Garden Never Born

My dog aged all at once today.

She slept on the cushioned deck chair and didn't raise her head – not for squirrels – not for birds – not for me.

I can see her from the back sun room, perfectly still. This is the room where my daughter practices her saxophone and where I do yoga. It's where I write and fall in love and ultimately realize it's all in my head. This is the room where I drink alone or get high in the dark. From here I give and pay attention to the direction of life.

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My bones and muscles begin to moulder. Everyone said this would happen. How odd to be alive and untouched on the inside while the external begins to hunt for a place to die. I clip photos of cabins far away knowing full well I am a hundred lifetimes from bringing that to pass.

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I whisper for rain. When water hits the ground, dust rises like the sandstorms in the movies. Blueberry and strawberry crops have been affected and my garden was never born. I can't solely blame the drought but I can blame it on depression, which is the same as the drought.

The world is on fire and lots of people are acting like it is no big deal. The poet wrote, “Even my old Dylan tapes are fading, becoming near-comic antiques.” This is how I know it is a very big deal.

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The last time we spoke we were both high and it ended badly. You would say it had nothing to do with cannabis and in this distance, in the shimmer of heat coming off the land, I can see you might have been right.