I think I’m always a bit surprised to still be here. In a time of earnest, jolting change, as new outer vibrations appear in the airwaves, some of us elect to slip away in the dark.

The cricket sings at my front door, his tiny serenade silencing as the light grows. In the backyard, the morning glory sends up heart-shaped green leaves, still low to the rocks on the ground, but ready to send a study little climber to support its opening – each flower as delicate as the vine will be tough.

Each year this morning glory returns, tenacious & lovely. In this dull corner of a stony yard, along an old cyclone fence, a wisp of brown-dry dessication renews utterly. How deep are these roots?

In my neighbor’s messy yard, slowly filling with real junk, a dead washer, a used-up barbecue or two, the above “volunteer” soared to stand in our bright sun after unusual rainfall. All over town, real sunflowers sun-worship. This year there are few bees to worship them in turn, no furry legs tickling their petals. Strange to think of a sunflower being lonely, isn’t it? Their periscope flowers search all day for sun-borne bees.

Whether we’re on a planet or a flatland, the Earth is an inescapable backdrop. Life is brought to bear & bear down hard at times. We make a mockery of it & a mercy to leave it. We live, we launch, we seek those horizons to peer beyond. We subside again to Earth & we grow.

I write. I cook. I love. I pray. Every season I come up with new thoughts even hanging onto an old yard fence, sending these ever upward to blossom as they will.

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