Back Yard Portal

Night storms blew down lichen encrusted dead limbs from the tall Red Oak in the back yard last night. The wind blew pots from the fence shelf smashing into the much beloved tropical corn plant. The cannas yielded and laid down. I did what I could to restore some order in the rain, but the real push will come with the sunshine, whenever that might be. My backyard is timeless. Sometimes it is the same branch from 50 years ago that I'm picking up. I half expect to see my dad, a young man with red/orange hair cutting up branches felled by a storm and stacking them next to the lilac bushes. I, of course, am picking up the leaves, anxious to help. The repetition of flowers and storms, pets and holidays, weeding and mowing leaks into the the here and now making the present soggy with memory. Now, two generations of children and their pets have grown up in the back yard. Everywhere I step they follow me. I find plastic indians in the indigo blooms of flowers and miniature tow-tucks under the morning glory vine. No wonder I hear Mickey the Wonder Dog barking at me to come play. His ashes carefully placed in the flowerbed he loved to destroy, rose up long ago to prowl the twilight; I feel Mickey in every blade of grass and turn of sunshine. As Kurt Vonnegut would say, my back yard has become unstuck in time. The train is off the tack. Time and space are out of place among the castor bean and rampant honeysuckle. Freed from this dimension the garden welcomes my ashes and then opens to possibility. I am parallel to now; I am my opposite; I am matter and light, heaven and hell. And now, before the ying-yang glue sets, thank God for hummingbirds. Their flight, mechanically impossible, explores the zinnias and soothes the contradictions of the permeable space-time continuum. It brings on more common conundrums. Moon flowers and California cactus blooms taught us that five hours of intense beauty stands equal with redwoods and their endurance advantage. There is an easy answer to this, "why?" however. Each individual thing is incomparable, exquisite and unique to every perception. It is all moment and angle, interpreted through filters of mechanism, age, learning, circumstance and chemical coating on cells. All this sensory input lathered up with our emotions cranks out a very unstable reality at best. We can all have our unique argument that is absolutely true. But, back to this morning. My back yard is drenched in water and memory, its portals are open and its display is experienced uniquely by every organism. Makes me proud to be so insignificant and yet the God-like giver of understanding. All this meaning given to the nothing of nature sparkles in the sprinkler rainbow my eye and brain conjure up. It does not exist without us! We are the keepers of our god, a quite unique relationship. Who knew the back yard could be so fun! I pray my thanks to God.