Legal Tender

For this morning
that jumps with sparkle,
bouncing off the wake
of velvet geese,
I give thanks.

nations

As I approached
the newly-flowering
Japanese cherry tree
by the Rembrandt bridge,
a black figure stood in silence.

"Mornin'' I greeted
as I strode by.

Her slow,
careful, 
draped
answer,
"Good Morning"
had echoes of golden rays
on faraway mosques.

Release

Spring

burst out

like one-room schoolhouse

scholars heading

for recess.

Another time

My morning crossword puzzle clue was "a town in Iowa" and the answer was Davenport. Suddenly my tongue caressed that word as foreign and yet so utterly familiar. I asked my husband if they used that word in his home and he confirmed they did. But when last have we heard that word? My trusty phone told me the word originated from a sofa firm in Massachusetts and soon became generic, like Kleenex. Who knew? Ask the next 13 year old you meet what a davenport is and I'm guess you will draw a blank!

But from my childhood, a davenport meant snuggling with a book, suffering on it during mumps/measles/chickenpox/whooping cough/pneumonia, settling in to listen to radio programs, lining up on it to play "Whisper Down the Lane", digging for stray change from Dad's pockets, sitting, bouncing, hiding behind, relaxing.

A full-bodied comfortable place for life.

suffering

I was reading at book the other day in which the heroine was comparing herself with a friend, she being the passionate one and her friend the passive one. And she mused, "like the Latin root passio - to suffer, we both do."
 
 From my perspective, passivity always brings suffering, but I had never really thought about it that passion does too. When we care too deeply about a book, a piece of art, a musical work, a lover, a child, a friend, a spouse, an ambition, that pictures are hanging straight, a career, we are going to suffer when it's slighted, denigrated, destroyed, betrayed, ridiculed. When you wear your heart on your sleeve it's going to get snagged. When you bury it, it's going to strangle.
 
Casual affection, anyone?