MOTHER NATURE

In defense of privacy, I call to witness the dogwoods of spring. Those flush petaled beauties, such showy persona, so bent on drawing your eye to their wonders. Your face can’t help but look upward at their pink delicate bounty balanced on graceful trunks and lacy branches. You don’t see what sustains them, what pulls them into the earth. Roots growing down into the sexy soil. Grasping for touch, for contact with the dark wetness. Tugging, teasing, persistent,their life force unseen. Drawing them to the deepness, to the watery well. The pink pulls you up and away on purpose. Dogwoods hide their desirous parts; they prefer to keep them private.

On Lily Street
Pink dogwoods
Make secret love with the earth

Then there are the tulips. Fighting the gravity of the world. A burst of color defines their loveliness. What is a tulip if not delight? Their fields cry out in splendor. Hallelujah! The hued beauty of the earth revealed! But the true glory lies below, in the privacy of the grainy ground. There, a single bulb splits open and surges its shoots toward the sun. Driven, desperate, pushing its way against the very tide. Wanting to live in two worlds, the rounded hidden one that nourishes it, the grassy air-lit one it desires.

On West Chestnut
Intense tulips bloom and strain
Straight up toward the compelling light

And finally I call the garden moss to testify. Tiny forest green and emerald parts that make the whole, they live in harmony with one other. They cover the rocks and stones and creep anywhere that suits them. Anywhere they can thrive. They exist on the morning dew. Their privacy springs from the anonymity they share; not one can be counted unique. Growing in dimension, spreading in unmeasured delirious abandon, considering no one but themselves. Oh, the greedy happiness!

On Pond
Steamy moss feasts

And nothing
Nothing
Nothing will stop
Their desire.