The Woman's Work

Winter's delay means the air tastes like leeks longer than usual. The breeze now does the work, each gust sending missionaries out to save the world. This and other generosities of trees.

I am guilty of hating – of matching difference and injustice with anger. A ripple on the pond some say. Yet I begin to sink, lower than the swale. Under the muck.

Love. Yes, Love. I recognize the spark igniting, just like old times when it opened the door to the universe. More please.

The coffee and I, watered down a little too much. One writes from a lesser place. Yet there is no scrawling apart from the moment the moon turned his face down to answer me. Always this.

The son's surgery and the daughter's mononucleosis. The dog won't drink water unless it is from a creek and the husband wraps a braid of work, global heartache, and family life around his neck. He's angry with his wife and he doesn't know why. The country flinches under the new regime and there is more abuse rising. Each inflammation consumes its host. Yet the woman collects the maladies and tucks them in her basket to be carried every where, every day.

She must not go down.

Some say fight. Some say love. Some say deal with it.

The woman just asks for help carrying the basket home from the river.