You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
Trying to strike a satisfying balance:
Between my local Meeting and serving the wider world of Friends.
With my writing, finding a wider audience for my existing work.
With the rest of my life – householding, exercise, reading, etc.
It just never seems to come together neatly!
So just what, exactly, holds it all together?
Unintentional Prayer Flags
My wife brought in a big green caterpillar, fatter than my thumb and longer than a finger, then asked if I knew what it was.
Nope.
Then she informed me it’s a hornworm, our first one she’s found on our tomato plants in the two decades we’ve lived here. And she was terrified. Said they can devour not just whole tomatoes but the plant too, as well as peppers, eggplants, potato plants. Well, it’s a long list and if you find one of the goliaths, there are bound to be more.
That stirred up memories of the three little woodchucks that showed up one July and reduced our six thriving Brussels sprouts plants to sticks. The very thought of something like that recurring still strikes terror.
A gardener has to be watchful.
the dilemma of loving a practical woman
“I wish”
totemic difficulties
as today
another lily
opens or falls
As a preamble to a friend’s retirement, “Congratulations” doesn’t seem quite in order, other than, “Wow, you’ve survived!” Or “Hallelujah,” in a minor key full of wonder. Like making it to the end of a gauntlet.
Chronology doesn’t matter in these matters, older as I am but less mature, the eternal 17-year-old emotionally.
I still have no idea of how it feels to “be retired,” other than there seems to be a bit more space to savor what we’re doing or eating, if we want or can remember to do so. Golf? Tennis? Who has time? And yes, after all those years in the newsroom, I’m still “on the clock,” even when sleeping. Tick-tick-tick, only now there’s more of an urgency of mortality. Well, at least so much of my literary writing doesn’t feel like acts of graffiti.
that buzzing housefly sounds fat
small lawnmower in the air behind me
