A few days ago,
Your nose was in gardenias.
Do you remember?
If you can’t remember the fragrance of the gardenia well, don’t worry. That’s why we have seasons.
But here’s a couple of reminders, if you can’t wait until next year.
I know, I know, online photographs don’t always give off strong fragrances.
舞鶴草 . . . pronounced MY-ZURU-SOH. . . . Dancing. . . . cranes. . . . plant.
Weathered log, split grey.
Tender hearts, green, tumble free.
Ridgetop dancing cranes.
***
***Thanks to Yumi Shida’s father for plant identification.
The boy standing
between the swing and slide
craned his neck,
lifted his arm.
I smiled,
took a hand from the handlebars,
waved.
He, though,
was only
wiping snot.
I knew she could,
when she said—
nearly up to the rocks,
looking up through new leaves,
swirls of creamy yellow and pink,
crimson red,
like birds born overdue,
feathers more than ready,
just a little wet,
like baby birds
with more strength than baby birds
could rightfully possess,
pushing free from
shells with no more weight
than a glimmer of light
(but how firm they’d held!),
looking up through leaves at an azure
deeper than we’d ever known before,
her fingertips
pressing into my shoulder—
I knew she could,
when she said,
“I wish I could fly.”
Let’s see, up along the ridge of Hakkorei, the white yashio are blazing and an azure sky has come out to play. You could join them.
Or you could stay down in the city, download the version of Adobe Acrobat that the U.S. government has decided you have to have before you can fill out the form you have to fill out declaring the savings you have to declare held in “foreign” banks (geez, it’s just the local bank down the street), and submit the document electronically . . . the main instructions a mere 21 pages, the supplementary instructions only a few pages more.
Right. Into the car we leap, up the highway we fly.
Live in the sunshine, swim the sea,
Drink the wild air’s salubrity:
When the star Canope shines in May,
Shepherds are thankful and nations gay.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Trust instinct to the end, even though you can give no reason.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson