high-tails

I am wondering if a simple change of scenery is better than a simple listen to my heart.
(Thanks, X.)

"For They Shall Be Called Children of God"

I do not concern myself with things
too marvelous for me.

I pull young buckthorn after the rain
and watch the cranesbill fill in,

tie a clover around my child's wrist
to stop her from crying after a fall.

I do not concern myself with matters
too great. I skim the article

once or twice--rebel fighters,
refugees, tankers billowing smoke.

Shall I say each time my eyes wander
to the blue stars of lilac tumbling

from a jar on the table,
that I love those lilacs more?

I will die being no help to this man
curled around a broken IV

on a floor in Sri Lanka.
I would like to sink into his stare

and pray him through his nightmares.
But first I lie in the grass

and bury my face in the great skirts
of the sky, making peace

with the carpenter ants and the other
small brilliances of my life.

Tania Runyan.

boots, heavier.

Sometimes my chest feels like an old, bedraggled tomcat crawled in and filled its entirety with paws and half a tail and one scarred eye. And sometimes all I can hope is that a wild pack of dogs will come careening around the next corner and chase him off for a while.
Leaving room for the next critter to climb in.

antsy

Amidst all the moving and roving and re-arranging, it is easy for me to believe that I lack many things.
But besides all that, blessed are the peacemakers, the mourners, the comforters, & the innocence.
It's almost too normal to be encouraging.

I had learned from a very early age the right way to talk, to dress, to behave, in general.
I don't know why but yesterday I thought about perhaps not talking, dressing, or behaving "the right way," in general.
What if I just decided to be sweet, good, & true?

on being where you ought.

mostly what I remember was the bird in the sanctuary,
sitting on the bench with ben,
clasping my fingers around your neck,
skanky legs,
and.
those
cornflower field
blue
slippers.

on noodles.

we always had a couple, hoarded around the outside of the pool, barracading us against the unassuming canine or grandparent, keeping the intruders out and the fish in.
they were always made up of some sort of metal piping and white strips of rubbery plastic, burning our un-toweled backsides, warranting no sympathy from the "i told you so" looks of our kitchen aid mother.
so what if lounge chairs didn't float? it only took a couple of hurricanes for us to realize that sitting on a chair under the water was much more exhilarating than holding your breath above.
which is exactly what she was doing when i walked in to the sanctuary yesterday. her stretcher was padded, albeit with a meager foam pad and blankets, but underneath the cushion were the same plastic strips and metal piping.
her lifeguard was a gentleman who appeared to be in his early eighties: one pair of bottle cap glasses, two aids for hearing, a smattering of liver-spots on his hands.
i watched as he quietly propped her willowy frame up against the back of the chair. i smiled when i saw that her velcroed shoes still kept time with the music, that she only nodded off a few times during the sermon.
but mostly i caught his head...tilted just a little bit further to the left than normal, caught the frames of his spectacles focused only on his one, tiny swimmer.
and some thing the pastor said about a big lake and a very small fishing boat and no luck all night.
keeping the intruders out and his fish in.