The sprinkler timer is awry

The sprinkler timer is awry, and right around sunset instead of rise,  the pipes lurch, the heads pop up and the water hisses through spray watering the seeds that Jesus (haysoos) the gardener not the carpenter sprinkled just Saturday. I feel the water sound right through the back screen door as I type. The dog stands alert, the dog thought of squirrels he might catch, the neighbor cat that slinks on by and through the hole in the fence. I hear the hiss of summer lawns, that beautiful phrase of Joni Mitchell's, I lie on my back and wish that I were naked, free of care. I am not. Free of care. The pipes lurch again, the hiss becomes a whisper and then the crickets raise their bows. I have put Sophie in bed too early, it's too early for an eighteen year old to go to bed, the crickets cry, their violin plaint rising. I have too much care. I will lie on my back on the bed and listen to the violins, recall my dream last night. We lay on our backs on a bed. We had no care. Your smile was wide above us, you put down your bow. A curtain blew in the window, I reached up and it ran through my fingers like water, like summer. You hissed and then whispered. Jesus (haysoos) and the woman at the well with the water. We had no care.