My Flowers are my Poetry

This Shit Just Got Real

I am doing okay in lockdown, as it’s so inappropriately called.  I own my home, own over 1,000 books, can pay my bills for months, and have an acre of land around my home where I grow vegetables.  My cabinets are stocked.  I bought 3 cases of TP right before this pandemic hit.  I own guns and ammo should the world go nuts and chaos ensues.  I doubt seriously that will happen, though.  I was a Campfire Girl...Always be prepared!  Honestly, I once started a campfire in the pouring rain.  I got two MFing badges for that feat.  I’m a country girl.  

BUT, for most of my life, I lived paycheck to paycheck like many of you do.  I feel for those who are out of work and broke because I’ve been there.  I feel your fear, uncertainty and confusion.  I sincerely pray for this virus to die out soon.  I pray for God’s mercy for humankind.  I pray for you to not fear and to stay well.  I’ve never seen anything like this in my lifetime.  It’s a time of reflection on the fragility of life and trust in God.  Nature prevails.  The seasons still change, the trees are covered in blooms and new leaves.  

Know this:  life goes on and this, too, shall pass.  Love, peace, calm and hugs,  xo, ~Marion 

Hmmmm, I’m not so sure about this, but I’m staying home anyway.

My favorite 30 year old cookbook that tells you how to cook anything & everything from scratch.  

City Park in New Orleans after Madrid Gras.  Beads in the trees...

Truth.  And the truck drivers & grocery store employees who work tirelessly.

Bored? Never!

My solitary life is never boring.  Readers, poets, gardeners and creative people are never bored!

A really good book to read.  It’s truly a meditation...

It’s  Spring!  Plant flowers and veggies and trees.  Take photos of the new flowers blooming.  Plant tomatoes, herbs and lettuce for your own salads.  Write about this strange time we’re experiencing in your journal for future generations to read.  Collage a can, a box or a notebook cover.  Write a story or a poem about your aloneness.  Color in a coloring book with gel pens.  Organize your craft supplies or your closet. Prepare a will, just in case.

 Call and check on friends and family members often!

Pray for our leaders, our fellow Americans/the world and especially our healthcare workers.  Pray for healing of the sick.  Meditate on the fragility of life and the mighty strength of Nature!  Read those philosophy books, the Bible, Rumi and Khalil Gibran.  Expand your mind/feed your head by reading books outside your comfort zone.

And keep your sense of humor and laugh often!

A can I painted and collaged.  I get my material from catalogs & magazines.

A coloring page from Laurel Burch’s coloring book that I colored this week.

Lemons on my Meyer’s Lemon tree.  My first Lemon tree!!!!! 

Scooby, our Pitbull, who likes to sniff the wind for enemies, I pontificate...

Two of my Blythe girls, holding hands.

My favorite comic, Calvin & Hobbs.

Enough Words? by Rumi

Enough Words?
Rumi

How does a part of the world leave the world?
How can wetness leave water?

Don’t try to put out a fire
by throwing on more fire!
Don’t wash a wound with blood!

No matter how fast you run,
your shadow more than keeps up.
Sometimes, it’s in front!

Only full, overhead sun
diminishes your shadow.

But that shadow has been serving you!
What hurts you, blesses you.
Darkness is your candle.
Your boundaries are your quest.

I can explain this, but it would break
the glass cover on your heart,
and there’s no fixing that.

You must have shadow and light source both.
Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe.

When from that tree, feathers and wings sprout
on you, be quieter than a dove.
Don’t open your mouth for even a cooooooo.

When a frog slips into the water, the snake
cannot get it. Then the frog climbs back out
and croaks, and the snake moves toward him again.

Even if the frog learned to hiss, still the snake
would hear through the hiss the information
he needed, the frog voice underneath.

But if the frog could be completely silent,
then the snake would go back to sleeping,
and the frog could reach the barley.

The soul lives there in the silent breath.

And that grain of barley is such that,
when you put it in the ground,
it grows.

Are these enough words,
or shall I squeeze more juice from this?
Who am I, my friend?

Taken from The Essential Rumi
translated by Coleman Barks