Now the Blossom I Am

Slowly one retrieves the writing, returning it to home. When I study the grass, I no longer see only grass. It is impossible to outlive our helpfulness.

Ants scale the chair where I write, chickadees hide in the blackberry bushes. The kitchen smells like parsley and garlic and when I close my eyes I see mushrooms peeking from beneath silky ferns. How gentle we are becoming, you and I, as if remembering at last what is love.

One watches the pale moon fade like chalk dropped in the sea, one shares the way with a lady bug. I walk alone as far as the old cemetery to sit quietly on a rotting bench and think about nothing in particular. You can't explain it, you can only move in it.

After, I said "I felt like I swallowed a disco" to which Chrisoula replied "I felt like we did in Vermont." I have followed cows down wooded trails, I have ignored the jabbering of men. Slowly I allow the writing to reclaim itself, which in a way is to allow it to lead me, and swallows are thus made my teachers.

I mean: bluets, clover, fleasbane, daisies, hawkweed, buttercups and pale wild morning glories hiding in the uncut hay field. Watts Brook rises on account of beavers and beavers come and go. One forgets about the mail, and it's okay, because communication was never so restricted.

Hammers yield the manageable distance. I stack quartz near the front stairs and sing quietly in moonlight my gratitude. Be not afraid and betray no glade.

Afternoon opens now the blossom I am all for you. Voices rise and fall, run the gamut from whispers to shouts, here and elsewhere the same.