TAKE TEA IN a little cup. A letter from a friend arrives with haiku translations of Hosai: "Wetting the daybreak trees, and gone, the rain." I like this despite the clumsy, enjambed phrase. Suzie, our midwife, pricked Waylon's heel, squeezing blood onto little circles printed on a card. Some days are mundane and lonely. They leave me rootless and unwound. Absorb these hours, every image in the making of us. Spirit, or whatever animating feature you want to call it, is in blood, stone, soil and trees. Why should it be otherwise? We reach these material surfaces, and it's enough, to be here attached by skin that doesn't hold all the way. The yellowing grass passes into shade cast by the southeast side of the house. Hoa opens gifts for Waylon. Redbud blossoms float pink on grey branches and the purple blue sky fades out below them making faint streaks in the distance. Heard a woodpecker's thrilling call and starlings gathered in a walnut tree. The garden soil receives late light. Moist and black it pushes out new green herbs: mint, lemon balm and comfry. "Papa, can you open this?" K comes to me with bubbles. Evening shadows troll the yard while two neighbor girls abandon pouring dirt into bright plastic buckets. They join us to watch bubbles float and burst in the breeze. "Crazy bubbles," K says running through a phalanx of translucent creatures.
Posted by Dale at May 9, 2004 09:55 PM