Loving Again

What is thunder
but a way to remind us hearts beat inside our guarded chests?

Why do the birds go quiet?
And you my friend walk out of the house
to taste the fragrant air.

Count the seconds til it happens again.
Surely inbetween the bell tolls somewhere for someone.
But don’t forget life. You can’t forget life.

It is in us to fail and weep and fall to a knee.
These are black days and sour notes on the Steinway.
Know now there are far more questions than answers.

There is an emptiness.
Some say the prairie is haunting--
a desolate beauty.

Look closely into the draws.
Fix your eyes on the far buttes.
What shapes do you see in the mango-mint horizon?

It all comes and goes. It’s really that simple.
Look into her eyes. There is soul in that guarded chest.
Thunder, come again.

"As always the body wants to hide, wants to flow toward it--strives to balance while fear shouts, excitement shouts, back and forth--each bolt a burning river tearing like escape through the dark field of the other."
Lightning, Mary Oliver
American Primitive

She

Her beauty
like the rugged hills and icy country draws
is simple, yet resplendent.

Two meadowlarks in a ponderosa pine.
A serpentine sun.
The life trickle of a clear stream.

See the turn in the creek?
Where does it begin and end?
In the field a volunteer sunflower jumps from the soil.
Crack open its stem, smell sky and earth and everything inbetween.

Life is to be noticed.
Sun rising, earth warming
life reaching, breath floating.

Tonight in the garden I think," what if"
and watch the fire lick the smoky air.
The moon looks over all of us.
Tomorrow may she emerge.

Wonders of the heirloom tomato

Last night the sun set tangerine orange. Before Easter we noticed two nights consecutive the moon glow cast the shape of a thick, milky cross. Nature is a glorious beauty.

Today I start my own mini miracles, planting heirloom tomatoes. Their shapes and colors fascinate me.

Just seeds today, some from Gurney's, some from great uncle Bill (one kind known, one kind not). They have great names, like puple cherokee, black krims, and green zebras. These tiny little seeds, sprout up in less than a week. Life begins.

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Today my hands smell like tomatoes. I have dirt under my fingernails. It's May 2nd. I've just repotted 25 healthy plants. I can do 50 more. Where do I put them all? After I planted them, I bought special flourescent lights. The guy at the hardware store said he figured I was planting "something else."

The garden is a living, breathing reminder of life and death. From the birth of spring to the adolesense of June to the maturity of August, our hopes rise with the days. We nurture this life the best we can. Most of the time that is enough.

I have only to be reminded of the beauty--their beauty--to know the wait and the journey are worth the sacrifice.

Double Ditch ice jam

Fox Island ice jam

August

This day begins
where the matted deer path wanders into the trees.
Russian Olives shape a thorny moat
dare you enter.

Inside rows of thickets and tall grasses tangle.
Columns of plum trees--fruit green for the season,
chokecherry, buffalo berry and a ripe red early berry
nourish the souless.

Follow along well worn friend,
smell the pine-shadows and junegrass.

Sun spills over tattered earth
from bark branched skeletons
deflecting light.

Silent feathered phantoms speed ahead.
A buck beds down in nature's grandfatherly lap.

This path curves gently
no need for map or compass.

The only questions to this life--
where do you emerge,
and does it matter?

Title: August, Mary Oliver
American Primitive
"In the dark creeks that run by there is this thick paw of my life darting among the black bells, the leaves; there is this happy tongue."

Dreaming of Medora