Urban Farmer

It was raining, and the chickens were miserable. The chicks, well, chick, singular, was pretty much ignored by the young hen who continued to sit on the remaining egg while her offspring cowered in the corner of the so-called shelter Rudy had built (as in hastily constructed when Marla insisted.)

"They need shelter," she said, twice. "You're the one...." which was all she needed to say because he knew what was coming ....the one who wanted chickens.

Which was true.  He wanted and knew now but admitted to no one, that what he really wanted were fair weather chickens strutting around their suburban yard, proof of their ecological instincts, their commitment to a healthier earth, to organic everything--even though the reluctant environmentalist, Marla pointed out, "Monsanto corn is still organic--anything that lives is organic, even you!"

So they got chickens. Well, he got chickens, for the eggs, he said, from a farmer, that a friend of a friend recommended, 3 noisy hens, that immediately hid in the hosta when he released them in the back yard. 

"Free range," he said when Marla complained.

~

They were down to two chickens by the next day...who knew why.

"They have wings," Marla pointed out.

"True," he said, "but I didn't know they could actually fly!"

~

That was over a month ago--and now there was only Henrietta the hen and, inexplicably, a single baby chick, soaked and miserable in the so-called shelter.

"About your urban farm experiment," Marla said, "it was the right thing to do, ecologically and all that, but we were the wrong people to do it."

He waited, silent, because she was right, waited for the harsh words, the litany of his errors, the truth.

"And, I think," she continued, "that the farmer would take Henrietta Hen and Baby Chick back, free of charge."

"You think?"

"Yes," she said, "I'll load them up, and you can drive."

Saved again by generosity and love.

Morning Gift

         He was a poet, and she had loved him for 50 years--which was hard to explain if you caught him unawares--as she did most mornings--standing in the back yard, scrawny arms spread in a V, reaching to the skies and proclaiming

                                                    Morning, morning is here!

                                                    Another day!

                                                    Awake! Awake! Awake!

                                                    Before it slips away

                                                    Away...away...away...

    Each word quieter than the one that preceded it. At the last away, he tightened the frayed rope that held his bathrobe closed and walked toward the back door, stopping only to pick a dandelion--or three--for their morning bouquet.

    She had begged him to stop with the dandelions. "They're weeds. Picking just encourages them to make more," she'd said.

    For the next week he increased the number he picked until on the 7th day, when he offered his straggly bouquet, he sang, sang

                                                        Dandelions are here,

                                                        Yellow beauties plucked for two,

                                                        Beautiful like you.

    No wonder she was besotted with this crazy old man.

                                                    

Scalded

He'd waited too late--as he usually did. You would think he'd learn. He thought he would learn, had learned, but he didn't tell her about...., hadn't told her, wouldn't, shouldn't...no! Strike that thought. No need to confess anything.

Better get out of bed, make the coffee. No strike that. Coffee at 3:17 am was a bad idea.

Tea. 

He'd make tea, some kind of non-caffeinated tea, just what she would do, what she liked. He stared at the two tea packets he'd wormed out of the back of the silverware drawer. Who keeps tea in a drawer? He did. Pulled them out and laughed. Both packets were wrinkled, really crumpled beyond recognition. One of them Ear....something, maybe Earl Grand? Earth Good? Early Great? The bag was too bent and broken to make out the words, maybe Easy...

"Shit," he said and threw it away.

The other packet clearly said Mint. Actually, it said Min, the last letter obliterated, but the bag was green, and it smelled like mint, and the water was boiling, so he dropped the tea bag in yesterday's coffee cup, poured in the water, sat at the kitchen table, and took a sip. Burned his tongue and probably irreversibly scalded his throat, which gave him another reason to hate tea, but....but, something to tell her, to make her laugh at his chronic ineptitude, his tea story a bit of an apology, a first step back: "Look how inept I am, how vulnerable, just like you...."

No! Drop the "just like you." 

Say, "What would you have done?" 

Or  "What kind of tea should I drink at 3 in the morning?" 

Or he could say "I should have called you," then laugh in that self-deprecating manner he'd been working on.

And she would smile, say, "It's all right" or "I'm glad you didn't call. How thoughtful." 

Or.... maybe he should just whisper, "See how much I need you." 

Or just, "I love you," and all would be healed, made right, back to normal.

It hadn't worked all that well before, but better late than....no he couldn't go there. Just leave it at that--better late.

Windy Talk

        Will the wind ever stop blowing?

What kind of question is that? Of course it will.

But, then it'll start up again, won't it?

Eventually, but not immediately.

So, that's the answer, as in "no, it will never stop blowing."

That depends.

On what?

Well, on what you mean by stopping, as in stopping forever, never to blow again.

Oh! Aha! I see. That is different from pausing, stopping altogether versus pausing for an unspecified time...which could be minutes, or hours, days or...

Weeks.

Months.

A year.

Seconds? No stopping for seconds hardly counts because you would hardly notice.

Well, a sailor would.

A sailor on a boat with sails, you mean.

Well, obviously, but I meant here, in our yard.

What is the difference? Wind is wind.

But a sailor depends on the wind for transportation, movement. Here, it's just an annoyance.

Or a welcome friend on a smoldering day.

Unless it's blowing grit in your eyes.

Oh no, I'm not going there. This conversation is about wind, only wind.

But, who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I.

Hmmm, that sounds familiar. "But when the trees bow down their heads/the wind is passing by."

Exactly! Oh, that is good, really good.

Yes. Christina thought so.

Christina! That Italian woman I saw you with last week. "Just a friend," you claimed.

Christina's a poet. Christina Rosetti.

That explains nothing. I suppose the wind just blew her into your arms.

He laughs.

This conversation is over, she announces and stomps past, no, blows past him, missing his final words.

"The wind is passing by."

In Beauty

It was early. Too early to be up and walking around the house, tiptoeing around the house because it was so early--the sun just rising, sending streams of light through the windows, enough to see that her sister still slept in the other bed, enough to see her parents, two lumps in their bed, one of them snoring, but softly, a wheeze of air in, then a rumble out.

She knew those sounds because she was a night walker. It was that secret, private part of herself that she never mentioned to anyone. Now that it was almost summer, the sun illumined her silent explorations, her soft padding from room to room, checking on the sleepers. Not even the dog stirred, but the cat always followed her, just as silent, the two of them going room to room. All is well. All is well. All is well.

That's all she needed to know, that all was well as the new day began its slow unfolding, its promise of the familiar. Oatmeal for breakfast (even in summer) and her dad's first hug, "Good morning, Princess." and her mother's, "How long have you been up?"

Always the same questions. 

"With the sun," she'd say because it was true. 

"Everything is fine," she said next, because it was true.

"Thank you, Princess." (Her father.)

"I'm so glad." (Her mother.)

And another day began in peace, in joy, in sunlight, in beauty.

(Inspired by Joy Harjo's "Eagle Poem" which ends with

                            We are truly blessed because we

                             Were born, and die within a

                                 True circle of motion,

                         Like eagle rounding out the morning

                             Inside us.

                             We pray that it will be done.

                             In beauty.

                             In beauty.

Paying Attention

Rosemary squatted next to the gutter, watching the debris from the top of the hill make its slow swim downhill, puddle by puddle. It was still raining, not hard, but clearly water was falling from the sky, but so slowly Rosemary could almost see the individual drops hit the stream.

It had rained hard and steady during the night, which explained the sure flow in the gutter, with just enough sprinkle to keep Rosemary's private river moving.

She counted the debris, a word she had just learned from her mother. "Don't muck around in that debris," Mother had said, with that ominous tone that meant the "debris" was bound to be interesting...which it was.

A leaf, a twig, scraps of paper--just what you would expect in a city neighborhood.  Rosemary was patient and enjoyed the muted swirl of shape and color.

She'd tried to dam the steady flow, but that just left her hands dirty (and she had to admit after her mother pointed it out, smelly.) She was now wearing COVID gloves, leftovers from the pandemic, made of some thin-as-skin fabric, so she was free to catch and examine whatever floated by, hoping for a prize, a mystery, an unexpected object with a story, to add to her collection of beetle shells, torn scraps of plastic (primarily bright yellow), once a lid floating face up without taking on water. She loved her parade of detritus, a word new to her, but a word that perfectly described her hunt for the unexpected or unknown. And, it gave her the perfect answer, when some kid, or even a stranger, an adult, asked What are you doing?

"Watching," she always replied.

"For what?"

or

"Why?" 

or

"How?" (The hardest question so far, from Mrs. Crumpy down the block.)

"Like this," Rosemary had said, and exaggerated her squat, "Just like this and watching as best I can."

"Good girl," Mrs. Crumpy had said, without the usual follow up Why? (An adult question.) or That's stupid! (From another kid.) Not even a snort or a manufactured smile, or the worst, a meditative "I see..." when clearly they didn't. 

"Good girl," Mrs. Crumpy said. "You're paying attention."

To Be Alive

    Her hands ached, both of them. From the clenching no doubt--unclench, then clench; fist, tight fist, really tight fist, then the ease of the muscle and tendons loosening, lengthening, becoming four fingers and a thumb again.

  

  She liked thinking about what she couldn't see, but knew was there--the bones, veins, tendons, and the hundreds, no thousands, millions of organisms keeping her alive, whole communities of bacteria, viruses, even fungi, getting up when she did, well, most of them, she assumed, while she made a cup of coffee, waited for the paper, checked email before the day really started.

    She woke early so they had to too, the day shift at least, the ones who kept her eyes lubricated, her head upright, her blood moving and warm. When she got up, the fungi were up too...if they even slept.

 

   Her back hurt in the morning these days--diminished help from the invisibles or the inevitable protest of age? Well, at least, she, and they, weren't dead. That was the best quality of pain: it was uncomfortable, even painful you might say--ha ha--but she and her multitude of organisms were still alive, still kicking. She should be grateful....and she was, even though she generally rebuffed any order or even suggestion that she express gratitude for discomfort. It was life...and then death...pain--discomfort--disappearance for them all.

 

   Well, enough of that. She stretched her fingers..and both thumbs, rubbed shea cream on each knuckle, spread the length of every finger, admired the soft glow of the massaged skin, made a fist, a second fist, and said, Yes, we will all live another day.

Halleluja!