I have been taught never to
brag but now
I cannot help it: I keep
a beautiful garden, all
abundance,
indiscriminate, pulling
itself
from the stubborn earth: does
it offend you
to watch me working in
it,
touching my hands to the
greening tips or
tearing the yellow stalks
back, so wild
the living and the dead
both
snap off in my hands?
The neighbor with his
stuttering
fingers, the neighbor with his
broken
love: each comes up my
drive
to receive his pitying,
accustomed consolations,
watches me
work in silence awhile, rises
in anger,
walks back. Does it offend
them to watch me
not mourning with them but
working
fitfully, fruitlessly,
working
the way the bees work, which
is to say
by instinct alone, which looks
like pleasure?
I can stand for hours among
the sweet
narcissus, silent as a point
of bone.
I can wait longer than
sadness. I can wait longer
than your grief. It is such a
small thing
to be proud of, a garden.
Today
there were scrub jays,
quail,
a woodpecker knocking at the
white-
and-black shapes of trees, and
someone’s lost rabbit
scratching under the barberry:
is it
indiscriminate? Should it
shrink back, wither,
and expurgate? Should I, too,
not be loved?
It is only a little time, a
little space.
Why not watch the grasses take
up their colors in a rush
like a stream of kerosene
being lit?
If I could not have made this
garden beautiful
I wouldn’t understand your
suffering,
nor care for each the same,
inflamed way.
I would have to stay only like
the bees,
beyond consciousness,
beyond
self-reproach, fingers dug
down hard
into stone, and growing
nothing.
There is no end to ego,
with its museum of
disappointments.
I want to take my neighbors
into the garden
and show them: Here is
consolation.
Here is your pity. Look how
much seed it drops
around the sparrows as they
fight.
It lives alongside their
misery.
It glows each evening with a
violent light.
Happiness by Paisley Rekdal, via
1
The Outfit:
40s/50s Style Floral Chiffon Dress With Silk Lining: bought from the sale at
Toast years ago
Vintage 70s Does 40s Blue & White Tilt Hat: from Ebay
Black Lace Peep Toe High Heels: old from New Look
The Soundtrack
Anita O'Day: All The Sad Young Men
Photographs taken by me, self portraits using the timer on my little digital camera.
I've had an eye infection for over a month now, which means I'm allowed to wear neither mascara nor concealer to cover up those dark shadows under the eyes. But I've decided to think of the gorgeous ambassador for dark shadows, Jeanne Moreau, and celebrate my dark rings as seductive, maybe even intellectual looking....
Apologies I've not been visiting and commenting on your posts much lately due to overwork, looking forward to popping by your lovely blogs this weekend!
