I drive through the farmland around Forest Grove every week and every week I search for a safe spot to pull over and take a photo of the beauty there: The unpredictable sky, the geometry of fields, the satisfying disruption caused by small hills and solitary oaks. The shoulders of the roads are mostly ditches so I just keep driving, aware that I know nothing about fertilizer, fruit trees and berry vines. Yesterday, a road crew had us stopped alongside this field. The field itself was nothing special but at least the clouds came out to dazzle.
I don’t know who you are or where you came from. Take advantage of my laziness and fondness for the dying. Grow, even from your brittle body. Your young will be welcome out of laziness and my fondness for Spring.
On a whim, I cut back the long, green bones of the bamboo. I piled each knuckled limb on the patio then cut each limb in quarters. My hands came away covered in small cuts. The cuts will heal in a day or two. The bamboo will live a hundred years.
A flower with raindrops feels too easy. Of course it’s beautiful. And saying I have no time to write is an excuse. Still, look at this brimming cup. Look at all these letters lined up into meaning.
This has been my whole weekend. Everything blurred and indistinct. I’m learning reiki and trying to not need sharp lines and solid answers. Just sit and rest and see. Let it be blue and beige and green. Not window, brick and bush.
No thoughtful photos or words. No matter. Just me and Goodman holding down the fort (and by fort I mean bed).
I remember the air plants in the trees more than any relative at those Thanksgiving gatherings in the once quiet Kissimmee. We ate barbecue, got bored in the sunshine and watched the men (except my dad) drive off to shoot wild turkey. I wandered as far as allowed, wondering when this obligation would be over and how a living thing could live on so little.
Tracy Burkholder 
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