red tree rose (personification)

they do become friends after all.

they saw it from pacific coast highway in dana point one afternoon on their way back from the beach, a little shop with funky furniture and large clay pots spilling out onto the sidewalk.  they made that split-second decision you do when you’re driving along not looking for anything in particular, but in no hurry to get home, you know, the decision to extend your perfect day just a little bit longer, a little bit more exploration, just as you did at the beach when you wandered down one of the many arroyos that lead down to the beach (and where you saw two men kissing, their oiled bodies pressed tight together, one man’s deeply tanned hand holding the black-haired head of his lover in a clinch of passion. they didn’t see our sojourners, stopping as they had a few yards away in the deep, quiet sand, embarrassed a little, but still captivated by the glistening bodies and obliviousness–of the sun beating down on them, of the possibility of discovery; the beauty of the day surrounding them in an aura of golden, shimmering sweat and lotion, the sucking sound of two tongues competing with the gentle wash of water against the shore, and the faint hum of the freeway, unseen, but close. it was such an intimate, exquisite moment — the life before the little death that was sure to follow — that you unconsciously began to move closer to them; your lover took your hand and when you looked at him, he touched his lips with his forefinger, shhh, and you turned away and shuffled through the sand, back to the beach, resistant, a little like pulling your dog away from an especially fragrant spot of grass, and he leaned up against you, arm-to-arm, and kissed your shoulder, both of you smiling in collusion with the lovers behind you.)

the driver dug his wallet out from underneath the car seat where he’d hidden it when they’d parked at the beach, and they climbed out of the warmth of the car. they’d driven down the freeway with the windows down and exiting into town at the ‘beach cities’ sign, sunglasses slipping down their sun-kissed noses; one with a green bandanna tied around his head do-rag style, the other in his dago-t, curly, scratchy chest hair spilling out from the straps and arm-holes. they stood in front of the store, pointing at this pot and that one, really no need to speak to each other, but finally deciding on the neo-classical urn and the hunky surfer dude owner helped them put it into the trunk of their car, assuring them of its durability and long life.

a tree rose, just like the one in these photos, well, actually the one in these photos, was planted in the urn. a season of watering, sun, rain, time, passed. and then another, possibly a third, but then the urn started to deteriorate, a chunk of its rim falling off without human assistance (was the tree rose helping it escape? they didn’t know.) eventually though, it had to be replaced, and they brought home an earthen-ware, hand-decorated pot that required both of them to carry down the stairs from the garage to its new home. the hammer was brought out of its tool box and the pot that was falling apart was further encouraged to leave the tree rose behind; they re-potted it using some of the shards of the old pot as drainage in the bottom of the new, and there resides the rose ever since. (happily ever after, they imagine, as they’re inclined to believe in fairy tales and other stories of the supernatural, like lovers kissing on the beach.)

tuesday (a flower a day)

 

what could i possibly say that would be anything more than gilding?

the rose and the grasshopper (notes on procrastination)

is it not amazing (well, at least to me, but possibly not as amazing as i’m letting on, perhaps i should start over); it always fascinates me how easily distracted i can be in the name of ________.  the garden needed watering and although we have a sprinkler system for most of it, there are an awful lot of pots and window boxes that just need to be hand-watered.

but this grasshopper got in the way.  you don’t often see grasshoppers this close to the coast, but when you do, they are always brilliant chartreuse and huge (they are huge compared to the grasshoppers i remember from my youth in south dakota, where, in the summer, you couldn’t spit without hitting one–we, the neighbor kids and i, used to catch them and put them in pickle jars–pickle jars being more abundant back then as opposed to other kinds of jars–it’s possible that our mothers held onto  empty pickle jars to use to store grease from cooking bacon or, if i remember correctly, from their use of crisco for so many different dishes, what those dishes were i cannot tell you, although i do remember, now that we’re talking about cooking — were we? — that my mother loved spinach cooked in vinegar and try as she might she could never get me to like it.  do you wonder why?  it’s not that i didn’t like spinach, creamed was okay if it was necessary, but cooked with vinegar?  are you kidding?)

other things got in my way today and kept me from completing the list of tasks i had assigned to this particular sunday.  unfortunately (or fortunately, depending upon your particular take on the things that can derail even the most committed of workaholics — although i do not consider myself a ‘workaholic’–i’ve always subscribed to getting what you can get done in your 40 hours, except when it’s necessary to work longer, then you do.  it appears then that these distractions today kept me from nothing important as much as i might have thought they were) — and now i can’t remember what was deemed ‘unfortunately’.  <sigh>

today then.  it was what it was meant to be, i just had no idea that it would be as perfect as it was and sometimes, when your plans are derailed by beauty regardless of where you may encounter it, you just have to give into it–whatever it is.  in this case, today’s for instance, it would be the perfection of the day and how it unfolded from this morning’s dog walk to the farmer’s market (btw, i cut my hair — both of them — today), to a luscious little laydown just after lunch, a cool breeze flowing up the canyon from the ocean on which my dreams floated– i dreamt of you and you–and a little after that, watering the garden, the surprise visit from the grasshopper and these random thoughts on not getting done what i had so thoughtfully, so carefully, and as it turned out, so unconvincingly, planned.  c’est la guerre, n’est-ce pas? (gratuitous use of french your bonus–not that you were expecting one, a bonus that is, but nonetheless, i have the skill and i should use it as i see fit, hmm?)

rrose sélavy (rose, c’est la vie)

are you the rose you thought you’d be at this stage of your blooming life?  when you were a bud did you think your petals would unfurl as they have or did you have a premonition of greater glory?  is your stem straight and true or has it taken a turn here and there that were unexpected and unpleasant/pleasant?  has a hand come down to admire you and you’ve pricked them with your thorns in spite of their benign intentions (clipper-less)?  do you worry that you’ll be picked too early, before you’ve had the opportunity to fully mature?  you’re not one of those roses who’s life is plotted and destined for a dinner table/rendezvous/mother’s loving embrace; picked, sprayed, and laid next to baby’s breath?  or do you think you’ll just play it as it lays, a rose that even joan didion would love?

 

 

visitations (lives of the saints)

“o, the sisters of mercy they are not departed or gone.  they were waiting for me when i thought that i could not go on.  and they brought me their comfort, and later they brought me this song.  o, i hope you run into them, you who have been traveling so long.” –leonard cohen

part 1

they always drove into town in the pickup with the camper shell from their home in south dakota or missouri, making the journey seem like a vacation, taking their time, stopping (as we always did when i was young) at roadside attractions, deciding on the spur of the moment to take this two-lane road or that one instead of the interstate, just to say they had done it, “it looked interesting,” she would tell me later, going into the details of this farm or that small town they had ‘discovered’ on their way to somewhere else, her fourth husband a willing participant in her explorations and whims.

they would visit friends, a collection of people she gathered wherever she went, a true talent and one i cannot say i fully understood at the time, the making of friends wherever, whenever.  i try now to remember if that ability was because she was a good listener or if it was her simple, pleasant manner, maybe it was an undefinable trait, or maybe it was just her nature that led people to her.  however she managed it, she had friends scattered around the midwest;  columbine and lilac, peony and rose.  when did she find time to maintain such a flower garden?

when i was growing up i didn’t pay attention to the subtleties of my mother’s maturity, her adult abilities and worldly navigational devices and tools, but perhaps i have been most influenced by them or by the lack of them and have only come to realize what they were when i reached a certain cognizant age (somewhere between 2_ and death, or perhaps in the never world of my subconscious) and when i find myself employing a skill set i had no idea i possessed.  i wish i could spell out for you what those subtleties are (other than the obvious petty lying one engages to keep the social wheels greased), their details, their lattice work on which your friendships flourish.

the first time they came to chicago to visit me, was it 1975 or ’76?, i can’t recall, and there is no mention of it in my journal from the time; i do know it was summer and chicago was a-shimmer with heat and humidity, but somehow perfect while they were there (or maybe it was its awful hot, sticky self, the weather is unimportant to this story, i was just hoping i could set a mood for you in order that you might appreciate more of what i’m about to share with you.)

have i mentioned that my mother would cast her spell over my friends so that they would also become her friends?  o yes, months later after they had been introduced, this one or that one would casually say something to this effect (and to my horror), “i was speaking with evelyn the other day and we were talking about you.  o, don’t worry, it wasn’t anything negative, but you know how she is…”  and i, on the other end of this particular telephone conversation, blushing, my pulse racing.   i would try to figure out how and when they found the quiet moment of their, most likely, one and only meeting, to secretly exchange phone numbers, neither of them so much as breaking a sweat in their collusion.   this habit of acquiring my closest friends as hers was one she began when i left for college and kept until she died, not unlike her pack of marlboros on the telephone table next to her chair in the living room, taking one out and carefully lighting it with a decorative flame and then that exhalation; i can hear it now, they must have too.

part 2

so.  plans are made, destination and arrival time plotted and soon (too quickly) here they are, standing in the lobby of 2___ n. pine grove, pushing the buzzer for r. patrick, apt. 1114, suitcases in hand, a bit of american gothic done up in polyester (“it travels better”) and smelling of the road, my mother a bit wind-tossed and my step-father solicitous as always of her every need, although her independence might have put off a less secure man, he seemed not to pay any attention to it and i think that may have been part of his appeal to her, this final love of her life (after me.)

this is the summer that i was sporting a collection of straw borsalinos accompanied by fringed silk scarves tossed gaily, yes you read that right, tossed gaily (in case you thought your eyes were deceiving you the first time) over one or the other of my bony shoulders.   you might ask the author at this point how open he was about his sexuality with his mother and step-father and he would say, “it’s none of your business.”  that is how it was handled in our family.  (if you’ve been following any of these family history jaunts i’ve been indulging myself in this past days/weeks/months/years, you may have discovered that at one point in my life i had two mommies, that too was never discussed.)

they settled comfortably in my studio apartment, sleeping in the bedroom alcove with me on the little off-white curved boudoir sofa i’d rescued from a second-hand store in uptown (lawrence & clark-ish) where it was wilting from disuse, hiding in a corner.  i’d swathed it in watered georgette, patterned in blue and green hues from a sari shop in the same neighborhood, covering the blemishes it had been wearing for years before i came to own it.   at least i’d start out on it, but it was so small and kidney-shaped that i ended up sleeping on the floor instead (he shrugged).

we took the 151 bus down to the near north and walked over to arnie’s for lunch one day and ate spinach salad and steak tartare (“why would you eat spinach raw,” asked my stepfather, my mother delighting in the alfalfa sprouts crowning hers, possibly making a little mooing noise under her breath to my horror–and secret delight.)

that evening we dined with my dearest friend (bff before there was such a thing), jimmy, in his apartment in the same building.    he had a 100 candles lit, reflecting the shimmering lights of the city below, the warmth of the light magnified by one mirrored wall, his palm trees and exotic plants making it a tropical night in the middle of chicago.  jimmy was an adept.  adept as in magical-thinking, fantasy-producing, another world/universe-living, brilliant human consumed by the darkest undercurrent (the river styx) and for a few years my off- and on-again gay mentor and guide to the world.  under his tutelage my culture quotient shot way up, i shed some of the country ‘gosh’ ness and instead acquired a big city ‘fuck’ ness.  what i chose to take with me has stood me well these many years.

my mother was fascinated by him and he by her and they soon had their heads together on his living room couch while step-father and i fiddled and twirled our wine glasses and idly watched them.  she would parry and he would feint; he would joust and she would side-step as elegantly as a show horse, so subtle was their mutual admiration and interest in each other that, to the untrained eye, you would have thought they had known each other for years.  at some point in the evening they exchanged phone numbers (see paragraph 5 above.)

wisely, jimmy continued to pour wine into their glasses, so that when it came time to lead them back to my apartment after dinner there was no objection to his and my heading out to the bars for a little late night revelry.

part 3

i’ve always been partial to the hindu concept of life:  a spiraling thread of history through which your life dissects, your past may be someone else’s future, their now your long ago.    but it is that spiraling (do you always think of the word ‘spiraling’ as a downward movement?  i think most of us do, but i often like to contemplate it laying on its side or moving up instead of down.   it is the same with its shape, a funnel your first thought with its wide top and narrow bottom, but i see it as particularly regular in shape, as wide at the top as it is at the bottom–or equal from side to side), that will now come into play.  we have moved from that idyllic summer of ’7_ and it is now close to the end of a decade and i have called out to them.

j.w. had a country girl’s charm with a big city woman’s body, all legs, ass and breasts cooing sweet nothings to men twice her age ’til they’d be wiping the drool off their chins with a paper cocktail napkin already wet with their sloppy beer.   she and i worked together at arnie’s, she in the bar, me on the floor, and we had an immediate connection.  as with most of us there, the restaurant job was ‘temporary’ until our real job came along.  she a potter, me a _________ (the blank is intentional, i had no idea what i wanted to be.  all i knew is that i did not want to be working in a restaurant another day.)  she lived in the pilsen east artist community at 18th street and halsted and after my first visit to her loft i was ready to move down there and lead la vie bohème, she mimi, me rodolphe (beats his chest).

instead of this [imagined] love affair (whether it was with her or not) it fast became a downward spiral of drugs, drink and wantonness (not because of her, or maybe it was) and when i finally pulled myself up out of the <insert your favorite word here to describe the depths of despair i was feeling at the time> i made up my mind to make something happen (even if it did not come true, as it didn’t, and as is often the case with the irresolute–you know who you are–there were more hard days ahead), i set out to change my life.

there was a party.   a going-away party where everything in the house was for sale. we (i had a roommate, more on that at another time, it is too hard to write about the living right now.  i’ve started to address this time in some written form or the other over the last several months and have failed each time –failed as far as i am the judge of what works and what doesn’t when speaking of the living–we shall see if i am able to move past that in the future as it is an important part, a key actually, to this story, both before this tale and afterward, and yet it does not matter now as i relate to you these visitations), sold everything including the refrigerator that belonged to the landlord (we replaced it) during this night of manic revelry; hundreds of people came through and by morning, the place was stripped bare (bare-ish, i ended up staying on by myself for several months afterward, not everyone took with them what they bought and never mentioned that they hadn’t gotten what they paid for.  it still makes me giggle with elfin delight that the party was so good that paying for something was like the fee for enjoying yourself, whether you took home your purchase or not.  there was never an ounce of recrimination from any attendee.  another “oh, well,” he sighed.)

part 4

and finally.  it’s not the final ‘final’ just so you know.  i don’t want to get your hopes up that this will be the end of it, you’re just going to have to soldier on here for a bit more as i dredge this pond bottom for all of the memory that’s been laying there gathering algae and scum (and the occasional dead frog).   focus, rp, focus.  i called them and said, “i’ve got a job lined up in phoenix and i’m going to move in few weeks, don’t want to take a lot with me, will you come and get the important stuff?” and she, “why, honey, of course, we will.”  and being the deus ex machina that they were, days later the pick-up with the camper shell (why were they always silver-y blue?) is parked in front of 7__ w. 18th st.

it is summer again in chicago and this time i’m not living on the lake.  instead i’m down in a neighborhood that has seen many better days, the streets are dusty, two doors down from me live a pair of hookers (as sweet as pie, btw) and the neighborhood abuts little mexico city, so named, well, you figure it out.   the artist inhabitants are a motley crew, a little wild-eyed, gypsy fortune-telling, handsome and beautiful, exotic birds really and i loved each of them, but that’s definitely an aside.  it’s not that my mother didn’t know where i was living, i shared as much as i thought necessary and i’d been down to see them several times over the intervening years–the important thing is that they had seen me, they had to know that it was not good, but they looked past it, not wanting to bring up something that they had no control over.  is that the mark of a good parent of an adult child or the telling point of one who was not?  i only ask the question now as i am writing this as it did not cross my mind that they were there with anything but love in their caring hearts.

“does this make me look like an artist or a kook?” she asked me as she sported the lamp shade on her head, standing on the sidewalk just down from my space (it’s the tan one in the light with the two big windows) and so the photo above, the one that i had been searching so desperately for so many weeks and it turned up on the shelf in the closet in the 2nd bedroom in an album, “yeah, didn’t you know that’s where it was?” said m. with the nonchalance of an olympic slalom skier or a secret agent.

the night before the photo, i’d taken them on the halsted bus up to greek town for a night out.  we ate at roditys where i was a regular and the staff poured on the charm and the wine and by the time we left a couple of hours later, she and my step-dad were as lit as i was.  we  stopped at the belly dancing place a few doors down for a night cap and somewhere between there and here (the tinkling of the silver jewelry adorning the dancer and the buzz of the crowd) i realized that my mother could pretty much handle anything that life threw at her.    no matter where she was she fit in.  instead of kilroy was here, it was evelyn was here, and don’t forget it; but do remember to call me, okay?  you’ve got the number.

Fill in the _____ (captions ‘r’ us)

okay.  this is how this will work:  i am posting several photographs that i took yesterday.  i will start the caption below each photographs leaving one or more spaces empty for you to add your suggested insertions.  everyone will be a winner! not that you’ll receive anything (well, anything tangible) for your efforts, so some of you may feel that’s a lot like losing.  but!  you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you contributed to this worthy cause.  and that’s winning, isn’t it?  (if you need to win, at least it’s something.  there may be those of you for whom the idea of winning and/or losing as the be-all end-all might be somewhat distasteful.  i mean, the very idea of striving may be anathema to you (you know who you are.)

so.  let’s get started.

1.  a rose is a ________ and by any other name may ___________ as ________.

2.  the devil and _ were talking the other day.  ”what were you thinking,” he said, “when you _______ that?”

3.  as i was walking down the _________, i thought about ______ and ______, but no sooner had i _______ than those thoughts ____________.

4.  ”but, he cried,” in some distress, “that is not what i _______.  you have taken my words and ____________.”

5.  i stood a bit, the cool wind brushing against my face and contemplated ___ existence of ______ and how nature seems to be the __________ of all that is good with the world.

6.  and, as if on cue (the stage manager sotto voce) i turned to the ____ and realized that it was true what they _________   _____ ______.   it somehow assuaged the despair i had been feeling earlier.

 

insert your thoughts here

so.  instead of what i thought i’d share with you (a project that i’ve held close to my chest for fear of spoiling it somehow by letting it be seen before its due date–whenever that is–although in my mind i see it finished, but not when,) i’m here tonight/today/yesterday or tomorrow, perhaps even next year as long as time means nothing to you, because that is true.

the rose has no agenda.  it blooms when it blooms and it blooms when it blooms (the words ‘blooms’ were interchangeable with each other,) and now it is blooming, but time had nothing to do with it.  unless.  unless you impose your sense of  time on it.  your need to control everything.  well.  it may not be your need, you may have no control over your time.  which.  is a pity.  not having any meaning, that is a pity (ah, but for a comma.)  but where were we?

oh yes, time.  your time here (but you said “your thoughts here”, which indeed is true, but that was a ruse to get your attention–and your time.)

to what purpose then?  they say you can share your time with another, but that is not the same as giving them your time, because they cannot take it and add it to their own.  it is still your time and you do decide how you will spend it (there is no time credit card, it is cash & carry only, oh i suppose they might accept american express, like costco, but when the bill comes at the end of the month you’d better be ready to pay.)

no.  i will not be sending you a bill for your time here, although the thought did occur to me just now that that is exactly what the new journalism (the one that replaces the old new journalism) is doing.  they are charging you for your time.   it is your time & now you are paying for its use (by you.)  which.  i may accept as a new standard for personal blogs.  pay me in time. (not on time, but in time, with your time, you see time is the only real currency that is left to us.)  look for your statement in the mail (also on its way out of our time.)

untitled (blue skies w/clouds & flowers)

 

what the sky foretold,

the rose revealed,

the rain delivered.

giotto’s circle (roseroserose)

there was the circle.  actually it was the perfect red circle painted by giotto in response to a request by the pope to see giotto’s work before hiring him that i read about in david markson’s brilliant “wittgenstein’s mistress” although the story of giotto and the perfect red circle (hand-painted without a compass or other assistance–just his hand, the brush, the paint and a surface; think about it,) may have been a part of my art history library (the one you keep in your mind, the one you draw on unexpectedly–that grain silo on a country highway at the edge of a town that hardly anyone, even you, visits.)

there was the circle.  i knew it would be the beginning.  i knew that the message would start to reveal itself once the circle was down.

there were vague notions of ideas, but none of them fully formed, just an avid interest in the perfect red circle.  my fingertips turned red from the craypas as i rubbed its redness into the canvas (a cherry kool-aid red, a candy-colored & -coated red from over-indulging; the red of lips freshly kissed, slightly bruised — a hush of violet.)

giotto is not a favorite artist of mine.  i am not disposed to the early italian renaissance, i mean i get it, but that doesn’t mean i have to like it.  i could care that the contrapuntal stance suddenly ‘enlivened’ painting toward a more natural representation.  but giotto started this [project.]  there was the circle.  and there were roses.  and there is always marcel duchamp.  i cannot go further than the front door without packing up my rrose selavy & quietly tucking her into my _______ (an yet as unnamed carry-all [port-manteau, peut-être] for ideas & my past.)  please see this blog post, my heart belongs to dada for further proof. )

i am not a painter.  my visual expression is usually relegated to what i can make a digital camera & my computer do.  i attempt to compose photographs (you may have figured that out on your own, should you be any little bit familiar with this blog) that have some beauty or some symmetry or for that matter, asymmetry or that they somehow tell a story (sometimes about me, other times about greater & smaller things, at times they say nothing at all.)

some ideas start out strong (“this is not a …”, above,) but quickly are covered over when a better idea came along (you’ve been to that bar, haven’t you?  the one where you’re just getting into someone — & they you — & suddenly something better comes along — for either one of you & whatever it was that was working for you, isn’t any longer.  i know you know what i mean.)  ideas are like that, aren’t they?  creativity is like that bar–it’s a fairly busy bar–most times anyway, but there are down times too, when your life might get in the way or there’s some other thing that needs YOUR ATTENTION NOW.

there was the circle.  it needed paint.  i know that acrylic paint makes a great adhesive, so i was already contemplating mixing up the media by the time i dipped my first brush into the burnt sienna (the undercoat) & then i needed to spend about a half hour (with assistance, no less) looking for a palette knife or putty knife or something to make a little impasto (or a lot) & finally ended up with a cake spatula (see above, left) which worked on this small surface perfectly (at least for me, the inexperienced painter.)

which.  there was the problem of not being a painter, truly.  i suffered some regret as paint went down, sometimes on its own, other times under my not-quite-as-confident-as-i-thought hand.  i told myself, ‘no matter’, work with what you have, follow your instincts, for god’s sake “use some brighter colors!”  think about the color, the composition, the forms; it’s not like i don’t write about it often enough & here i am struggling with concepts that i know.  because, did i say this before?  i am not a painter.

before i got too carried away by the surface texture of the paint, i sidled over to the computer & started selecting different roses from my ‘botanicals’ file (thinking, as i was, that only one [1] rose would anchor the painting, center, front–giotto’s angel’s wings, his perfect circle its halo); i chose several different favorites, printed them & cut them out in a close approximation of their actual shape, but leaving some ‘edge’ (an angle, a scissor cut) to them, but only because the tiny, tiny, tiny details are best left to someone with more patience than i–of course, that is only partially true, i can maneuver among the shoals of tiny details without incident, but like most people or at least most people like me (which narrows it down quite severely, doesn’t it?) i prefer the grand gesture, the details to follow as best they can, scrambling behind to keep up with the sweeping grandeur that is ‘high concept.’

as sure as i could be, i placed the yellow rose in the center of the circle (poor giotto, clumsily painted over as he is) & pushed it into the wet paint.  in true amateur painter manner, i stepped back, with brush in paint-splattered hand (i may have stuck the tip end of the brush between my lips, a cigarette to think more clearly) & contemplated my work: the balance, the subject (was the visual result now before me an expression of what i felt?), & realized, with all of those other roses laying to the side of the canvas that i was not done with them, yet.

& they all found a home, although there may have been one or two that were rejected (their sad little faces, “why not me?”) & so i set those aside with another use in mind (they ended up on the reverse with my signature.)  but suddenly i now found a triangle (a golden rose triangle) thrusting up into the center of the picture plane (a rose bowl float sliding into the your peripheral vision, just like on new year’s morning as the floats make their away around the corner from orangethorpe onto colorado blvd. in pasadena–an “ooh, look at that one!” escaping your lips.)

& i thought of the flutter of angel’s wings (a scene from kushner’s “angels in america”, maybe not as angry, but still, retributive.)  so.  & i thought that there might be just the faintest whiff, the odor, the scent, the suggestion of an erotic moment (do i need to spell it out for you?  no?  i thought as much.)

those unfurling petals that push the center of the rose up toward your ______, an invitation to smell, taste, indulge, relent, submit, a slave to their power.    do you lose yourself in their beauty?  it is their strength, that beauty, that scent, that sex.   & don’t they make it difficult to love them–the thorns, pin-pricks of anguish, scratches of anticipation; all there to make you want them more, because it is the pain of handling them that makes them that much more desirable.  even after you’ve been hurt by reaching out to their beauty, you are incapable of resisting going back in for another opportunity to bring it close to your ______.

you know the probability of hurt is great, but their beauty completely blinds you to that danger as the reward (their domination of your soul) is so utterly irresistible.   what could feel better than love & yet could cause such despair?

it kidnaps you, love, that is.  you may receive a ransom note, all cut out newspaper letters jumbled together, demanding X for the release of Y (the union that produces zygotes.)  & i know that some of you will debate the relative value of one over the other; others may rush in (otherwise known in romantic literature as ‘fools for love’–a description that, unfortunately, applies to the majority — even the most calculating among us.)  you may prevaricate, waste time, dither, sweat, say yes! then as quickly say no!  all of which are the symptoms of love’s relentless hold on our lives, its foreplay were we in the mood (or in a clearer state of mind) to admit.

(did i know this is where i would end up when i started this project?  & please, consider the parenthetical thoughts, phrases & digressions as asides delivered directly to the audience in a knowing & conspiratorial tone of voice–perhaps accompanied by a wink of complicity, we are, after all, actors upon a stage, blah, blah, blah… [what to do about the poor ellipsis, so overused & under-appreciated, but so perspicacious an ending to our blathering.] )

…

out of focus (au naturel)

there are times when, in spite of your best intentions, every aspect of your life seems just a wee bit out of focus.    yesterday seemed to be one of those days.    even the belladonna amaryllis, their nakedness such a lure, refused to be seen clearly.

i pushed the button on the camera relentlessly & without even a glance at the playback option to see if what i was so intent on capturing was clearly in focus.  it’s not like i hadn’t taken hundreds of photographs utilizing the macro setting before without incident.

but yesterday  the flowers were defiant.  “enough! ” they declaimed.  “we are tired of your incessant invasion of our privacy.  stealing our beauty & sharing it willy-nilly, with this person & that.  how do we know if they respect our beauty?  how can we be sure they are worthy?”

i was dumbfounded by their resistance, “there is no way to gauge our audience’s appreciation of your perfection,” i lamented, “we can only hope that they will leave a comment eulogizing your striking symmetry & elegant sense of color & form or click on ‘like’ or touch their cursor to their <3.”

my hopeful plea seemed to assuage a small portion of their worry & ever so slowly (& thoughtfully) they slipped back into focus; their beauty all the more striking for having been momentarily denied me (& you.)

without further contemplation of their plaint, i flip-flopped my way down the gravel path, pausing just once to face squarely the beauty & magnificence of this rose that i now share with you.