Vapors Hanging
/Golden remnants slip behind pine and oak defenders of day. Echoes of children playing in a nearby pool and the metal clink of bat to ball reverberates throughout the neighborhood. A few moments of decompression settle before the build up of fireworks and calamity. The incense of grilled meat mingles with the peppery smoke of firecrackers and citronella. Bluejays alert the forest that I am watering the garden. I'm not sure why they are the first and last bird songs of the day but they remain a teacher to me in that I try not to be irritated with their disruptive calls.
Somehow the day stretched on forever. Studying, reading, walking, gardening, eating, resting . . . nothing satisfied. Conversations with K. only led to irritation and the occasional B. sighting was soft and filled with hugs, but then, nothing. L. is making her way back from Oklahoma but a wheel fell off of M's car and cannot be repaired until the holiday is over. Still, these experiences are only vapors hanging in the air.
Maybe it’s the nationalism or the way this holiday feels like patriarchal sandpaper on my most delicate parts. Maybe it's just suburbia. Maybe it's the dissipating afterglow of being in the throws of contemplative communion and Love.
Folding clothes, scrubbing the bathtub, organizing the dank and rotting shed. For joy I stare at pictures of the cabin and imagine walking to the watering hole, sitting by the fire pit, and existing in the kind of poustinia that only the woods can create.
Mom wants us to come out to Gun Lake but we decline due to overwhelming holiday traffic on the lake and the risk of “lake people” stopping by all day long. She talks about her friendships slipping away and how there are probably no lake people who even want to stop by anymore to which I called “bullshit” in a nicer way than that.
Sky blue hydrangea and daisies gaining courage. The zucchini and squash plants are taking over the whole damn garden and I'm not sure what to do about it. Night falls and I wish – oh how I wish – that the only lights in the sky were silent.
fireflies
and starlight –
I need do nothing
to know
love