A beach in Maine – by Lorri Centineo

photo: Popham beach and Seguin island by Brad Blake Today we embraced a remarkable gift of sun mixed with summer's last breaths.

Mere smatterings of white fluff drifted by, not unlike chores drifting out of my mind.
And so, the emptying left space for visions of the beach.

I picked my son up from school at two o'clock and headed for the beach cottage where my best friend is staying this week.
Most of the local mosquitoes had exactly the same idea.

We ran my friend's dogs down the beach a half mile and back, then walked to the fort where two unlucky fish were finding new homes in seal bellies.
My pockets full of small bits of driftwood, some red seaweed curls, a very lost bit of still-soft coral, and one homeless urchin no larger than my thumbnail.

At dusk we watched sailboats breeze by the glowing island lighthouse. the moon rose and wrapped the surf in silver lace and limned the wisps of sky-whites with gold.

photo: Friends of Seguin Island Lighthouse

A thunderstorm in Maine

by Lorri Centineo, Portland MEDanny Burk photo: Cove and pines in rain, along Loop Road, Acadia National Park, Maine, May 2006

I love thunder storms. When the booming voice begins at wind-turn, leaves flip upside-down on their branches. Their silvery display glistens through the first droplets and I stand looking skyward, watching and waiting for my lashes to fill with tiny prisms that color my world.

Today all is color. Nascent bursts of spring mimic autumn's vivid hues. Pink flowering crabs nestle against the darkest of pines as ivory efflorescences sneak to the edges of the wood, horse chestnuts racing to shade mossy stream banks, those hips that contain flowing of the universe. Birth uncovers her face in glare lightning, its food pummeled to earth, unstoppable by humankind.

Grey never stays.

And today, the deluge and its celebrated flashes and roars barely scraped the blue expanse above. Golden as she rose, our sultry set her jaw and scolded the sodden darkness into sunmission, tying us once again to the beauty of glistening color, drenched with nature's blessings.

Twilight settles.