future reapers

Hot days give me a headache. Literally. I am not a big fan of ye olde summer, but it will keep coming around annually. The other day I went up into the loft of our garage/barn/shed and smacked my head on a low beam and banged my teeth together so hard that one of my front teeth cringes every time I have a cold drink now. Also, I hurt my wrist doing yoga and haven’t been able to down dog for a month. I could really use some yoga about now. Especially with the Federal invasion in my hometown streets and so many more presidential months to endure.

On the other hand, the poppies I planted a few years ago have self-seeded all over and keep surprising me with their happy little faces in unexpected places, the peaceful goddesses are rising, and hot days are also an excuse to lie in the grass and stare at the underside of trees.

Everyone I know is bent close to the earth with a lens, looking for something, anything, beautiful to focus on. “Look at these pictures of foxes!” someone posted online, desperation in the giving and receiving. I poured over them eagerly. Yes, foxes still exist. They are still lovely. So many lovely things still exist.

I’ve been trying to pay attention to my dreams lately, hoping maybe my subconscious (or perhaps the Divine) might inspire me while I sleep, but my dreams are painfully utilitarian. Recently, I spent an entire night cleaning a dream house. Once I registered an unknown child for school. Maybe that’s the kind of things dreams are made of in a dystopian year. Sparkling windows and fresh linens, the smell of carbon-paper enrollment forms.

I’ve been thinking of something Donna Cates said in her post this week: “the future unrolls from nothing other than the entire material of the present, like a roll of fabric unfurling.” I’m looking at the fabric in my hands wondering what I am weaving into the future. Do you see this thread that I spun from my fury? Here is the one where I walked away. Here is a cord made of poppy and nettle, a twist of rabbit fur, an image of a fox; I held it for awhile in my cringing teeth.

Then again, Jay Griffiths asks, “Would society be different if its profoundist models of time were not structured in a past-to-future narrative at all, but if time were seen as an unarrowed thing - if, for example, the Bible began with the rhapsody of a psalm and ended with the sashay of the song of Solomon?”

Perhaps I should imagine a garden, where my life is the fruit planted by gardeners long-dead, where others will one day reap the harvest planted in my body. (Forgive me, future reapers, there is still poison in my veins, but I have swallowed rhapsody for you as well.)

Last week, I found an old frame in a trunk. It enclosed two perfect butterflies mounted on paper. A google search tells me they are common to Asia, particularly India. Their antennae are delicately intact, a single one of each pair curving softly toward the right, like tiny signals from a dying hostage: “The way out is over there,” or perhaps, “Remember the way the sun glints on the Ganges.” I do not know, but I put them on the shelf in my office, where I can stare at them and wonder.