Floppy

Worked for several hours in the "junk" room today, sorting through an astounding amount of meaningless paper. And mold. But very happily came across this picture of Floppy, the dog who came to our house the day I was born. Whenever I got sad, I'd take him under the big old oak dining room table and put my arms around him and we'd both just sit there, happy as could be, invisible because of the table cloth. It was my hidden home inside our house. No doubt about it. He was my guardian angel.

Putting things together

I'm cleaning and organizing the room that had become the junk room. In the process, I unearthed copies of books I've written and I put them together. Hard to tell from this picture because they've fanned out but the poems/books I've spent my life writing can be held easily in one hand. At first that seemed kind of pitiful. But on consideration, it became
marvelous, ecologically beautiful and actually, a kind of true magic -- like a tiny zoo made entirely of origami animals or
even a little bit like those weird little pebbles we used to get when we were kids, the kind you tossed into your water glass and watched as they bloomed into what the advertising called "gardens under the sea." Only poems are better. Because they do open and extend themselves in the most astonishing ways. And when you shut the book, the poems shrink then vanish right back into their thin, nearly weightless paper homes.

What we've been carrying all this time

It is the beginning of summer and we
are at the museum. The line begins in a bright white room with a marble floor and statues of Greek Gods and Goddesses. Some of them are missing heads, some missing arms but nevertheless, they are radiantly beautiful. There seem to be thousands of us, happy, excited and waiting with patience. Each of us has a small box or parcel and all of them are handmade and lightweight. When the line begins to move, I see that we are filling the entire museum as we're being guided to the top floor, the roof really, where there is a huge garden. There is earth enough for everyone and we are each given time to plant the seeds we've been carrying in the boxes or cloth parcels. I see that a woman has planted nasturtiums and this makes me happy because they are such easy flowers to grow, so bright and lively, and they are edible. It's clear to me, suddenly,
that this earth is sacred; the seeds are what we've made of our lives; the whole roof-top garden a thank you to God. And even a simple flower like the nasturtium is welcome.