and rock path along the house.
We settled in for family movie night. Erin selected Akeelah and the Bee, which we’ve watched time and again though this was Oliver’s first. When Akeelah was at the state bee, I went out with the flashlight to meet Malia down at the park to walk her home. I tiptoed slowly down the path through the woods, expecting to meet a copperhead at any step. Thankfully, no serpents were in the shadows.
Back the bee, as usual, I cried. Such a sweet movie. But I was also crying from sadness, having read the short poem Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini, calling humanity to witness the flight of refugees trying to get across the water to some place, any place, of safety and hope.
And this on a day when news from the southern border of the United States is more and more dire, and our country continues its refusal to be humane, and the hopeless man who is president plays with fire.
© Anton Zuiker