This Side of My Watershed

Cosmos on my dining table

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Can Flowers Change Your Life? VIII. February 7, 2016

My ordinary life then, made momentous?
The neighbor’s roosters, a plastic box
with paper clips, a button announcing coal ash
with a red slash through it.  We are being
given this highly toxic waste under protest.
I sometimes forget to take it off my jacket
in the house.  A water bottle when the
Health Department was rewarding people
for eating plenty of fruits and vegetables
every day.  Nearby, my six books published
since 2012, and a candle for when the power
goes out, a printer and keyboard, a Russian 
lacquer cup in red and black with flowers
painted on it, holding pens and pencils.
Russian paintings all around me, books
on shelves and on the floor behind me.
My students crowd into the living room
and don’t complain that the chairs are
close together.  Children’s drawings
on the freezer and refrigerator even from
Russia: Dasha’s flying beaver, and
Alyosha’s elephant.  Then Bobby’s 
exuberant drawing of me, Lilly, and him 
about to leave in my truck to see farm 
animals, zoo animals, or tame squirrels.  
The big orchid is waking for spring, 
pushing out flower stems, and the 
little orchid’s in full bloom.  The day
is gray, but no ice.  Cold, but no snow.
My life takes one more turn in its path.
The light I’ve been following is straight
ahead.  It has always been there.  It became 
my inner circling sun.  It was my leyline.
It had a voice that guided me and 
reminded me, but now I see face to
face. Yes, I have too many gifts, but
I see now how not one will be wasted.
Everything I am and feel and do is 
part of this side of my watershed.  
I move down into the valley, but I
know whatever comes to meet me
will be part of the good I’m here to do.
All I need is patience and to pay close
attention.  The flowers that surround me
promise all will be well.


***

Nikolai Smirnov's painting of a Russian farm in first snow.