Fish out of water

And in that fish's belly is a blooming ruffled echeveria -- my newest favorite.  What a beauty, both. And across the street, sits & sways the ocean.  Many fish and none out of water unless someone fishing for dinner.  That night the salmon from Half Moon Bay grilled to a perfect conversation. Meal as poem.  Today, I'll visit the Strybing Arboretum in hopes of bringing home (purchased, of course) a ruffled escheveria. Coming full circle satisfies.  

Trees

What do trees think about this ceramic head placed in a field?  What a gift for us?  For them?  A city brims with the unexpected.  Unexpected treasures. Gardian of what?  Of whom?  I'm imagining, Gardian of the Alemany Farmers Market.   Of course, more than veggies & fruits exchange hands.  A farmers market is like paper to a poem.  Look at your shopping list & a poem is being written -- almost.  Happy figs.  Happy tomatoes.  Well-fed poem.  Thank you Guardian.

Below is my Guardian of choice.  Guardian of pomegranates & all things seasonal.

Corners

The right-hand corner was not cut away like torn paper.  And this day in Glen Park Canyon the sky was not white.  So why a photo snapped seconds apart & the lighting differs.  What doesn't, is the belladonna in the foregrown.  Amaryllis belladonna or Naked ladies at the base of the boulder. Fragile & rugged.  Makes me think of a bowl with angel hair pasta and a fresh tomato sauce made with heirloom tomatoes -- more pink than red.  More delicate than hearty.  & nourishing bread from a hearty loaf like a boulder.  & the poem you ask?  She's mimicing a crow.  Do you see her?  In the upper left corner in the eucalyptus.   Poems are like that.  Or perhaps she's in the empty corner to the right?

Tangible

What you can't touch is super-tangible.  Think of dreams, shadows, reflections.  What light & memory make of our landscapes.  A memory of the perfectly ripe:   fruit or just-picked ear of corn.  All worth hearing; all worth tasting.  Poems are like this, too.  Tangible -- with the weight of pen & paper and ethereal as the dance of light & memory.

Just ate 2 perfectly ripe small pluots. Life is sweet, I recall.

Tenacity

From Latin (tenere) to hold fast.  And this beauty holds the living fast & graceful.  A pleasant surprise on a plant that seemed limp.  Have you noticed, vegetables can seem unloved in a market -- living beyond prime, ripeness. Among the saddest, overspent cucumbers.  If food has personality, cucumbers can be among the most forlorn.  Poems for sure have personalities -- angst, joy, quirkiness.   Much in common, all (plants, food, poems) holding fast.  Ah, nothing like biting into a ripe cucumber and a tenacious poem.

Behind

glass.  BART & bicycles.  Art is everywhere and frequently behind glass  But this art is removed & replaced many times, although not put back in the same place.  Much like a poem and a meal. Repeated many times (perhaps, several times a day).  Never the same -- quite.   Something sweet about the irony of all those BART wheels moving noisy on rails  and these above deliciously silent.  Exactly what a poem wishes.  Ah, the appreciative silence after a satisfying meal.  

Balance

Between delight & a tad sad.  Here's the delight -- a beauty as yet unnamed to me.  Blooming in the garden for the first time this season.  What's sad isn't in the picture.  The orange cherry tomatoes are a bit underwhelmed.  The unexpected heat?  Insufficient water?  Too late in the ground?   The one I ate this morning was indeed delicious, but alas not enough to satisfy the company of hungry mozzarella.  Yesterday's poem gave ear to the otherwordly and the sad otherwordliness of our drought.

SWIM the OTHERWORDLY

antenna on the go
receiivng fin, scale, feather
a banquet shaped by fanciful purpose
& magic of all stripes
look out
night approaches
mayhem abounds
leave your watery fear
on the shore

Unexpected

Not the usual blue/purple iris beauties.  These remind me of roasted red and yellow peppers on a green plate.  Which remind me of a poem -- on fire in a good way or cooled by temperate rain (which would be a blessing for sure).  The name -- as often it does -- smittens:  Sanguinea Kamayama.  Also, in the family -- freesia, gladiolus, and crocus.   

WOW

seeing is a good time.  There's no limit to good food (shared) and gestures on the page. Let's just call them poems, OK?  

& for the punch line, seek the bottom

  

Faraway

nearby -- the tagline Georgia O'Keeffe used to sign her correspondence.  So, I'm at the "faraway,"  aka Strybing Arboretum and encournter this plant in the Fragrance Garden.  It appears both otherwordly & familiar.

When I discover the name of the plant, I am delighted as only a good punchline amuses:

& there's more.  I'm walking in the nearby, down my street by the house with the lush vegetation where I always linger to see what can be seen.  Yes, yes, Rincinus Communis.   Living in the happy Faraway nearby.  

So what's for lunch?  Something celebratory & colorful.  

Pizza Faraway Nearby:  fresh figs, tomato, feta, walnuts, black pepper.  Yummy.  

& the poem:

OR FIGS

one should be as greedy for love

as one is for the ripest of peaches 

Asparagaceae

Latin is rampant.  Especially in the Strybing arboretum.  Asparagaceae.  The lily family which asparagus is part.  Also, these beauties -- pineapple lillies.  And should you ask, dinner was delicious alas, no aspargus & no pineapple (of any kind).  And, yes, no lillies on the table though the garden has several.

P.S.  I've always thought of a pen as a fine asparagus spear.  Would you agree?

Play

of morning

light.  Kinetic beauty
& everything a poem
wishes. The same
with food.