The New Trees

Have I mentioned J and his love of spending money? We are now the happy parents of not one, noooo... but TWO exquisite Japanese Maples.

But then there was the drama of securing them in the truck, in a downpour, for the long trek home. Yup. All to J's exacting standards of "I am man, this is how you tie down a load." Oh, but a domestic in the middle of town would not be so pretty.

Did I mention, I love him?

G.

Beauty in the Breakdown

Haunted Houses

We attended the Gwynne Vahn Park garden party as has been the tradition for the last few years, but this time it was a torrential downpour.

I don't mind returning there, I have good memories of the old Victorian lady... but I also see her as being a prison I lived in for five years. I did my time and I ain't goin' back. She seems less dark than when we lived there... the trees seem to hug the walls a little less closely. I would have taken a full photo of the grounds but unfortunately, there were tents set up in the front garden room...

How strange to see everything with this disconnection. With fondness. I can hear the ghosts in the magnolia trees... feel the echo of our lives around me. Somewhere under the maple tree, my amethyst ring, the cat's grave over there, this is where I told him I was going to St. Louis. This is where my son stood, naked as the day he was born, speaking to the Sunday churchgoers on their family stroll.

I am relieved to be done. How cellular it was to live in those worlds, rattling around in the one-hundred year old dust.

Now it's time for just remembering without the sticky nuisance of emotion.

Hall-e-fucking-lujah.

G.

This is...

Where the pictures I took on the way home should be.... if only I could get them off the phone.

Clouds. And the afternoon commute.

Tomorrow?

Besides, we have things to celebrate. Today is the third anniversary of meeting J.

G

Sparrow Suicides ~



Light play, the soft
brown of wings (delicate
belly) reaching
into broken sky
(wing tip to tail feather)

fall

sweep across the
(grass ditch)
country road, to
flash by my purposeful
hood (narrow
luck) and
miss

I calculate distance,
(check for survivors)
wonder if birds
are thrill seekers,
competetive (free
fall) racers
who enjoy tormenting
evening commuters.

(who can translate
the tricky body language
of birds)

I then (startled)
understand:
I have witnessed

mating.

Confession

Words do not come easily these days, yet they are the shadow that follows me. Elusive golems. I write in my head; the music bringing them, the pale green of freshly cut hay, the morning sky fighting the great guardian Mt. Cheam. There is something in the world I move through, beauty and pavement. In the eyes of those I walk past, the simple fact of knowing I am ok.

There is so much to be thankful for. This past fall had me in a dangerous place. There were nights when I could not articulate the mediocrity and loss of hope I felt in my daytime reality. The whore I was reduced to. The money I took on a check with my name in small print under the greedy fat heart of my employer. The soul eating day in and day out.

And then there was the snow. Erasing all of the brown shit that had started to pile up in my path.

Then, the ultimate revenge. Promotion.

April has seen me exhausted, but deep in the heart of hearts... bliss.

A wise woman once said that only I could change the path I had taken. I cleanly stepped off that LA sidewalk and into the arbutus lined pathways of Galiano.

Just
like
that.

But the words still taunt me. Only when I can’t pin them down with a pen, do they come. Beautiful and sad, beautiful and bliss filled. None of it seems to matter. Not the pretty paper I coax them with or this silent world of digital font.

There is such a wonderful sense of coming home to my life. Fragile as it may seem some days, we move through. I have to ask myself if the lack of words is due to the bright sunlight of happiness. Do I prefer the deep blue of midnight?

Three sky blue robins eggs nestled in the soft of cottonwood spun with the gentle fronds of grass. See it? Fragile. Life in that thin shell. Something the cat could get at; we struggle to protect its future. See the mother arcing above, calling out against our intention. We are the best we can be then. Communication. Collaboration. To save the miracle of three sky blue eggs.

The human spirit only needs hope. Hope. The almost, not quite tangible, promise. This will work. We made a difference.

I can
step off
the pavement.

The words have not left me. And I hope that they soon quit flirting and step out into this sunshine.



G

The Distraction on Monday

And Remember When...

It's been so long. So long. I had forgotten the way the words felt on my fingers. The way the voice coils inside me, slowly at first... then with a sudden holler, too loud to ignore it pushes out into this world of dark and light.

I heard strange music and it woke the part of me that wanted to sleep. And as a bear wakes from winter, I cleared the film from my eyes and stumbled here. Half instinct. Half purpose.

There are so many things that need to be said. So many mundane stories with the hidden heart. I have been a poor lover to my voice. I have been a poor friend to myself.

One step. One word. One broken light. And here we are... once again. Sharing secrets only seen out of the corner of our eye.


G.