I despair. Plain and simple. I despair watching the world burn. In these strange, apocalyptic times when all our denial, our willful ignorance, the thousand and one ways we’ve minimized the reality of Climate Change are now visible to the naked eye. Yet, lightning bugs still fill the yard as dusk deepens into night. The hummingbirds are already eating voraciously; in another month to six weeks they will start their annual migration to South America. I looked up in one of the trees in our courtyard at church and saw a beautiful young hawk, sitting on a branch look bewildered, still figuring out this business of being a predator. And when I walked out to the compost bin with the seeds and skins of all 24 lbs of tomatoes I used to make a dozen pints of tomato sauce, I stopped to check my cantaloupe. I had read one of these melons is ready for picking if you give a gentle tug and it comes right off the vine. I tried it.

Yes. Yes it does. Tomorrow for breakfast I will feast on this beautiful gift of the earth.