Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances.”

27 May 2009

"persistent quantum entanglement."



earthworms fecundating madly in the scented garden. the first roses bloom. the day begins early and earlier, ends later and late. everything is lush and extraordinary, the heat and rain absorbed by the life in rooted things and the succulence overwhelms any memory of winter. the woman showed me pictures of her granddaughter in the snow. look at the snow, i exclaimed. like winter was a planet far from the solar system i breathe in this morning after another white-noise night of rain.



whether i want to or not im going to have to weed after work if the weather complies. the bleeding heart is so gigantic i had no idea there was some enormous other growing beneath it, like a pumpkin or a burdock. and the abraham lincoln plant in the front garden, all stalk and lean rumpled leaves. friend or foe of rudbeckia and peonies? looks like roadside dock, her carpetbag of a million intrepid children. the royal we cultivates a wait and see attitude, keeping wary tab from the corner of an eye.



the bumblebees sound like hummingbirds. the jays sound like rainforest monkeys. the mourning doves sound like unrequited lovers. i go to bed thinking about the quality of my garden soil. i wake up wondering what has grown in the night. the little tomato and pepper seedlings hold their own, like runty princes in wide warm beds. time for thinning, hoeing, turning the compost. but at least i havent had to water.



the boss and i discuss bearded iris, alpaca manure, and how theres always room for another flowerbed, somewhere. she planted her lilies choreographically, yellow to orange to rust. these are not flowers, she says, these are my mother, my grandmother. her eyes shine with oceanwater. you dont think i know, she says, but i know.

1 comment:

  1. lovely as always. My parents redesigned their garden to make it easier to manage in their old age, they gave us plants that had come from our previous house, and we put them in our garden it wonderful to see them there knowing that they are part of our pasts.

    ReplyDelete

Blessed Be.

"And if the question were asked: What is more real, the mundane or the sublime? most would hesitate before they gave an answer. On the one side, details: say, the aftermath of a breakfast, dirty chipped plates in the sink, their rims encrusted with egg yolk. Against this, the unnameable: small aching heart with boasts, what can you know? Outside the cage of everything we ever heard or saw, beyond, outside, above, there lies the real, hiding as long as we shall live, there stretch and trail the millions of names of God burning across the eons. When all through this our end will come before we even know the names of us.

For many the egg yolk prevails." -L.M.

"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well."
-V.V.G.

"The perfection of the Absolute where all Becoming stops and pure Being, immutable, timeless, unchanging, hangs forever like a ripe peach upon the bough." -E.A.

"...and the whole incident was incredibly frazzling and angst-rod and filled almost a whole mead notebook and is here recounted in only its barest psycho-skeletal outline." -D.F.W.

"At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards." -H.S.T.

"Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live." -D.T.
"Cometh a voice: My children, hear; From the crowded street and the close-packed mart I call you back with my message clear, back to my lap and my loving heart. Long have ye left me, journeying on by range and river and grassy plain, to the teeming towns where the rest have gone - come back, come back to my arms again. So shall ye lose the foolish needs that gnaw your souls; and my touch shall serve to heal the fretted nerve. Treading the turf that ye once loved well, instead of the stones of the city's street, ye shall hear nor din nor drunken yell, but the wind that croons in the ripening wheat. I that am old have seen long since ruin of palaces made with hands for the soldier-king and the priest and prince whose cities crumble in desert sands. But still the furrow in many a clime yields softly under the ploughman's feet; still there is seeding and harvest time, and the wind still croons in the ripening wheat. The works of man are but little worth; for a time they stand, for a space endure; but turn once more to your mother - Earth, my gifts are gracious, my works are sure. Instead of the strife and pain I give you peace, with its blessing sweet. Come back, come back to my arms again, for the wind still croons in the ripening wheat."
-John Sandes, The Earth-Mother (excerpt, 1918)