Blue Moon

Last hours of 2009. A Blue Moon illuminating
The web of a mackerel sky.
Have you ever seen a mackerel sky ?
Do you know what a Blue Moon is ?
And in the midst of this jet stream driven cloud encrusted sky is one open space
Cassiopeia swirling east
Like seeing the eye of the hurricane from the ground
Yet moving so slow across the drift of the universe
How small we are..how large we are
How individually wondrous in this tiny infinitesimal point of sky
Breathe in the stars....and out the universe
The questions are too large to intellectually comprehend
But not too large for our souls to contain.

Out of Balance

This morning while walking my dog Bobby, my neighbor at the end of our road drove by intensely eyeing the imprints on our dirt road. They belong to wild pigs which rustle around in early winter through the land of backwoods Florida and, much to many homeowners dismay, destroy their lawns by digging long trenches. My neighbor slowed down as he passed us and asked if I let Bobby chase the hogs. No need I said, the hogs have never touched our lawn. They do live in the numerous palmetto bushes we've left on the land and, I suspect, come out at night, trot down the road to my neighbor's lawns and go to work. I guess the hogs like the hospitality of not clearing our property and leaving them some semblance of a home. OK they do occasionally use our pond for bathing; once I saw a Mama and several of her piggy babies having a grand National Geographic splash and play. It's all good. We have an understanding I guess. They get to live in the palmetto; we get to keep our lawn.

Some Words on my Blog Title

I did not plagiarize the title of my blog from the 2005 movie of the same name nor does the title insinuate any connection to that movie's subject or theme. Rather it is a phrase I long ago cultivated while working in my garden the previous year to the movie's release, somewhere around 2004. So when the movie appeared I wondered about its subject matter. While my quiet endeavors into gardening by no means match the terrible intensity of that story, it is a phrase that is reflective of much of life's work.

I marvel at life's persistence to take root and form again, even if plucked from the ground, thrown aside onto some mulch pile or pulled from its native habitat to transport its seed and start anew, the latter called "invasive" species. Not their fault I say for their kind was purposely taken by human or bird and wind and most likely carelessly dropped into a new soil and climate. Never deterred, life finds its garden bed, new roots intertwining with established ones, now vying for the same water and nutrients, toiling for existence.

I,also,toil at my garden with no end of plucking of weeds that could dominate what I please to plant. A good deal of our acreage remains Florida wild and thus that uncultivated part is field to vegetation left to fight its own battle for dominance, with no intervention from this constant gardener.

Life requires constant vigilence to know what to weed, what to leave wild. And still, at the end of it all, throw away what you like it will find root somewhere else.

Everything Will be OK

Wrapping and unwrapping of earthly gifts
Some people fleeing it all
Claiming that to give a material gift is offensive to the spirit
Mean spirited capitalists
Let me go seek refuge in silence and baby jesus; only not born now but in the Spring
Paper and ribbons and bows and way too many instruction booklets
Still there is laughter in my house and
When I step out onto my porch and view the night sky
With the half moon shining down
A northeasterly wind scuttling clouds in the face of many stars
There are smiles all around and I think...
It's really ok..everything will be ok.
December 25th, 2009