Author: Kay Foley

Distracted by the imagined taste
of ripe Farmer’s Market tomatoes
I write poor poems and consider
abandoning my walk in the woods
in favor of rushing out to buy.
Luckily, it is possible to do both
as anyone can know.  Had I not 
gone to the woods I’d have missed 
the perfect morning light dancing 
among the cool leaves 
the bride and groom having their 
cheerful photograph taken on the bridge 
and the contagious exuberance
of my two dogs hurtling down the path.

I wished to see in the woods today the lean red fox alert and watchful
or a barred owl on a limb above staring me down with its terrible black eyes
or a new wildflower nodding lovely on its stem.
I wished for a spark, a beam, an arrow pointed up,
a little smackerel of something that would mean something
on this particular day to relieve my gloom.  
 
Instead what I saw without flinching and
without revulsion was a skinny snake sliding
into the creek from the rocks a step or two from my feet.
Today’s particular grace arrives in the form of a snake!
Or, rather, my acceptance of it.

Unmet expectations had they been met
might send me off on colorful expeditions
of imagination to which I could go regardless.
This I know.  And yet my stubborn brain
refuses, like the pouting child who wants only
the blue ball, not the red one offered.

Content with single life at last
I find the room within myself
for curiosity, new knowledges,
plans, ideas, information, joy.
My brain, no longer burdened
with catalogs of old loves
and possible new romances
now has plenty of space for the
names of wildflowers
the habits of birds
blueprints for a treehouse
imagined travels in Newfoundland
paintings I will one day undertake
books rising page by page
the inner landscapes of friends.
Whole rooms have been vacated 
and now sit pristine and uncluttered
welcoming the great and small that once
were shoved into dusty corners by the
endless longings and regrets
that lumbered through my mind
like great rhinoceri.

 

Not quite as old as any hill
they are an old married couple.
Neither has a story the other
hasn’t heard two, three, or ten times.
All are shared now like a
slice of cake on a plate
eaten with two forks.

Often I see the indigo bunting
hunting insects for breakfast.
It is perhaps one of the prettiest
birds I see where I live.  I wonder
if it knows how beautiful it is.
Or if it is highly regarded by other birds.
Do house sparrows, for example,
harbor secret forbidden dreams
to one day be with an indigo bunting?
Might they close their tiny eyes and
murmur to themselves, Oh, if only!

Baby hawk screams for food
from the nest in the pine tree.
I glanced in time to see its parent
fly to the top of the tree and perch
erect, searching with its hawk’s eye.
When I see these things by chance,
a haphazard glance
a slight turn of the head
I understand that something marvelous
is at work in my life.  And I open
a crack more to the next
piece of grace.

It is possible to love the heavy heat of July
and so I will. Not glibly but deeply.
I will work at the loving, be married to it,
let my commitment be deep and binding.
This decision to love, to love All
not only the spring rain
the silent snowfall
autumn’s color
summer’s ease
but just as well her
heavy
thick
heat.
All.

I have catalogued the names of five new
wildflowers in my brain as of yesterday.
Wild bergamot–tall, pink, with a shock of hair.
Common milkweed–magenta, buxom, big-boned.
Hedge parsley–tiny and white, a delicate lass
who faints when plucked, like a Southern belle.
Prairie rose–pink and flat, jealous
of her voluptuous town cousins.
Crown vetch–tumbling extravagantly over All.
Five, I’ve learned, in one trip to the woods!
Life is full of information that I am
ready to place in my brain.