Balancing

Jacaranda tree leaning over hedge.

  All  so different, hanging out together happily.

Twins.

 I sometimes find it hard to let go of trying to control situations that seem difficult. But I find it easy to appreciate some of the plant friends I find on a walk.  And that can  turn me around.

Dark Day

 Even though the air is cool and moist, it feels like a mist of  fear that is  accumulating, as if some desecration has occurred, of which no one may speak.  A forbidden word, a tragedy so personal, yet it seems to reflect the whole in every shattered fragment.
Laughter might break the ice of this bleak feeling. But laughter is not permitted in such a sacred scene. The rule book of the multitudes and the rule book of almost any single being would forbid it.
What is this that has happened? It was taking role playing to another level. Like a child building a nuclear bomb in the basement, first drawing the plans with vibrantly colored markers. “I will make the mushroom green, or no, I’ll make it yellow,” he shouts gleefully with no ill intent.
Let us realize the horrific sadness of this event. Let us get on our knees. No, let us lie face down and kiss our earth. This is not rehearsal. Life is here now and yet we do not know when our life will go.
Do you want to spend your last moment groaning because you forgot to share a bag of peanuts with your mom or your son?  Do you wish you had given your daughter, your sweet daughter a bouquet of little flowers? Do you wish you had offered your friend a meal?  Or told someone that you love them madly, in spite of the fact that their shallowness astounds you.
What is shallowness?  Have you considered that some do not want to swim in the deep, because they somehow know that they do not swim well enough and would sink beneath the waves?
 Take some time to awaken from your dream of desire for your empire.  Your desire for control or fame or shiny things.  What king  or queen rules your dreams and who gave  him or her dominion?
Today I walk on a road alone, my head hung low. Am I ashamed?  A little bit? I took the bait. I thought I wanted something and it only brought me hate. What is hate? Is it the reverse of love?  Is it the outer edge of love? It hurts. Like  wanting to be warm and embracing a space heater and then carrying it on your back. I will offer my hate up. I will sacrifice it for the child inside me who needs to play free. I will place it on a pyre of ideas I thought were mine and realized after I had them that someone who wanted to sell me something, had whispered them into my ear, while I was sleeping. Probably some other dreamer, who only wanted to make a living?  Ideas that might have cost me my face and my heart. I will hand them over to fate.
I will remember the kindness in someone’s eyes. That will be my hope. That will be my dream. To be kindness. To beam kindness. To offer a hand or to bow and walk on.

Oh Frog Oh Flower Oh Butterfly

 

Oh Frog

I remember when you were a little pollywog
swimming in the stinky mucky pond
in the field across the street
We laughing children waded in to catch you and
your brethren swimming like little wondering fish
We didn’t think
We splashed and stared into the murk
and chattered about anything that popped into our
minds
popped out of our mouths like the same air bubbles
that you blew
oh we all had air bubbles
we were all in the stinky pond
And we didn’t have to think.

Then when you grew to a great green noble frog
and made music in the afternoons and nights
beautiful music to fill a heart with mystery
oh great frog what are you calling for?





Oh Flower
I do remember when you were but the tiniest seed
In fact I may have mixed you up with others you were
so tiny like a bit of tiniest straw nothingness
I might have brushed you off my hair and
you fell into that hole and what do you know
in just a day or so
you changed into a sprout of green at first one thin exclamation point
then turning into a semaphore
peeping up through the dirt
I don’t think the dirt hurt
though you were breaking up through her
And you stole bits of her and gathered them into yourself
you brought them up to the light
and offered them to the sun like a little tiny elf
I remember your first proud buds and your
surprising flowers so adept at all those petals
uncurling into perfectness.

 

Oh Butterfly

I remember you eating  flower
oh you were such a frightening worm with  a million little feet
you had strange eyes on your rear
and you were so serious about getting where you had to go
Eating and eating and marching with such intense intention
the flower stood bravely and did not fight you
but offered her self in  meekness
I kind of wondered if you would survive as the
early bird arrived
but chose to dine on your sister instead 
You didn’t look up nor wave good-bye
you might have sent her cordial wishes in your dreams
I wouldn’t know 
 You had another aim and so you
kept on eating and ignored the awful pain and fear
at your sister’s tears
Oh but that was when you were but a caterpillar
You were a  silly roly poly sort of worm
I remember one day you wiggled off
And I didn‘t see you until one day when I saw
you clinging to a leaf
your wings drying
for a brief time you were so vulnerable but it was the risk you had to take
then your wings took shape
aloft aloft into the breeze you teased me as I leapt to reach you.

I saw you on many days after that
You fluttered about the bushes and the flowers
alighting on the branch of the Jacaranda tree
You smiled down at me
from your high place.

I must say that I was a little sad when frog ate you.




Tara Strohmeier copyright June 2012