Sunday, November 21, 2010

After a November Rain

Buried under a stack of reading, the couch is your burrow. 
But then you look out of your window and see this.


You catch a glimpse of your  rose bush, an orange flame tilted upward at the same sky.


You can't resist.


 You are taken in by 

lemons








and 


kumquats










not yet ripe, but promising something






So now you have the courage to leave your house and visit your favorite neighborhood tree--
a tree you think of as a vanquished giant rammed headfirst into the earth by an enemy


 strong legs visible while his heart beats beneath the ground
eyes and mouth and nose filled with dirt. 
The leaves he drops are offerings 
and you bring one home to remind you of something but you're not sure what



so you make an offering of it too.
And when you stand at your patio gate
you see the beauty of all of it 


and you give thanks to your made-up gods--
to the guardian of the camellias




and to the god of yellow














and the gray god of rain
because when he stops hurting you
the world looks like this






3 comments:

Elizabeth said...

It truly is wondrous. All of it. And that tree -- wow, that tree like a man stuck head-down. Wow.

Kath said...

Your comments moved me. Thanks, I will look at my outside gray world and see the colors in their subtlety. Wouldn't mind the god of yellow and red to visit again.

Tanya Ward Goodman said...

Holy smokes, is this every gorgeous writing and lovely pictures and exactly the right thing to think about the world after the rain. Oh, lovely, lovely rain. Oh, lovely, lovely you.