Bespoke Herbals @ Backyard Botanics

A single stream of sunlight comes in through dirty glass

A river of light distorted,  illuminating dust

immortalized, mummified, caught like ghosts.

Paths in the light echo what the room has witnessed and recorded:

Desires, Comforts offered, dreams and wishes forgotten by the one who forged them,

but not by the room.

They are kept there, in it’s quiet embrace.

As a mourning mother holds the memory of a child taken –

sleeplessly and alone.

Her mind is such a place,

in which

a father’s garden grows

It’s perfect rows of carrots still lovingly tended

The patterns for children’s clothes lay, pinned to their fabric, arranged on the floor

A girl gazes into the mirror of a dressing table, dreaming of a dance

and an old man’s pipe rests, still warm, by his abandoned rocking chair.

Dust in the light

Until the sun withdraws, leaving the lover silent for another day’s dreaming.

We.  The People?

The other day on the road I passed a bumper sticker stuck to the back of a road sign:

“We the People

Means Nothing, Anymore.”

It got me to wondering if there is any truth to that.  As I considered society, split as it is politically, I wasn’t convinced.  I am not sure there was ever a time Americans weren’t split politically and socially by their values.  There have always been moneyed conservatives, poor conservatives, cultural liberals, artists – that tension has, in large part, I think, driven this country.

But it’s true we’re much bigger and there’s a certain lack of involvement on the part of “average” people in local government, bigger government, the things that affect us.

In the end though, I decided the writer and sticker-onto-the-sign of the bumper sticker is wrong.  It’s not true.  Here’s why:  my friends (admittedly mostly of an artistic bend) are very aware, very opinionated, and usually relatively outspoken and willing to share their ideas, their opinions, their energy and time, and their art – for the things they believe in, invest in, feel for, they *do* gather and organize:  Local farming communities, conservation societies, women’s gatherings, political protests, writer’s conventions, comic conventions, church services, pagan rituals, local art openings and, yes, political rallies and canvassing in this last election.

I’m imagining that this last election cycle, with it’s divisiveness and the very strong opinions held by both sides, isn’t such a long way from the opinions held by both sides before the civil war and the revolutionary war.    We still fight for individual rights, racial equality, women’s rights,  social well-being.

And we still meet each other in that fight.

I think it comes down to what touches us  and what we trust enough to stand behind.

Who we are to each other

It seems like the most meaningful encounters occur by accident – the participants unwittingly playing into the hands of fate or chance as if – it was all intended.  It’s astonishing, really, to think about how we’re thrown together with people – no choice consciously made most of the time, really – and the stuff of our thoughts springs from those moments in which we experience each other.

Prone, really.

In choosing to work where I do, I unwittingly married into a family.  It’s dysfunctional and without discipline.   But there are people here who have, quite unwittingly, I think, pinched the cheeks of my days – brought color to them.

I give you Tim:

An Ode to Tim

Advice on practical matters

Such as footwear for the office

Can always be counted upon.

He plies amusing vignettes, help with my software environment, a helping hand.

Probably

I am the least of his concerns, with so  many people dependent on him for so much.

But let him not think that I do not appreciate him.   Or his flaming converse basketball sneakers.

Ephemeral … or Spring Love

The crocus reaching for the sun were a reminder today that 39 years have passed
without having produced a list of events
a pile of accomplishments of note
a created cannon of work
as one might expect they should – or would have.
Delivered, as we are to a single moment
bare in it’s being
resplendent in it’s fullness
motionless, soundless.
It’s all bound up here …
Every wish and longing, hope and anguish lived
Swallowed in a moment

Of seeing

Quivering, shimmering petals receiving the spring sun as one receives a lover.