Architecture

From the unedited chapter "Weep: celebration", in God in the Yard...

Our house gapes at me from the far side of the lawn, its aluminum storm windows reflecting an air of doubt and boredom. Must I explain myself to a 1930’s Tudor? Okay, this is my story. I am in a makeshift temple in my back yard. These are the boundary lines: a rusty chain link fence on three sides that separates my property from the neighbors’ and a patch of English ivy that fills the little woods from side to side and top to bottom; I always sit in the ivy under the white pine, never in the grass.

Settle

This is what silence sounds like in my back yard…

Wind whooshing, woodpecker playing snare drum in the old maple, a yellow toy truck klunk-bashing tall cedar and jungle gym. Cordless drill making holes in someone’s garage. Shouts, knocks, squeals, sirens, a harmonica. Hemlocks whisper-whispering, "shh, shh, shh," the girl can hear us. Nuts cracking, water drip dripping. Leaf blowers, lawn mowers, an ice cream truck blaring electric-sick rendition of "You are My Sunshine." A plane roaring towards Chicago, or maybe Africa. An aluminum door banging, playing hard-to-get with the breeze ("you can have me, no you can’t"). The dog next door, first in a game of dog dominoes, "woof-woof-woof" down the street and back again and again and again.

I take what I can get.

Pickings

I've been silently
telling you I need
persuasion. Sometimes
I wonder about You,
about me. Still, yesterday,
again, you sent a friend
with her little bucket...
filled with daisies,
buttercups, Queen
Anne's lace. She was
sprinkling petals
at my feet. And it
was, at least for the
moment, enough.