Reflection

Just yesterday

One of my poems written during this sorting and preparing time; uncovering the bowl of stones left in my care ... realizing I had neglected them; made amends and turn the mistake into honey.

I did not know this was the practice.
Just yesterday I wrote my way through training manuals.
Paid well for content, but oh, no context.

I did not know this was my practice.
Just yesterday I re-read a rambling tale I wrote
Paid little for it, but oh, such context.

I know now my practice.
Just yesterday I wrote a story
Paid for in memories, but oh, much more.

I know my practice.
Just yesterday, he was a boy.
Today he is a man.

These hands

These are the hands that rummage

Like mice at their favorite

Pass-time 

These are the hands that are

Nicked in the work

That is legendary

These are the hands 

That have written

Boxes of tenderness

These are the hands that

Sort, categorize, push sturdy carts

Hold.

Golden-eyed 

Wild gone are the edges with weeds

Clustered, cluttered

They pester

The manicurist

Wild weeds and grasses

Tiny blue stars 

Golden-eyed

Whisper, forget-me-not

We are moving through the uncertainty of migration, only a few things are certain. We attend to them. The Moon is in her phases of 'ole, those times when new projects are best left for later; so we reflect and weed (or don't weed) and time travel backward more certainly than forward. Old papers, photographs, faces of younger versions of ourselves tempt me to judge the sagging skin, the fragile health, the toothless grins.

Life around us gives us ground to stand more firmly upon. The weeds have finally made their messages known to us, befriending time we learn: tincture the small white English one (daisy) for allergies and headache; Dandelion for its sap will help with the dark splotch on your cheek, pick the blossoms and swim them in vinegar for the belly, Nettles! good for so many conditions that pain us. Whispers from blue starred Forget-me-knows are straight talkers.

For awhile I honor the journey through the muddle and forgive myself in the morning after a night of fretting over the mistakes that mount on horseback. Threatening to stomp on my nest of brooding eggs like tundra caribou over plovers yet to be. Then, I remember Antonio Machado's poem about dreaming, mistakes and honeybees.

Last night as I was sleeping,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that I had a beehive

here inside my heart.

And the golden bees

were making white combs

and sweet honey

from my old failures.- Antonio Machado