In a Weedy Patch

This afternoon in the backyard, clearing up a weedy patch along the property line, I was struck by how much of a weed actually grows underground – not just the root, as you would normally expect to be the case, but growing there, intermixed with the dirt, if not quite inextricably bound up with it, I also found a proliferation of the weeds’ green stems and leaves, only just now having been exposed to the light of day – as if the entire plant had been slumbering, already completely formed underground, waiting for the chance to push itself up into daylight. 

In those worlds just out of our view and ken – whether underground or part of our subconscious mind – reality proliferates to a far greater extent than we otherwise imagine possible.  Underground, the unconscious, the womb of time -- take your pick from these metaphors that each describe a similarly fecund but not quite accessible place.

A Song for Huang Bo

It's a dream of the absurd

Enlightenment is bewilderment

And it begins right here

Unsullied by thoughts or words

Truth emoted freely

A song of the womb

A song for Huang Bo

Or someone else's poem

Remotely overheard

Oh yeah you see

I never had control

Not-me it seems

Is who I was before

I went to school

Now unlearned I'm free

Like a dog off the leash

That takes the long way home

The streets look familiar

But somehow rearranged

Not good not bad

Just part of this pure land

Part of this ineluctable prior

Reference frame

From New Songs, Smash Hits by Brad Melamed

The Past That's Present Still ( a lament for twilight in the garden)

Has there ever been A more perfect spring day Than this? I mean while
The climate is heading us
To wrack and ruin and
We will have a constitutional Crisis upon our hands soon The tulips and daffodils Are dancing sublimely In the late afternoon sun
The way things were is passing
Right before our eyes but
(if only for a little while) it
Keeps offering us a showcase
Of staggering beauty

The Path of Apology

How would it feel to walk by
Your younger self
Without so much
As a hint of recognition
Notwithstanding
The many scars given
And received
To be granted
Such new lease on life
That is the power
Of the path of Apology
And forgiveness

Spring Sleep (by Meng Hao Ran)

From spring sleep

I awake before dawn

To a world filled

With birdsong

A stormy night

Wind and rain I recall

But of ten thousand blossoms

I wonder how many have fallen

春曉

春眠不覺曉

處處聞啼鳥

夜來風雨聲

花落知多少

A very simple poem, a nursery rhyme really, written by Meng Hao Ran in the 8th century.  It's still one of the first poems recited by young Chinese students when they are learning to read.  Yet I can't think of any poem that better captures the wonder of spring awakening.

This morning brings an additional bounty.  It's April 16th and my taxes are paid for the year.  Soon Passover matzoh and Easter peeps will appear.  I thought peak magnolia season had already come and gone, but this morning I woke to discover that our magnolia tree has reached a previously unimaginable and even fuller state of bloom, with yet more blossoms open on the bough and even more petals strewn across the lawn.  How much longer can this go on?  I pinch myself because truly sometimes I wonder if I might not still be dreaming ....

photo by Marissa Bridge