(Image of Mercury was assembled from spectral data taken with the MESSENGER spacecraft, highlighting various minerals on the planet’s surface. NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)
Let me begin today with rainwater on the crown vetch, opalescent sheen on her dark green pinnate leaves, dew-pearls dotted betwixt her lavender seed pods. Let me begin today with the mated hawks that live in by backyard and regularly sit on the branch outside my bedroom window, ruffling their buttery chest-feathers, dismantling rodents and smaller birds and leaving these grisly offerings like a bone crown around the base of the large oak. Let me begin today with a spike of bergamot, crushed between my fingers, tannic snap of tea and sweet pepper.
Let me begin today with my friends. The friends I will share a meal with later. The friends who never fail to make me laugh.
There is much good. I am gardening the good. May it act like an invasive species and overtake my ecosystem. May it take a “leaf” from the burly knotweed and send up woody stalks in the barren lands of my desaturated hopes and dreams.
There is so much good. But for you who have helped me along the way, I figure it is time to address…not the bad. But the opaque.