25.6.09

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.

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9.6.09

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.

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4.6.09

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.

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