We are stardust. We are golden. . . . Who would dare argue with that?

One reason I like flowers so much is that I can look into their hearts and see the stardust—and see how it energizes them.

Saturday was a good day for a bicycle ride. A good day for flowers. And I had a tune in my head. By this folk duo here in Shizuoka. About a sweet, sweet girl who likes to braid flowers into her hair. Part of it goes like this:

Her mother went on, “You’re an upright guy,

Swim team captain—never make your momma sigh

You make good grades, a future’s in your cards

On Saturdays, you mow the front yard.

So tell me are her politics now turning red

Does she wish all the capitalists soon to be dead.

Does she wanna marry some North Vietnamese?

Is she dangling from a hallucinogenic trapeze?”

Well, all I knew of her was what I saw

She watered her garden, loved it all.

At my bedroom window I stood and spied

When she hoed those rows—I thought I might die.

She was long and lean and mighty strong

Those cucumbers had her singing a song

At times like that I’d wanna ask her to dance,

But she was older, I knew I had no chance.

She weeded and sweated and smiled in the sun,

Kissed the growing melons when the day was done.

So why on earth would anybody care

If she chose to braid flowers into her hair?

Hey, what about me? Am I a star yet? 

My dear, dear child! You always have been!