Driving Toward Oblivion

Here's a poem:

Biophilia

Most of us hungry at daybreak, sleepy by dark.
Some slept, one eye open, in water.
Some could trot.
Some of us lived till morning. Some did not.

Jane Hirshfield, Ledger
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When the Boys Are Gone

That's a poppy that I saw on a walk this morning. It looks as if there's an entire universe in there, doesn't it?



Sophie just got home from school. The boys are on the east coast. It's horribly quiet in the house and hardly peaceful. I'd call it desolate. I rarely complain about my boys for a reason, and that reason is because I adore having them around and they're amazing sons. I'm going to put Sophie in the car and drive west to the ocean. Maybe we'll walk a bit in the sand and watch the sun begin to go down. Maybe we'll eat some french fries at Perry's By the Sea before heading home.

What are ya'll up to?

A Woman Crude As Any

I took a walk today and looked at Icelandic* poppies sprinkled everywhere, some still with fuzzy heads bowed and others with papery petals in sorbet colors open to the sky. I don't know why it's so hard to get up and out of my pajamas every morning these days, to shake out and up my mind and body. Everything points to the natural world, to air and sky and flower and tree as remedy for what ails the spirit, but I can't say that I'm even remotely disciplined when it comes to acknowledging it.



A Warning to My Readers

Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies. That I
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is.

-Wendell Berry

*A friend pointed out that these are probably Icelandic, not California poppies, so if you read an earlier version, I stand corrected! 

Poppiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssss

Oliver, Sophie, my friend D and I drove out to the Antelope Valley today to see the California poppy fields. I had read that since the heavy rainfall days in March, the wild poppies had bloomed like crazy, so we decided to take a drive and see --

Good Lord, ya'll.

 That's Oliver, above, wrapped in my red scarf -- it was incredibly windy and he had forgotten to bring a sweatshirt. Oh, sorry. I cleaned out the car yesterday afternoon and brought three dirty sweatshirts in the house to be washed. When we got to the poppy fields, which are in the high desert, and Oliver realized that I'd removed them, he blamed me. That's why I leave them in there, Mom! went the recrimination. You had to go and clean out the car. That's just great.

Anyhoo.

Back to the poppies:

Do you feel as if you're in an opium haze?

Rest your eyes on this beautiful high desert site and then those snow-capped mountains beyond.

This land is your land, this land is my land

From California --