Loose Strife

Laura and I were toying with the idea of having an open house, belated housewarming party on the weekend of the Ashfield Fall Festival. But we weren’t sure she’d be up to it. Well Laura’s doing better and she told me on Thursday that we should go ahead and do it. So it shall be!
I’ve invited all of our old neighbors from Northampton, colleagues from work in Amherst, all of Laura’s “mom’s group” friends, our new neighbors and families from Ashfield preschool!
If I missed you and you want to come, here’s the invitation where you can sign yourself up. (Mom’s group friends, as of this writing I haven’t typed in your emails, yet. Be patient.)
I included a poem from Mary Oliver that I thought was apropos. Here it is:

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,
the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back
from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere
except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle
of unobservable mysteries – – -roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This
I try to remember when time’s measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn
flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay – – – how everything lives, shifting
from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.