Dust by Dorianne Laux

This is my newest herb garden with mostly citrus-scented herbs for teas (Lemongrass, Lemon Bee Balm, Lemon Verbena, Lemon Thyme, and Lime Basil).

I've been losing poems right and left lately, daydreaming in the sun while inhaling the scent of my blooming Gardenias and reading, reading, reading. I lost an excellent poem just last night about firsts because I was too lazy to get up and grab my pen before I dozed off... so this poem seemed a perfect fit for today. We're still high and dry, thankfully. xoxo

Dust
by Dorianne Laux

Someone spoke to me last night,
told me the truth. Just a few words,
but I recognized it.
I knew I should make myself get up,
write it down, but it was late,
and I was exhausted from working
all day in the garden, moving rocks.
Now, I remember only the flavor---
not like food, sweet or sharp.
More like a fine powder, like dust.
and I wasn’t elated or frightened,
but simply rapt, aware.
That’s how it is sometimes---
God comes to your window,
all bright light and black wings,
and you’re just too tired to open it.

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"Traveler, there is no path,
paths are made by walking." ~Antonio Machado

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"Those moments before a poem comes, when the heightened awareness comes over you, and you realize a poem is buried there somewhere, you prepare yourself. I run around, you know, kind of skipping around the house, marvelous elation. It's as though I could fly." ~Anne Sexton

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"An English poet, Philip Larkin, said that poetry doesn't start with an idea; it starts with a poem... You have to be open to mystery. If you are open to it, mystery will come. If you're not, why should it, actually?" ~Lucille Clifton

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"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science." ~Einstein

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"If you need to visualize the soul, think of it as a cross between a wolf howl, a photon, and a dribble of dark molasses. But what it really is, as near as I can tell, is a packet of information. It's a program, a piece of hyperspatial software designed explicitly to interface with the Mystery. Not a mystery, mind you, THE Mystery.

The one that can never be solved. Data in our psychic program is often nonlinear, nonhierarchical, archaic, alive, and teeming with paradox. Simply booting up is a challenge, if not for no other reason than that most of us find acknowledging the unknowable and monitoring its intrusions upon the familiar and mundane more than a little embarrassing.

More immediately, by waxing soulful you will have granted yourself the possibility of ecstatic participation in what the ancients considered a divinely animated universe. And on a day to day basis, folks, it doesn't get any better than that."

- Tom Robbins, In Literature/Tom Robbins