the day the rain finally came

Until the past few days, we’ve had a very dry spell. Too many months. Lots of the grasses and many trees are brown. All of the hemlocks (not the conifers) are dead. The lack of rain has affected us all. Emotions ran close to the surface - mostly desire. The smallest gesture rippled across our surfaces. Day after day I carried water to the garden. My back and my time made me a thoughtful water bearer. I could not carry enough to the trees and I only hope that they will remember other lean years. I have tried to write but the drought has taken away my words. It is like a period of celibacy by choice and then by chance and then by mishap. Each cloud caressed with increasingly cruel gestures. Day after day the clouds would flirt with us, linger on the horizon. Foreplay beyond reason.

the day the rain finally came

i stood outside
had to take off my clothes
with my arms to the sky

alive
feeling
cold
rain
drop
on
my
skin

mid-day on a Sunday in July

I’m waiting for the sun to move from its most intense spot in the sky. There is work to be done in the garden. The letter to California that is being composed from The New York Times is carefully resting in pages all over my office. It is waiting for me to affix its pieces. But I’m not feeling much of anything is permanent at the moment so resist. The Queen Anne’s lace that we picked last weekend has begun dropping small dried petals on my desk. The pungent green walnut, from that same walk, has lost the most intense of its odor and has begun to get small brown spots. I wish it were possible to bottle that first odor of the walnut. I wish it were possible to bottle the whole experience. A walk here on a Sunday afternoon in July Ohio. Down the hill, past the cistern with the fish and the frog looking over its many eggs and bees drinking from the small overflow. Bees drinking, ain’t that a kick? Stepping from the sun into the dappled light through the trees to the field. Some of the wild flowers are tall - reach over our heads in spots. {I don’t know what it is exactly that tells me these plants know the descent has begun. The loss of daylight has become almost palpable.} The path winds through the field, skirting the tree line turning turning past the inadequately explained hill. A small newly dead animal was lying near the corn field. {No blood, no external wounds and I wonder if the red-tailed hawk dropped it. He’s been sitting in that big nut tree and hunting our yard.} Butterflies on the path work their way from flower to flower to rotting waste. They linger. Progress slows and thankfully so does time. It is impossible to resist touching the yarrow and turning face first into the sun. The heat and the humidity somehow make the body buoyant. Back into dappled light down to the oxbow. The dragonflies are thickest here. Shimmering with impossibly delicate wings. There it is. A bright green inviting walnut. The perfect size to hold in the palm with the fingers wrapped around it just so. First instinct is to inhale. It feels like it smells good. Get it? You can feel that smell in your hand. The first breath of the pungent emanation reaches deep into the body. It makes the heart pause in salute to this intensely alive object. All you can do is walk swiftly back up the hill with it held to your face, gratefully ushering in the living breath.

disambiguation

whisper onto my lips

no patience but no choice

sweat puddled behind my knees
dried and smelly under my arms

i cannot think until that hour has passed
the last hour with the warm breeze

i wait for the delicate tongues of the night air

it is early morning and these are the things

in a comfortable delicate breeze of a cool summer morning

no machinery no humanity
just birds -- that's right
no exaggeration
just birds
at least six different calls
birds unseen and many many many
one spectacular call
from the wild cherry

I planted outside my window a flower bed
right in the middle of the yard
for my soul this very morning
the clematis is a thick blanket of deep purple
draped over the trellis with orange zinnia at its feet
the past few nights have been so chilly that I've
been sleeping under that blanket
and dreaming of the bee balm and daylilies
that have just begun to burst and
the buds that are growing seen and unseen



often it is overwhelming

New York City

I didn't mean it.
I'd like my words back now.
I lost them in those rivers of yours.

bluegrass letter

"how mountain girls can love"

weeding the garlic this afternoon
i snapped a leaf in my fingers
pungent thoughts rushed to my head

"i must journey all alone"

my body is sitting in my favorite jeans,
polka dotted underwear and pink lacy bra
and it could have worked harder today

"it's relentless and I'm defenseless"

i was the rain in the garden today
I tried to be more than just the barest
of essentials - tried to sustain

"lord teach me how to speak"