Where Am I Rooted?

Last August's Zinnias on My Dining Table

***

The Telling That Changes Everything XXIV.

August 5, 2012

“Where are you rooted?’ I ask the zinnias

blown sideways by the last big storm and

now rising sunward.  I want the water 

to go straight to the roots.  Then I ask

myself: where am I rooted?  What is my

primary Reality that feeds and nurtures the

rest of me?  By this time I should know,

whatever storms have blown me sideways.

I’m blooming as the zinnias are.  If my

leaves wither in the hot afternoon, they

recover their firm pliancy in the cool

of the evening.  Exhausted I sleep.  Still

drugged, I rise with the light that wakes

the chicks.  Words restore my balance

and mental acuity.  Bread and tea return

desire.  I dread the labor of picking figs

until I step outside.  Then the hunt begins:

ripe but not too ripe.  The hens get those

the birds poked their beaks into.  The

chicks dash in and grab what the hens

drop until the hens learn to make a 

phalanx and keep the dropped figs

among themselves.  The chicks learn 

new tricks as do their big sisters.  I, too,

learn.  The more I fertilize and water,

the more food--more than I can gather

and preserve.  Weeds flourish, too.

Farmers face one crisis and urgency

after another: the squirrels are stealing

the peaches; a possum is stripping

the pears.  The apple trees are letting

their green fruit fall.  I can’t keep up.

Virginia creeper is climbing to the roof.

With my hands, feet, knees, and pruning

shears, shovel, baskets for fruit, and

plastic bags for the morning fig run, 

I try not to get too far behind.  Farmers

engage daily with the Reality of the

Universe.  It’s a form of war, for food,

for control of what the soil, sun, and 

water sustain. I carve daily the garden

and orchard I want, govern hens, cat, 

and dog; listen to my body and mind: 

am I overdoing it?  Need a break?  More

exercise?  What tasks get today’s time

and labor?  But what waters my soul, 

the being I have turned out to be?  

Everything.  Reality Itself.  The Created 

Order in which I am an active participant.  

My poems and novels.  My daily diary:

I take stock, assess what needs doing

in my writing and teaching lives,

on the farm, in the house, with my friends.

Reality is sun: too much, too little, or

just right.  Reality is rain: flood and drought.

Reality is the Electric Company using

herbicides under the power lines across

the street, poisoning our pollinators and

our water.  Reality is businessmen who

want to frack perfectly good farmland

and ruin its productivity, peacefulness,

and the lives of its farmers.  Reality

is people helping me both when I ask

and before I ask.  Reality is Good and

Evil.  Reality is choices.  What do I

choose today, tomorrow, and every

day as long as I have breath?  I choose

Life.  I choose the normal struggle

to write what my Muse urges and

to harvest and preserve what the farm

produces.  I also choose the extraordinary

struggle, or call it war, for the Good 

to win over the Evil, for the Earth

and its peoples to heal and to flourish;

to meet and work in mutual aid and

not go for each other’s jugulars 

because we are not the same, because

we each have a slightly different view 

of what is Real.  Harm and Healing are

twin sisters.  Which one will we 

choose as our long-term ally?