one thing of beauty

Every day I find one thing of beauty in my life...

[onethingofbeauty]

Story by story I am being forged.

My son carries his throwing knives on his hip, and a small packet of restlessness tucked behind his heart.

A black bear opened our birdfeeder like an origami flower and galloped away at the clang of a pot lid.

In this story there are a goldfinch, a snake with a yellow ring, and lunch tied in a bandanna.

We eat our apples and boiled eggs on a mountain summit or on a hidden bench in a meadow. We are bathed in glory.

Some things are of our timing but rarely our design.

I have a knife, a map, and cool water from the well. And the stories that daily resurrect my heart send me again to inspect his progress on the treehouse, to name the new wildflower in the field, to find the ridge above the rhododendrons.

[onethingofbeauty]

I put banana bread in to bake, lace up my boots and hike out amid great shafts of afternoon gold.

The Joe Pye is nearly gone, but goldenrod has exploded like fireworks in the field above the house.

The scent of woodsmoke and forest mulch go well together, I think. One thing becomes another.

Tonight while lightning tattoos the cooling sky, I will eat that small sweet apple you brought me from the wild mountain tree, then tuck away these memories like seeds between the pages of my book.

[onethingofbeauty]

An apron’s worth of buckeyes - gathered after this afternoon’s rain brought them down - lie glistening on the sill.

I steadily fill a yellow bowl with sliced peaches, lemon juice, and sugar, then set the tea to steep for tomorrow.

The boys will all arrive quite late I think; I’ve made Rice Krispy treats for them, and laid out fresh linens (which the cats have already found).

The computer glows against your glasses as you pay bills at the kitchen table; you sing quietly with Tom Petty about a lover you’ve never had. My heart expands and shakes itself like a coat.

This house gleams against the evening; here there are so many stars.

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[onethingofbeauty]

Even now I make it like my mother did, mostly.

1 cup of water and 3 tablespoons of grits, cooked until perfect. Topped with a fat pat of real butter and a grind or two of salt.

Often we both stirred in more hot water (now and then a dollop of cream) to keep it just the right consistency.

It’s hard to say which was more wonderful: the pool of melting butter, or the extra salt clinging to the neck of the spoon.

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[onethingofbeauty]

Tonight Seth has slung his hammock on the front porch,

before the mountains and beneath the moon.

He’s doing homework on his laptop there and

playing classical music so quietly I can hear the creek still,

and cicadas.

Our days brim with gifts.

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[onethingofbeauty]

Today I will finish writing a book.

Of course there will be edits, and re-writes, and all the endless cycle of work that goes with bringing books into the world. But to finish a book! All week I've been filled with the energy of it; excited about that final flourish.

It feels a bit like seeing fireworks on the Fourth, or kissing, or the smell of a newborn's head. 

Today I will finish writing a book, again!

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[onethingofbeauty]

When we moved to this house eleven years ago there was a colony of feral cats living in the woods behind us. For several months we patiently set cage traps and captured the less wily ones, then carried them, spitting and turning in the cage, to the vet, where they were spayed or neutered, and had their ears marked.

We carried them home again, and let them make their wobbly dash back to hidden dens to recover. We left food for them at the edge of the woods every day.

They remained feral, but over the years, some came to have names and we began to love them.

Singer had a damaged eye, but loved to talk to us from a safe distance. One of the last to be caught, she brought us her litter of kittens, once they were old enough to be shown. One of them, Strawberry, was adopted by a visiting neighbor child and her family. The solid black one, Tiger, was taken in by the family down the street. Finally there was Charlie, who grew into a sleek, glossy tuxedo cat and was the only one who ever let us pet her.

I don't remember them all, but Cow stands out because he was a mean old bastard, although he suffered us to feed him.

Five-week old Princess Grace Kelly showed up sneezing and spitting on our back porch, and the children brought her in the house. I feared rabies or worse, so we all made a trip to the vet with her, where he smiled and gave her a spoonful of canned cat food that had been gently warmed in the microwave. She growled ferociously at him -- she was more yowl than kitten! -- and gobbled down the food, front paws in the bowl. Not sick, just starving. The children and I trooped to the Target to stock up on canned cat food especially for her.

Fluffy Mama and her shy sister Gray were the last two.

Now there is only sweet Gray, her long fur heavily matted. Every morning she hangs like a ghost at the edge of the woods, waiting for the clatter of kibble onto the plate. She has grown so thin and ragged I give her raw eggs, chicken scraps, and canned food.

It's so hard to say goodbye; my eyes fill and my throat closes. Easier simply to say from my heart, I thank you all. 

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[onethingofbeauty]

When I was heavily pregnant with our middle son, we lived in the country, where blueberries were grown everywhere. People sprayed them with grape Kool-Aid to keep the birds from eating them all, and women faithfully baked and mixed and tumbled them into every imaginable dish.

The summer months were a surfeit of blueberries.

One kind farmer told to come pick at his farm any time, and he would leave a little wooden stool out there for me.

Now and then I would leave my fractious toddler at home with his father, to wander with my bucket and the wooden stool, round and dizzy as a bee under the June sun, eating all the sunwarm fruit I could hold. I loved the pink frosty color of the berries not yet ready to pick, and the deep purple of the gravid ones dropping into my cupped hands.

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[onethingofbeauty]

The jonquils are sweet, like a favorite niece you see each year at a family gathering.

Dogwoods are a bit on the dull side; though I wouldn't call them prudish, exactly.

Certainly the camellias -- like the grandes dames of hollywood -- know how to command an audience, leaving their scented scarves and monogrammed handkerchiefs draped and scattered.

But the wild neon spikes of the punk-ass forsythia!

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[onethingofbeauty]

At the end of my four miles I realize I have miscalculated. Trotting up a nearby rise, I spot my truck, half a mile distant, waiting patiently. The trail doesn't go in that direction, but pushes into the woods.

The sun, not quite set, is still orange; the cold fields are burnished to a fine glow. So much can happen in such a moment, at the end of a run, at the end of a day... But only for a moment.

I put the rising moon to my back and step off the trail, into the deadnettle and rain-soaked mud. The wind stings my eyes as I run the field that last half mile, elated. Winter's hold is slipping, but the copperheads are still coiled in their burrows, and the earth herself propels me homeward. 

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[onethingofbeauty]

When the robin alights on the spongy brown thatch of last year's grass, I stop scraping mud and leaf litter from my boots and attend. The pines cease their whispering and stand straighter; the gray feral cat at the edge of the wood also comes quivering to attention.

The robin pins us all with his glossy black eye, saying without speaking: There is work to be done.

The robin is the implacable librarian of spring, briskly ordering the season, unerringly plucking soft or chitinous pleasures from the leaf-lined shelves. Open his breast and you will find a fire ablaze in a clean stone hearth, and tall windows flung open to the sun. Wisdom lights the center of every cell.

All that must be done, will be done.

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[onethingofbeauty]

I love you with an avocado love

I love you with this bright knife

these sweet white onions stinging our noses

and lemon juice slipping down my wrist

I love you with peppery serranos

and garlic to heal and make us strong

We are one fruit, split into two succulent green moons

My heart is cupped in your bowl with the scarlet glaze

Your mouth makes my skin pebble

Today I will marry you again

and carry a bouquet of cilantro

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[onethingofbeauty]

Running at the lake today, scattering grackles and last season's sweet gum balls from the trail, I think of you.

You used to live just over there, I muse, gazing across the sun-bright water. I once spelled my name in forks on your kitchen counter.

I love the odd story of the day we met; how you charmed me with your disregard for social graces. And remember when you brought Anne to meet us all and we sat in the pub, waving smoke from our faces and toasting the future with vodka tonics, or whisky? I knew she was the one for you.

You used to live just over there, past the field with the faded blue pick-up truck and the little red barn; you know the one.

The air is filled with the smell of wild onions. I turn my face to let the sun fill up my eyes.

[onethingofbeauty]

a glossy white plate

eight small rolls of crab, rice, nori

pale gold ginger in graceful folds

ahhh, wasabi

  the puddles are still roofed with ice

but the winter sun blazes through the cafe

and my eyes water with the intolerable brightness of love

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[onethingofbeauty]

The physics of love is not what we expected. Our hearts slip along their parabolas, disappear, then emerge in wildly unforeseen places. Our fears and addictions take uncanny shapes in the quantum foam. There are strange geometries at work here. We do not navigate them with ease, even after all these years.

A rose the color of fresh peaches in a green whisky bottle is so much simpler.

[onethingofbeauty]

Lately my thoughts had become bowed in the middle, as if they were holding up a weight they were not meant to bear. 

Then your story unrolled before me like a bolt of silk, weightless and floating. I slipped in without effort, and slowly began to know there were sheltered alcoves, cozy coffee nooks, and sunny balconies overlooking warm seas all over the world.

While I read the rain slowed, and the light rose from leaden gray to silver, and now fades toward night.

Today my heart has gained far more than it lost.

[onethingofbeauty]

The sea lifts and falls all night and spreads foam to dry in ribbons on the shore.

Today I sift sand from salt, life from sorrow, smoothing my days past and casting the salt back to the water.

The sea lifts and falls all night.

Tomorrow I will follow the sticky ribbons of foam as far as I like, and sift sand from salt as I need.

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