January -- yet Northern California flings open the windows to Spring. To be exact: Amaryllidaceae. Embodied as narcissus aka daffodils and jonquil. Cheery out front and lining the sides of the road. A mini welcoming committee.
What is it about yellow that gladdens. Which words are gladden words in a poem? We cooks know lemon brightens a dish and makes a slim knife cut sing.
Go outside; look down. Leaf the knife inside.
Finally
ReplyDeleteshe decodes to throw one thing out a day
One nice thing, a thing of value
but not a thought, not a piece of the paper
she has lovingly recorded upon her wildest dreams
Into the bin shall go a dish, a jar, a vase, a clock
perhaps, or an abandoned book on jet streams
She sees the others milling around her pots of gold
and feels they should not get to see it shining so valiantly
against the fog banks in the distance
For what she truly loved, more than the physical relics
which declare her life a success,
That day her grandmother said her hands spread butter
like her father