I sit down on the Adirondack chair, on the little raised deck like a dais, my bottom sliding over the wood, surprising and smooth as if it had been polished. (Now I want a chair like this.) I am on a ridge at Descanso Gardens, looking north over La Cañada and the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains. I breathe, sigh, stretch my neck and shoulders, so tight these days. I try not to feel uncomfortable as people come into view and spot me sitting there. (I am so close to the intersecting paths.) I am glad when they all disappear again, and I remain. I rub my hands across the arms of the chair, soft against my palms. In the stillness of this almost-wilderness, I am the grateful, quiet queen of my domain.
Category Archives: Fun
Bird Bath (45)
The white-crowned sparrow
dunks his head
again and again
in the fresh bird water
all fluff and delight
an honor
to sit here
in my courtyard
watching.
What beats this?
Clinging? (44)
And another haiku-ish thing
just to apologize
to you
my dear readers
for inundating you
in my (silly?) hope
of still posting
63 while I am 63.
(Yes, I am counting
this one, too.)
Midmorning Snack (42)
This time I don’t see the insects
(gnats, maybe? no-see-ums?)
but twice
I watch
the lizard dart across the gray cement
in my corner of my mother’s back yard.
Dart and gobble.
Dart and gobble.
It makes me happy for him.
How did I live so long
among lizards
without ever seeing this?
Like Playing Hooky (41)
This cold, steady rain
so needed
sparks glee in me
back in bed
with my tea.
Three’s Company (35)
I am in the corner of my mother’s yard drinking my tea in the late afternoon. I see a shape perched on the dead yucca stem at the top eastern side of the ridge, the one where the red-tailed hawks’ offspring often sits. I don’t know for sure if it’s him or one of his parents, but he turns in my direction when I look through my binoculars. “Oh, hello, love,” I whisper. When I put down the binoculars, my eyes still scan the ridgeline near him. I spot an odd shape a few “inches” to the north of his spot, maybe seven yards away from his yucca stem. I squint at it as it moves and my mind makes sense of it, the almost-full waxing moon rising in the daylight sky. Its movement is quick, surprising. What began as a smooth white arc that didn’t belong with the ragged edges of the chaparral morphs into the moon’s face, her eyes and mouth visible, only a bit of the left side still unseen. She shares the ridgeline with the red-tailed hawk, both companion and blessing. And both of them are both to me, small, odd human in my chair below, honored to pieces, and made whole.
Layers (34)
She refuses to walk out with me
to the end of the street
so I go alone again
one more long gaze
this rare clear day
downtown L.A.
with the sea behind her
and Catalina behind the sea
like whales at rest.