you were ready to be chosen,
and so,
i chose you

unfurl–
lift yourself to the sun’s stunning rays
with all the dazzling hopes and gauzy dreams
set before you on these beautiful, ordinary days

Smooth Ella Fitzgerald,
and classic Doobie Brothers,
clay beads and wooden beads
and bright brass beads,
old postcards, antique shops and small flower shops,
tuna steaks and asparagus with cheese
and churros with sugar and sweet, strong coffee,
marigolds and long yellow petals and tiny baby’s breath
and small pine cones that trail blue feathers

your thorns only add to your beauty

I thanked you when you paid me a compliment, but I’m not sure that I fully understood what that compliment would do to me until many days, if not weeks later.

It was a statement, made without explanation, without judgment or pity. It was just plainly, a nice thing to say. And you said it to me, a visiting stranger who was secretly a little afraid of you.

The peculiar and beautiful irony isn’t lost on me: a simple compliment from an unknown man (who happens to be a mental patient) came my way. It was so very basic and yet so very complicated.

I could tell this story in a humorous and self-deprecating context the next time I have dinner with friends, and they would all laugh and shake their heads at me. But I won’t, because I’m taking this experience to another place entirely. Just a small place of gratitude.

When I see you again, I will gladly talk to you, because you were kind and made me smile and you taught me a humble lesson that I will keep close to my tender heart forever.

sunflowers and summer blooms
hand stitched tea towels
8 track tapes
cartons of blueberries
two babies riding in a red wagon
ladies in big straw hats
western paperbacks
blocks of soap
a collection of small, carved elephants
baskets of peaches
twirling ballerinas in pink boxes
a row of parked Harley Davidsons
wedding photos from 1935

when the days of summer
rest in our souls,
they are light
and bright
and full of lace
and shimmering grace

what she most desired
was desire

lilies from my mother’s garden
old bobbins with string and twine
peach iced tea
burlap flowers
Hey Jack Kerouac by 10,000 Maniacs
farmlands on rolling hills
deep red cherries
reruns of Columbo
cucumbers and zuchini
this book: Birds of North America

when the morning sun touches things
they become almost holy,
a magical
mystical
miracle