“‘If the ladies were blackbirds, if the ladies were thrushes, I’d lie there for hours, in the cool muddy marshes, if the ladies were squirrels, with a high bushy tail, I’d fill up my shotgun, with rock salt and nails.’ Perhaps a Utah Phillips song, but attributed to others as well. I used to sing it and it made so much sense to me. I poured my whole self into the singing of it. This is the bitter pill we must swallow, that of treachery, which is at the heart of the human experience, at least on this earth. I dug in the dirt all day, with a few simple tools, alternately squatting and rising to apply the right kind of pressure to the matter at hand. Neglected beds filled with horse radish, north-faced plantings of Ligularia & Cohosh, uncertain asparagus, troubled gooseberry bushes. So much love, so much latent vitality, struggling in an uncertain world. I could not be happier, heart cocked at an angle to the formidable challenges ahead. I’m grateful to the dog who brought me her rubber ball, deflated, to engage in play. Working as I do, poised between shovel and wheel barrow, my senses are still tuned to that which lobbies for joy. Under heavily compromised skies. Carrying the weight of knowledge, and the personal responsibility that goes along with it. If you are going to dig, and you are going to search, you are going to find. Be prepared for the shock of discovery. But if you want to be spoon-fed, and comforted in place, then by all means, you are free to pray to a lesser god. Just remember that every short cut you avail yourself of, and every easy fix you trustingly employ, will most likely meet its day of reckoning.”
