Known simply as Esther / A runaway slave in 1743 / Sought to be free / By riding the “freedom train” / Where fantasy meets reality / Of a Harriet Tubman dream.

The Tiasquam snakes across the flats / like a student’s handwriting, / curving and back tracking, in no great hurry.

She would have remembered today’s blue sky / from summers at the Vineyard Sailing Camp / where she learned about tacking and heeling / and coming about on the calm or choppy / waters of the Lagoon.

Juneteenth and Father’s Day
Third week of June
A double celebration
Of fathers we know
And those liberated
Over a hundred years ago
On Juneteenth
Marking the end of slavery
When men were encouraged
To breed
And not be fathers
In the paternal sense
Of nurturing a child
A form of fatherhood
Not to be celebrated
But remembered
On Juneteenth
As inspirational for all
Denied reciprocal love
Between father and child

The Black Skimmer working its way / close to shore — too close / for the Red Knots that arrived / last night from Argentina.

Wonders of pollination / Bees buzzing to songs / Hummingbirds sing / In harmony / To the percussion / Of butterfly wings