Fresh Fruit
Where I live, spring is being born with bursts of blossoms and fields of
yellow mustard. Valentine's Day is around the corner and since I have no
particular mate at the moment, I celebrate the way I did when I was a child:
thinking of everyone I care for in this world and every thing — my students
at Spirit Rock who are dealing with breast cancer and lupus and lung cancer
and brain tumors and come sit in silence to find peace; my pets who climb
into bed with me to share the warmth of bodies breathing through the night;
the friends I call when I fall into tears and who give me wise advice; my
godchildren who insist on surviving with aplomb and verve and brilliance
despite the challenges of childhood, the old oak tree in my back yard free
now of leaves. Love always. Be mine.
Sometimes when there is no special one to love, the heart in its hunger
reaches out to hold as many in its embrace as it can manage; and even those
who have escaped its hold, the ex-lovers and bad financial advisers and
landlords who delivered eviction notices, they, too, begin to clamor for
attention. Be mine. Even the politicians who insist God is on their side and
no one else's, for a moment, the heart wide open, they, too, are forgiven
and this life of folly and confusion and beauty and awe, of bloodshed and
cruelty, and of love, bursts as if itself is a blossom forced by spring to
open.