Update June 18th 2023: Poetry Lab Shanghai translated this poem into Chinese in their Summer 23’ issue.
Outside my window was a yard of broken tarps atop Fords rusting. Untamed weeds bespeckled the field. From the telephone wires overhead, Blue jays sang. How amazing –– if you let it, life just grows feral. - Sunlight spilled over my groggy sheets. A squirrel on the windowsill woke me with a chewing crunch –– woodland tinkering. In wonder, I gazed as she glanced my way, hugging the nut in her cheeks. Moments later, there was only the nut –– a token of presence. - Late August, guitar strumming, I heard it all from our tent –– folklores from the Great Lakes, where the water folds into ripples so infinite it could be the ocean. The waves kiss the sandy shore. Gently, everything crumbles at our feet.
See the cute squirrel outside of my window here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/b8ucaWCgyk4MfTsF7
I felt like I was clicking through a series of cherished snapshots - I love you for always seeing the essence of each moment, it reminds me of Lederach's discussion of haiku as a synthesis of simplicity after complexity ... how your gaze can stop at the overwhelming passage of time and say, "I will bring it with me" - not the consequence of the moment but rather the stage - the overgrowth, the squirrel's shy departure, the water's cryptic design.
You are one who always searches at the corners of a moment for the hidden treasure, the veiled message, the perpetual gift - and, more importantly, you then share it, for which I am so grateful <3