.
the bells of time
are always ringing
in the garden
of possibility
.
whether you hear
music or
cacophony
depends
on the rhythm
of your heart
.
.
.
.
It’s been a month of things being broken. I hear Mercury’s to blame, and smile at the notion, but then I believe it anyway, because it’s been a month of things being broken.
Some things get fixed and other things get replaced and still other things get discarded.
Clearing the air and the space and the clutter that looms in my mind. I want to fix everything, I can’t fix anything, no, I can fix this.
Somehow, I inherited the fix-it gene. And with it, the particular strain of stubbornness required to make it work, whatever it is that I’m fixing. Both a bane and a blessing, I suppose.
But I like fixing things better than discarding. We throw away so much these days, without thinking, without taking in the bigger implications of where it all goes. Some days, I want to stop buying anything. Tiny bottles of cream in boxes four times their size. Two grocery items in one shopping bag. Cardboard and cardboard and cardboard. Recycling bins overflowing.
There are too many things that can’t be fixed, things that are intended to be discarded as soon as they stop working.
Some days, I feel this notion is filtering over into our humanity. I see so many quips about discarding people who have hurt you or don’t encourage you or don’t do this or that, and it makes me wonder. We used to fix our relationships along with our toasters. Have we abandoned that practice, as well?
We have so many choices, too many choices, and that becomes its own kind of stuck.
I cant find a decent charcoal grill at a decent price to replace the three we’ve had since this one that my husband took to our camp. The models they sell now are so visibly cheap that they might last a year if you’re lucky. And everyone uses gas grills these days, because it’s faster, and perhaps, a little, because it’s cleaner. I try to talk my husband into gas, but he’s old school, he likes the process of starting the briquets and waiting for the right temperature. I think how much easier a gas grill would be, but I’m not the griller, so charcoal it is. Besides, I suppose a gas grill would be just one more thing that would break.
It’s been a month of things being broken.
But even so, my garden is lush, we have food on our table, and people we love, and blue skies at least half the time. It’s summer and the glass is half full. Another year, pouring itself out for the taking.
I drink to you, June.
Now come on over here and sit next to me while I fix the torn hem of your dress.
.
.
.
some days
my heart breaks four thousand times
and that’s all before
i open my eyes
heartache is the farmer of contentment
planting seeds he knows have little chance
of bearing fruit
if you want 40 plants you sow 68 seeds
and if you’re lucky you’ll end up with 50
think too much and you’ll always have just enough
but no one ever said happiness
was a permanent state
and no one ever said
survival was a given
we stand in a field of black soil
and cry when our feet get muddy
the rain will wash you clean
as long as you don’t run
and sometimes the sky has to cry
just the same way a mother
has to worry
have you ever tallied the scars
on the tree that shades
your bedroom?
missing limbs
broken branches, gashes
peeling bark
sap runs slowly through the veins
of existence
but every spring
green
new growth
insists on piercing the cloud
blocking your view
of the sun
and four thousand leaves
never seem
overwhelming
until tomorrow
when they’ll fuel the flame
you find impossible
to douse
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
sometimes
life takes
a big old chunk
right out of you
.
sometimes
life traps you
in a rusted out
corner
.
go ahead
bloom anyway
.
.
.
.
keeps me tethered to the anarchy of fortitude
and i am calm most days
as long
as no one looks behind the curtain
the robin sings at dawn and dusk
celebrating light and darkness
with the very same song
and i wonder
how any of us make it
through a night
that lets us
slip
through the grasp
of reality’s fingers
even dogs dream and
no one
ever told them they couldn’t
every morning
bird call becomes bell or music or
shrill-strapped screaming
but i always wake up
to this tree
this red breasted thrush
this half-hearted thrashing
against the weight
of a twisted
damp-mouthed
sheet
.
.
.
here is the hardest word
not sorry
nor forgiveness
though both are solid rocks
in the shoe of living
but
here
you cannot stay
you cannot leave
you cannot sing yourself away
or back again
from the eternal sunset
of lavender libation
all you can do really
is open
your eyes
your heart
your arms
your mouth
drink it in
inhale
exist beneath this ever
changing
umbrella of now
here
listen
hear it
raining down
.
.
.
because
each moment holds its own redemption
each sunrise is a dare
each drop of rain was once a cloud
.
yesterday
this flower slept in a bed of mud
.
but look how pretty it wears
today
.
and a morning filled with birdsong,
windows open to a drizzly rainy day
wrapping me in a blanket of cool humidity
my garden is happy,
half clean and half beautiful mess
and this is progress
and just outside my window
i’ve planted
kiss me over the garden gate
right next to
love lies bleeding
which makes me smile
because i know which one
grows taller
.
.
.
.
here, there, and everywhere
stretched too thin
and running in circles
.
i may be here less
or, as often happens when i need a refuge,
i may be here more
.
i hope to be sitting
out there
as often as possible
.
listening
wondering
dreaming
.
there’s always
a pencil
in my pocket
.
.
.
.
