ah, the tease of clovers I suppose ‘weed‘ is an arbitrary term, at one point there must have been a council of nicaea to decide what is canon plant and what is considered a weed to be excluded from the collection of accepted plants, and like such meeting I am sure there is controversy on all sides then and since, however, in the endeavor, I am addressing clovers, is this a cultural thing? a north american thing influenced by the influx of irish immigration in the earlier part of last century? I could investigate such things at length, but what’s the point really? the perception is there, meaning the reality is there under-laid, the lowly clover definitively stands taller than other weeds in the pantheon of plant-dom, it captures our imagination with something that can not be quantified… luck infused with lore. luck, the word is a devil, a greased watermelon in a lake, so easily defined that every child could tell you on their tongue what luck is, but ask them, or anyone, to show it to you? or quantify it? so… I give you clovers, the chance, chance! luck’s mentor, for without chance there is no luck, always the chance of an empty hand, or a straight flush, there in the domain of luck, and somehow this power, this hope, this chance, this vote of the impossible is all in root, born into the fruit of a clover, magical, mystical, yet quite probable due to genetic variation, such a cauldron, such mythology mixed with just enough real world sense, and there you have it, the four leaf clover, hidden in the mundane of common growth we all know, like many other wonderful things, the promise, the prize, the random nature of found luck, the lottery of green, how many plants garner this esteem? (and am I only speaking of plants… or a little more?)
is the world off kilter? is the earth spinning a bit off axis? or am I just paying more attention lately (or running out of things to do indoors), this evening, winter temperatures laced with spring intentions, all signs pointing in the blooming direction, there was even the occasional peep show of seventy degrees last week, or am I embellishing my own memory, the trees are now fully clothed, the dandelion’s time has crested and fallen, the breeze has a louder voice among the leaves, like occasional waves breaking on the beach, no discernible undulation or pattern, but much the same sound as waves crashing, I feel I am in the eye of the calm, this corner of the world is quite quiet now, the sun setting rays readily highlight the various tribes of leaves on the stage before me, all with the same function but a different design to achieve the same destination, I imagine humans are much the same…
notes… this is monday felt like sunday, or was it sunday, or is this monday? after seeing snow in may just the other day, not today near a freeze?? these are strange days… indeed… (this is part of a series, sort of anthology, the rest is HERE, well mostly, I have a day job you know…)
I saw an older man sitting straight on a bench hands in black jacket pockets facing the cold lake solitary confinement for being outdoors on this coldest day of may
notes... (haiku feel, ya feel me?) this was a record breaking day here, granted our weather records do not go back that far really but anyway, it was cold, I was driving to grab some dindin after work kicked me in the ass and head (you would think I would learn to be able to zen it out by now), and I hit… a squall, as in snow, seriously, my car read 33 degrees, that is pretty low for may in these parts, I was driving by one of my favorite spots in my local little world and listening to the recording below… (classical music is good decompression you know, well, at least for me, and that is generally who I am concerned about, go figure…)
(sometimes stream of consciousness is just unfiltered observation, this is a translation of today)
a pair of geese fly over, I imagine married, one with a declarative honk, the other acknowledges grunt, and the sound I hear is “yes, dear”, and then they are gone (and yes they were socially distant).
staring at the tuning fork tree, because, well, it resembles a tuning fork, I am fixated on the view between the tines, what if that was all I ever knew, my universe, that little space was my entire world perceived, all the rest is apart from my view in that scenario, unknown to me, but yet, now, I can actually see beyond those tines, what I perceive to be all around, but what might I be actually missing inside the tines of my mind, I wonder, or be gracious for what I have seen, I ponder.
I project to talk with the breeze, not for answers, nor for a conversation, just to say thanks, for the wind is tireless at work, and sleeps only in the escape of space.
notes… went back to the office today, been nearly two months, my desk, well, it’s still mine, and no one stole my stash of hand sanitizer I had (bought way before the pandemic, a three pack at staples of like monster size and also clorox wipes), it was a strange thing, I felt apprehension at times, but those who have been doing this for weeks seemed more relaxed, I guess I will be the same in time, I must admit I am not comfortable at all there, even if we are running a skeleton crew (literally two) but our technicians are bringing back machines/parts from the city every day, that freaks me out, especially since this article today… those are all stores I know, and people I actually trained at some point, damn, it is still hot close here… but I made it I hope, tons of hand-washing, hand sanitizer, wipes, masks, all that, but every cough, every sneeze in the doors just flames that little flame somewhat… my good friend, a co-worker for 15 years, his wife has an auto immune disorder, a real rare one, and he seems ok with all this and she is good, so I guess I should be, but maybe my mind just does not work that way… but I am trying… and tonight was such a nice night it helped me drain out the doubt, a fallacy? perhaps, but damn it felt good…
contemplation. sitting here, watching the last of the day drain out down into the horizon, everything becoming silhouette and shadow until all will be shadow soon save for the false lights, how all this now seems like three days, not just one which I ‘know’ it is, is this apprehension (fear ratchets), tension, anticipation, regularity creeping back in? rewind. I suppose this could have been a day I dialed up, weather wise, weather I would order a la carte of I could, a prescription filled if you would, this morning there was rain, the kind of rain I seek out on youtube for nightly comfort, heavy rain but not threatening, a gentle downpour if there ever was, and this was, no threat of wind whisking water into your window sill, so I open it further wide and tall, to invite in as much as the sound as possible, as good as my sound system is, there is no substitute for pure nature, you get used to the recorded sounds but somehow they are not the cradle in the arms that this is, I just want to curl up like cooked bacon wrapped in the blankets and imagine I am surrounded on all sides by the rain, the symphonic barrage, just hard enough collect in pools on the sidewalk quickly but not buckets bearing down on tin roofs like weighted bullets, no human sounds, no leaf blowers or lawn mowers, just this rain, this is the spring rain, you can almost hear the ground as a mouth soaking, slurping it all in, the thirsty roots, the shoots, the seeds, the spring, feeding on the energy from the clouds, nurturing, I could sleep and dream forever in these fields and this scene, the morning stretches out and feels like half a day, maybe, either way the rejuvenation is the same, and then my phone rang….
Photo by bongkarn thanyakij on Pexels.com
ah yes, still working, I grab a cup of coffee from my little magic pod thing, starbucks hazelnut (it was three dollars off at the store the other day man, who am I to complain), a thomas’ english muffin, toasted with faux butter (I do like it, I have to admit), I log on to my old desk PC (whom I haven’t seen in weeks or is it month’s now?), so I am at work (magically), not a bad commute these days, well, none actually, I can’t even recall the last time I filled up my car with gas, strange…
Photo by Simon Matzinger on Pexels.com
forward. the rain petered out, as did the calls on my call board, and amazingly enough the sun is out, I almost do not recognize the sun these days (who are you?), apparently this was the first april in many a moon where the temperature did not crest 70 even once (in these parts), so maybe all the dreary feeling and dark air was not my imagination after all this impossible month, doldrums, doldrums man, definite doldrums have been beating on me internally but how quickly things spin and come round in an instant, the sun dancing and sparkling in the little pools, reflections bouncing, the fresh green of spring that much brighter, transformation, the birds employ to serenade this new beginning, a celebration, the uplift of souls on a wing, a song, just walking along my lawn soaking in as much as I can, turning my skin into a receptor of the energy of light, of life, wanting to spin like a top and never stop…
Photo by Nandhu Kumar on Pexels.com
present. grind. and the phone rang, am I repeating myself? or am I watching someone else? no, the call is for me, which makes sense being it rang on my phone, after all, my manager, well, one of them, one of the higher up muckity mucks, above me, at least, my services are needed at the office in the AM, is this how this weird fairy tale will end? I almost have forgotten the daily slog and grind of the past fifteen years, this seems like a foreign request, or even a flirt with death, or… I’m just not sure exactly what I am feeling, as I usually do I say ‘yes’, I rarely go against the flow at work unless I really have to, is that the best thing? probably not, but sometimes we are who we are regardless of who we would like to be wired like, so, pining away all this time to ‘get back to normal’, I have no idea what that is anymore, different pieces have been added to the puzzle the past few months, the recipe for normal is completely off, I am starting with fresh steps. current. tonight. so, sitting, trying to listen to the birds, somehow the human sounds have been creeping back in, my neighbor’s cars, his garage up and down, the slow hum of a freight train taking it’s damn time grind, traffic traveling on the main road in town just over a treeline in the bend of my street, car’s racing engines somewhere close, in the neighborhood I think, as night draws in, so I near the entrance to another chapter, at once – I used to think I was writing this tale, this book, but now? I feel just like a character waiting for the author to finish my story arc. and so, tomorrow I may find out…
notes… thanks for all eyeballs and likes and the like if you like, also, if you dig this post this is part of my ongoing Porch Project, a blog ? a diary? eh… sort of, it is what it is, so if you like this check out the whole darn thing (I try to keep it up to date you know)
1) here comes the sun, “cue the music my good man, make it so!” (hey, I have been watching Picard, slack me), and so by comparison this is a bounty, a parade, a glorious celebration, when not taking phone calls about windows computing pratfalls I venture outside to literally soak it in, the applied balm for what ills when stuck inside for days at a time, behind brooding clouds and held down by winds of lousy content, the rain is good for the green but perhaps not for the heart I think, maybe not the most scientific method, but in this, I must trust, something else – instinct.
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
2) a single spider thread catches my eye, winking in the sunlight like a mirrored line, just one thread, not a web, a prelude to a night trap, and I can see the quarry, there is a small swarm of some type of insect milling about, haphazard to my eye but they know their own purpose, no doubt, a mild winter and a wet spring, there will be lots of bugs around this summer (pun intended if you catch my drift), but these winged fellows are not bothering me, so I can’t hate them for their relations, their pesky cousins and whatnot, we all have them after all, we choose our friends, not our families, I imagine insects are the same, can’t blame the fireflies for the mosquitoes, at least that seems unreasonable to me, it would be easy to parlay hate of one insect bite into a whole genus, and that would be unwise, besides, there is a chain in place, at least for now, a pecking order, or a picking at the buffet order, I imagine the spider putting on a bib, lining up a table, knife and fork in hand, ready for the bounty coming.
Photo by Lum3n on Pexels.com
3)
the lower branches the little ones, as I call them, finches and that sort to be clear, seem to love the bosom of the bottom branches of the bushes, especially the evergreens, the short ones, the stout ones, vertically challenged I believe is the ‘nome de acceptable’ (my term)… either way, it leads me to think of the lower branches, certainly not as much sunlight, not as easy to navigate than the outer reaches, protection from the rain perhaps, the sanctity of closed spaces, for three, four, more I see them, darting in and out like feathered laser beams, so exact, quick, manic seeming even, I wonder if I resemble that after three cups of coffee, or so I am told I can be high wired, these little ones, a maelstrom of fidgets, I imagine the lower branches appeal to their sense of security, or fear of heights? nah, that would be silly for a bird, not this one (me) but I should not transfer my human fears onto them, I take note of all the hierarchy, air and ground, what led each to such choices, noble patrolman, the robins, like guards, running back and forth on the grass, not bird-like at all, even squabbling over land claims with their own, blue jays seem undecided, maybe they just take the best of both land and wind, I see them scavenging on lawn and wing, the mourning doves content to feed on feeder scraps, easily spooked and fled, with their tell tale ‘coo coo’, nature has produced many successful designs, mine included, I just wonder which branch I would gravitate to, how about you?
Photo by Anderson Miranda on Pexels.com
4)
I can see the wind what a strange thought, not literal, but yet not false, entirely, wind is sometimes a bludgeon, other times a feather swipe, today she is cascading, moving across in an unmarked mass leaving footprints across all the leaves, and there is where I can see her, flowing across the surface, as the branches bend and release, ever closer, I can see her approaching, and then in an instant she has rushed over me like water on an outcrop river rock, as I am not a natural thing with my feet roots not quite firmly planted like most everything else, I happen to be observing, an interloper of sorts, that is, and this is more of a gentle deliberate freight train, so behind in steps sisters the same, nearly the same bends and waves as I watch them approach, anticipating the moment of break upon my space, across my face, my hands, temporarily dousing the warm of sun, so you can be lullaby-ed again by rays in the next moment, ah the blessed sun, where have you been hiding all these days?
notes… well, a mixed bag incidentally, so am I, I must admit the muse seems more absent these days, maybe, but what do I know ? this was all written today in various forms and modes, things catch my eye, my pen is another thing, my pen… or this keyboard, sometimes it varies, lately it has been all freeform for the most part, stream of consciousness and the like, the poems seem faint and distant, I have a well I can draw from but man that all seems old, I like to post new, I have hundreds of pages of material, but after you move on and look back? it seems old, dated, there is really nothing like the immediate…
lose your mind in the last wash of sunshine, this is certainly not a warm night, according to the local weather acolyte a storm is approaching, that certainly explains the wind, sometimes wind has a sinister character, sometimes not, this would be the former, I can not adequately explain in reason that I feel no malice in this wind, maybe I can not tell by the expressions through the trees, for there are certainly gusts and gales, and roars tails spiriting through me and all around, this just feels like wind doing what it was meant to do regardless of my observation or being here, nature’s clock hands ticking, rattling bamboo stalks against the house, rousing the evergreens like fluffing an old comfy couch, there, watching the last bits of amber drain fade into purples dark, branches are still like charcoal sketches now, shadow sticks, mostly hiding nothing, just red hanging buds shaking on the ends like abandoned naked christmas trees, various birds crisscross and pay me no mind, they have their lives as I have mine, a little one lands about twelve fifteen o’clock out front, displayed in the last waves of the day, a framed silhouette in amber, riding the branch as it slides up and down in the wind, such a little compact thing, not bothered at all by the gathering breeze…
Photo by Snapwire on Pexels.com
I try to project myself onto that line, calmly, calmly bobbing up and down in tidal drafts, none of these human concerns bound, for there is value to become lost in a destination, now and again, to separate yourself from the every-thing, the whole-thing, the no-thing, I’ll never truly understand what it is to be that little bird perched on that tree, but perhaps, in some simple cosmic way, we were both admiring the very same things…
notes… part of my porch series, all thoughts, comments and your time in stopping by are all immensely appreciated…
hope not for omens preparing dinner a thud, a dull glass thud I have heard this before but why today since many long I can not even say since I heard that sound so distinct a missile, a blind kamikaze mistake and there she is delicate little bird curled up on the planks outside my kitchen window lying lifeless, I know this this was an ending note with hope I throw on my coat anyway slip on my outside slippers and gently cradle the little hoping for a twitch wishing a miracle but no, a head tossed to and fro in the tide of past life now so little bird I lay you down may you rest upon this ground
notes… just sometimes things happen, and you are no longer an observer but the recounter of a story, of a life, and so it was…
don’t tell the trees
nor whisper to the buds of leaves
the cherry blossoms peeking
the willow’s pillows breaking
spring is arriving in due time
paying no mind
to the tightening grip of a nation
a world, a contagion
a fastly tightening noose
strangles activity to a halt
sleeping somber in the unsleeping city
the days feel like months
but not a word to the birds
singing now in the morn
nature glides along
as she always will
sometimes life, nature, god, luck, circumstance, whatever you might like to call such things, just sneak up on you, with a wink, a nod, the miracle of whimsy, the unexpected, you just have to be open for the gentle (subtle, perhaps at times imperceptible) tap on the shoulder, take that spare second to pull over in life and look, or just pay some attention to the world unfurling swirling around you, tonight was one of those moments, I could say magical, if I believed in magic, I might just say natural, because that much I can touch and measure with my given senses, there is a strange thing about living in this new bubble, maybe more of a slow cauldron, the din of the news, the bombardment, the virus invading every inch of life closing in, seemingly, the break of routine, the uncertainty, the caution of not knowing what is coming next, for worse or for better, even a rational folk such as myself feels the pressure out there, being nestled next many of the epicenters whether it is one town over, actual deaths reported in the town I work, nearly all of Bergen county shut down, it bears weight upon you, every cough you hear has more gravity, every sneeze you witness raises your awareness and perception, head on a swivel, is it warm in here or do I have a fever? perhaps I just need a valium for relief, but alas, nature provides sometimes in these times, I paused at a Parkway rest area on the way home, to take some time to clean out the car (I travel a lot), starbucks cups, other relics of the comfort life taken for granted on the passenger side floor, I took a pause to stand, kind of arms slung over the driver’s side door, a deep breath, drawn out almost like a yawn, in an effort to let the day bleed out of me back into the ground, release valve the pent up anxiety, almost sunset, a slight cold onset in the longing shadows, and then, this curious little fellow just brazenly dropped into the middle of my frame of reference, a robin, well known in these parts of course, nothing to write a blog post about I thought, but as in many things my initial thoughts betrayed underlying truth, this little thing was pure bravado, heck the robins in my yard at home run off from nearly the threat of my shadow, not this one, this is a ‘jersey rest area robin’, a different breed, you know, jersey strong, or so the fantasy proceeds, but he (or she, we’ll just assume ‘he’ for the rest of this tale, for convenience) looked up at me with seemingly no fear, bouncing ever closer, I tried not to move, to be a statue as I thought this little guy was mistaken or had no clue I was there, ever closer he bounced, was it something I threw out that caught his interest? I thought I might let it play out, five feet to four, to three to two, I was sure flight was a mere flinch away, but I moved anyway, nothing sudden, and he could not have cared one spit less, jersey strong indeed, so close now I thought he might hop in my shoulder for a spell, that would be cool, so close I could see almost upside down eyelashes and all the minute details of his face, I can’t recall ever being this close, the brilliant red radiance of his breast, quite puffed out for show, lavish and bright against the worn green of winter grass and empty trees, and then he just bounded by, right in front of me, one foot out two, three to four away now, to pick on some tasty morsel or so I guess, paying me no mind, and I realized, my piled up alarm day anxiety had been swept away, all gone, from spending a moment with a rest stop robin, with a nod and thanks, I left.
notes…. in all this craziness it is not a bad thing to spot a beam of radiance… I can not explain the mysterious power of the Parkway and my writing but often they are inextricably linked…
Shades of My Garden 