poetry
Tu B'shvat
Having made the journey from the front yard to the back, beneath the weight of the second story where morning light was filling rooms, I was comfortable with the progress of our adolescent wildflowers. Then light filled me up between the backdoor and backfence, mild flakes of disappointment at my temples that the poppies stubbornly refuse to bloom. For a moment I considered the preposterous notion of watering the Redwood Tree. Erect there, concentric symmetrics, wheels blooming over our rented house. Me, corrected, sighing. Sharing the embarrassment with the pointed bamboo that lived partially in their shadow, flakes brushed aside. I stepped into the shadow and gazed up into the vortex of leaves. You don’t need tepid municipal sink juice. (But I’ll get some for you, you potted co-dependents that dot the interior landscape, scrubbing and smoothing the nervy corners of brutal Puritan design. You little fuckers, in comparison.) I remember where Dottie scratched your delicate conifer skin when she was given a chance to roam wild. (Too few moments with that champion, I miss you.) I push on that spot with my imagination from a mile away through my keyboard, where Dottie, me, Redwood, and microbes had a chance encounter on earth in space. I’m reminded of one time I tried striking the Redwood. The is the way that you do as a martial artist who’s curious about surfaces and transfer. There was a sharp, uneven slap, because of that sketched conifer texture. More impenetrable than cement, completely full of form. Not the satisfying feedback of leather wrapped compressed textile. There are few living things that are so dense to human body sacks, I suspect.
Monday June 3, 2024