Sirens

Today we finished a round of school groups at the Evergreen Cemetery walk just before the tornado sirens sounded!

There was no tornado. It was the Tuesday morning at 10:00 a.m. test of the system. But it was raining, so the possibility of a tornado was watery in the air! It rained on and off all morning, and the sun came out in the afternoon. It is very good to have finished your speech or scene before the sirens sound, or before the train comes through, or the airplane goes over. We have been very lucky! So have the squirrels. Each day, my scene partner lines up acorns to keep track of how many times we have done our scene (a jillion in all, but 6 or 7 per round), and every morning they are gone. Stolen. Buried.

The cemetery workers do a beautiful job of upkeep. When I arrived at our spot this afternoon, one of the men was there blowing the latest leaves out of the family plot. He said, "I've got to keep the leaves out of your living room."

And, oh, my, I love lunch. They feed us so well--home-made soups, restaurant specialties, and home-baked cookies. It takes a lot of energy to do our work. And it takes a lot of cookies to keep us going!

In other news, I have a new Poetry Cheerleader review up at Prick of the Spindle and two poems in the current issue of Nimrod. It reminds me what I do in life, when I am not in the cemetery.