April 27, 2007

Separating the fragments from the whole:

Thinking about how to care: the grape
vines planted a month ago, when
still there was frost in a world of hearts
of limited compassion. Immersed as I am
in the watery milieu of morning, cold river
against the skin; dawn’s high above
100 y/o oaks birds skim pale blue sky we are
mortal after all, what call is it
that draws my eyes up always? Each morning
from the azure there comes no harm…canon
of surrealist catechism. Hydrangeas burnt
back by those cold and heartless dawns
indifferent to blue, iced, now green-up new
shoots. I bang the uprights two feet
into clay to string the wire branches
will follow purple Concord, red, green remembering
melted paraffin poured all those years ago
on top of jelly made from grapes the wasps
left us.

April 26, 2007

On the breeze last week came the scent of irises. (The scent … is one of the most complex and elusive, weaving in metallic violets and snow covered roots. It is a melancholy fragrance by its nature.) Now sitting out in the dark morning, the gentle breeze plays bar keep and mixes its aromas, raises the possibilities, metallic, rooty iris with the cinnamon fruity-damask of the Lilian Austin rose in all its labial salmon.

The complex of morning began within this complexity of fragrance and a Marguerite Duras story about an ancient woman from Bugue on the Vezere River. Then having completed the morning’s ablutions and other nurturing chores such as misting the Bonsai and orchids, I felt an upward call. And so with the birds I recited the prayers reading: Mene mene tekel parsin: You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. It is a verdict worthy of most all.

The weight of things, men with failing livers in hospital beds, others with severe pains in places of dishonor consequent to treatments for deadly diseases, women with Alzheimer’s, deployed soldiers: the demands of saying you are in my prayers, the vertiginous, the muscular, and the precarious walk across the velvet bridge where everyone feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh.