the surprise of a black horse appearing just beyond the back yard
(seeming to cut in from just through joanne’s yard)
and clip clopping away through the gravel alley-
ki’s dangling blue lead rope possibly frayed at the end
swaying as ki clops off up congress towards decker
and the sound of two kids on bikes
calling out and pursuing
_______
lisi – a gray fur puddle passed out
in the shade of the cherry plum
surrounded by white clover flowers
that sometimes buzz with bees
_______
what if there’s nothing to fix? (in terms of self / body)
Adrienne Maree Brown quotes her friend and teacher Spenta Kandawala
in this brilliant video
_______
the weird mix of sadness/loss and joy/relief
when gray kitty’s profile is no longer available
on petfinder
and the hope i have that maybe in some life
cats and talk in human word language
or i can talk in and understand feline language
_______
the distant explosives (plain name for fireworks)
thudding and lisi throwing his ears back
but his body is still calm
have u looked at the news
first text to roll in this morning after i turn my phone on
from corinne
have u looked at the news?
and my heart sinks
imagining another mass shooting
another Black man killed by cops
another wildfire raging
but then i try to buoy it again, dreaming that
perhaps it is something more brilliant and colorful and hopeful
than i could even begin to imagine
_______
we don’t have this kind of light
glowing through this kind of green
in wisconsin i say
about the forest-filtered fern green
treestump sunshaft gold glow
_______
sick of this shit i say
we’ve got to mobilize/organize
our herbalists
our doulas and midwives
our reproductive health care workers
_______
do you think of
your kids in the future
and this world they are inheriting?
i ask shiz as we drive along on highway 26
past the doughnut places and wagon wheel places
and mount hood looms bright white
against a baby powder clear blue sky
and other questions
the bouncy springy frolicky young fox
(paws too big for ki’s body)
bounding about just beyond the backyard
how, through the binoculars, the late afternoon sunlight
shines ki’s puppy fluffy fur
_______
juniper on three busses today
more unexpected whirlwind expensive crisis-response travel
to get to her son on the east side of the state
because racism and crooked power
________
the snakeskin that jon finds wrapped
around the red green butterhead lettuce head in the hoophouse as we harvest
while molecula discovers the tiniest snail crawling the spine
of a lettuce leaf
_______
the four of us hunched over in the strawberry beds
weeding out thistles and rhizome grass
when a woman slows in her minivan
asking us where one can find jillian
(farm owner)
and other questions (about where to find the greenhouse on the sign on the roadside,
as well as are ya’ll out here just helping out or do you get paid?
yes, we get paid – it’s a CSA someone says
and after the woman pulls away john says to us
i should have said “no – we’re a cult”
which makes me laugh and howl and laugh
as i tug and pull and kneel and shuffle
_______
how offering water to the porch plants
feels like offering water to joanne’s spirit
after i just find out
that she just passed
so nearby
(next door neighbor)
yesterday
more joy
the epic sidewalk-chalked hopscotch (in yellow and blue and orange and red too) snaking its way through the farmers market
starting at 1 and going up into the 100s, maybe even 200s or 300s
how it alone brings me joy
and how, if others were actually doing the hopscotch, it would bring me even more joy
_______
the distant sound of frog song and the slight smell of campfire
drifting in through the window as i write this
while stars emit their old silverblue light overhead
growth-green
the bright growth-green silver maple samara
that swizzles down and lands in my lap
as i read the overstory
in the backyard sun
on the christmas blanket
annual exam
clackety click clack the doctor
typing on the black keyboard
her back to me
while i sit gowned
on the paper-lined table
talking about this body
that she isn’t looking at
the offering
the offering of corn and animal organs that juniper leaves
for the parent crows who caw and caw
while their young one
attempts flapping/flying
against the front and sides of our house
_______
the powdery purple lilac blooms
opening
in this time of tender fresh new green
leaves unfurling from the boughs and branches of trees
soul-good
how soul-good it is
(at any time
but also at this time
when the wildfires are still raging in new mexico
and the road ahead as long as the current supreme court is involved
looks long and steep
and the war in ukraine has been warring long enough
that it’s now not the biggest news on the front page
of the new york times – certainly there’s a name
for the kind of fatigue that dulls us
even when the horrors are the same as they were before
or worse)…
how soul-good it is
to walk through the dappled light
in the woods
and stop at nearly every spring ephemeral in bloom
(or about to be) including;
trout lily
yellow trout lily
wild ginger
jack in a pulpit
false rue anenome
cutleaf toothwort
blood root
dutchperson’s breeches (hi, stan!)
violets
mayapples
hepatica
spring beauty
how good it is
to take in the seemigly endless emerald
of the wild ramps that cover the hillsides
and to note the fuzzy fiddleheads
doing their slow unfurling dance
how sweet it is
to lay a blanket down
and eat a simple meal
and then get lost
in a book
and look up occasionally at all this wild green,
all the carpet of blooms
as the sun travels over us
until we have to relocate the blanket
to still be in ki’s light
and how sweet
to share it with you, junipero
_______
and also: happy birthdayaversary, detail collector,
my brooding thirteen-year-old
to let the breeze in
rose in her light turquoise fleece and purpley leggings
in the morning kitchen with the grave announcement
that her covid test came back positive
despite how extremely careful she’s been this whole time
_______
based on my going-through-the-drive-thru-for-soft-serve joke
(even tho we’re going through the drive through to swab our noses for a covid test)
we make a detour past the culver’s drive-through
and come away with a small hot fudge sundae and small peanut butter shake
both pierced with those plastic blue spoons
and we roll to a nearby road that ends in gravel
where we can hear the peepers and red-winged blackbirds
and soak up the sun from the front seats
window cracked to let the sounds and breeze in
_______
the fava starts flopping in their tray
out in the actual sun in the actual fresh air on a chair on the porch
because i didn’t have to get a root canal today
great! because i didn‘t have to get a root canal today! i say to myself when the server asks how Lisa and juniper and i are doing today and then i go ahead and actually say it outloud and i’m glad i did because our server has a similar story to share because it makes our meal feel celebratory
and i want to remember that this is a little celebration one can have most days of their life
and chances are pretty high that you, dear reader, can also celebrate that you did not have to get a root canal today too
detail collector 