Closer than We were Told

Could be thunder, could be an adversary getting closer than we were told they could get. The raspberries flower, the strawberries flower. Down past the horse pasture, a ceramic angel planter - one where the angel is a chubby cheerful baby posing with his chubby chin on his chubby fist - rests on a tree stump and shines so bright even the neighbors a quarter mile away ask what it is. We talk briefly about cannabis while planting elderberry, and in the middle of that difficulty I realize where the once-indoor-soon-to-be-outdoor Buddha statue will go. What works, what helps. At night - 3 a.m. or so - I stand outside and listen to owls, saying quietly to myself over and over, "this is night - this is what night is." Fionnghuala mulches her garden, Chrisoula puts up twenty-four tomato plants, and I drift happily along the perimeter, planting forsythia, gathering rocks, admiring violets, talking to Thérèse of Lisieux, wondering if so-and-so will ever write to me again. Everything happens because we talk, and what we talk about is what we think about, and what we think about is what we talk about, so give attention always in all ways. Won't you be my neighbor? Don't forget our shared mission to make every day Valentine's Day! The cosmos my dear, it rushes to completion in us.