Easter 2021
I have a bowl of pea soup in my lap
It is the first day it is warm enough
To sit on my deck and read in the sun
As it sets
But not warm enough to do so
Without a blanket
My landlord believes in aliens
And reincarnation
That everything new is connected to what once was
And that we cannot possibly know for sure
About the Big Bang
He is 84 and has lived so much more than I can fathom
I can't really argue
I say actually I might agree
But what we really agree on
Is that being heard by someone who sees the same world as you
Is the most valuable thing you can have
That Rising is the other side of Falling
In a glass half full
Really, he says,
Electricity is God
He tells me how as a young boy in pre-war Hungary,
Growing up poor and landlocked,
He drew ships on the edges of his father's newspapers
Because they couldn't afford paper
At seven years old he would
Carve wooden boats for himself
Use feathers as sails
Clock mechanisms as motors
Knifed holes in the wood to fasten them together
Walked miles to the nearest pond just to watch them float
Piled the top of his miracle boat with teenage polywogs
Who waited, out of shock or politeness,
Until they were out to sea
Before jumping back into the water
The star magnolia is blooming,
And the daffodils, and the forsythia and
Amaryllis as big as my face
Lazlo is so proud to have had a hand in the blossoming
That he is blooming too, aglow with life
Sitting on my deck
Reading "Mad With Yellow"
My soup is cold on my lap now
The sun mostly gone
I know I do not know
Suffering, not the way
My old self thought
How blessed I am to sit under the wind chimes
Wondering about Lazlo's summer garden
If he will let me help him harvest
The chickadee calls fee-bee
The bunny who lives in the backyard
Starts from his dinner when I sing
"I think I will draw boats tonight,"
Find the space in the margins
Pile on polywogs to watch them jump off
As I float, feather-sails unfurled
Christie Flemming