Life seen through my eyes...

A dense mist hangs from the atmosphere from the waking of morning to midday—it’s the heat, condensed as it is into a melting fog… heat liquefying your thoughts away, heat sewing your dreams into a contemptible knot of insects and heavy perspiration and poisonous oils absorbed in the skin… and thus, the end of June was lost to me in this way, and now it’s been the dowry of the new month as well, and a garden under such circumstances is not a place to be happy in… 

I keep myself inside as much as my soul can endure it and live outside as much as my body can take it… blazing, cloudless heat aggravate the itching, which I should say it still is a nuisance to me, as my body is resisting restoration… but how can I contain myself when there are so many bird-cardinals round me, and the privet is greener and more verdant than ever with branches sweeping the grass, and somewhere beyond the little stream, in the heart of that jumble of branches and trees and shrubbery ever so thick, appears to be, too, a different world... a mysterious and treacherous world, a world of witches and unknown entities and imps and will-o'-the-wisp flickering like lamps, who dare come to the edge of the garden every evening at the kiss of the first shadows disguise in tunics of lights—the fireflies; trying to draw us from the safe paths...

Last week, my father and I planted hundreds of gladiolus-bulbs that I’d buried on the womb of the earth as he would first open it up; like some ripe fruit made of time and made of the ages before our time. I will always be reminded of him with the fondest of memories when the shade of late summer will finally burst from the ground in a multicolored intonation... a song of remembrances and hope, and labor and deep, rooted love. 

I confer all my deepest gratitude to the Great I am… gift Him my praises for the exultant hours of summer and all the songs nurtured in my heart of hearts. I am no more than a speak of dust in the fulfillment of time… I am the song of the turtledove. No, I am more than that. I am the end result of a dream… the name embroidered in the heart of the Universe, seen through divine eyes. 

I was born with an imagination. I chose to interpret life a certain way. I value my perspective. I guard my inspiration and I share what I see and what I hear to help others see and hear and feel what I feel on those serendipitous occasions when the small miracles and marvels that inspire wonder in me, arise. 

And thus, witches were a bit overactive today—the ravens… I heard them engaged in some disaccord among themselves; chatting loudly in the thicket, in humanoids voices, and wanted to believe they were mad at something, or someone… it was almost a fight between mad women. How very out of the ordinary and wonderful these creatures are to me... 

And then you hear them—at any given time of day; the almost petrifying and awesome sound of hundreds of winged armies somewhere hidden in the thicket… the tremendous sound of locusts like a pressure cooker on high; singing the summer songs away; as if calling me to them… I’ve never heard such intense buzzing; such masses of them; they seemed to fill this place. 

I have learned that cicadas, or locusts, spend most of their 13 through 17 year lives underground feeding on fluids from the roots of forest trees. Then, after such a prolonged developmental phase they'd emerge in tremendous numbers and become active for about 4 to 6 weeks. The males would aggregate into chorus centers to attract mates and within two months of the original emergence, their life cycle would be completed… the eggs would have been laid and the adult cicadas would be gone for another 13 or 17 years. Nature it truly is amazing. It should humble us and impel in us the deepest of respect. 

I have so much to learn in my new surroundings about the ways of Nature. I am amazed, and thankful, and bothered by it too at times… a gardener’s toils with the natural elements is a battle lost and I have found out that it is a futile thing to spend half of your mornings pulling out weeds if only a few hours later you’d find them again, thriving on exactly the same spot it took you hours to clean. And you thought that every flower and weed were a friend… Poison ivy, poison oak and sumac dancing in summer breezes and I gathering my skirts and fledding for my life through the garden as though a whole army of ghosts and mocking sprites were at my heels… concerned too by my inadaptability and lack of knowledge; frightened by the things I see growing, rising, twisting, crawling, flying… and plants that can cause more misery, embarrassment and disfigurement that one can image, or think of… yet, there you stand still feeling the rapture of pure delight in the first breath of the day… and the world is still full of hope, and beauty… and you scratch again and still vowed to yourself then and there to be happy. 

Strange, odd looking tomatoes… huge tomatoes as we’d never been able to cultivate in our colder climate of our North. Roses don’t do well here either… my lovely icebergs have been infected with black spots as much as I’d care for them and had tried to protect them from the elements… nonetheless, there are the Knockouts roses, flourishing like robust, healthy rambunctious children; dancing under the intense heat of mid-day and never incarcerated-wishing for the outside like the elderly or the ailing as they watch their world go by behind a window… 

I saw a new kitty yesterday wandering my garden. Black and white, and barely a wee baby and already following small creatures hidden in the wild privet, and wild as wild they can be; guided by instinct only, drawing wisdom from older cats-like the one who thinks he’s mine and have now gotten to bringing me gifts—a squirrel’s skull chewed up clean, for me to discovered and go wild, and run away from it screaming in disgust…

Days are good, some could be better and sometimes, when the day is through, my life feels whole and purer, I realize I’m just a human and yet… wings under my breath have grown stouter, and stronger and more real than ever.