Witch Hazel | Excursions

Walking to Manhattan Island, sun setting

over the Brooklyn Bridge west

then back again, night rising

over the Brooklyn Bridge east

suspended in loud skyways

afloat with turbulent tides

never becoming the future

never settling the past

splashing uptown and downtown

east and west

dropping

dumbstruck

down to the bedrock where a gamble feels like a sure bet

and shoots out a line from one gothic tower to another

anchors it

reads it, sings it, speaks it

takes it striding into the tangled tension of lives from everywhere and all times

sniffing oooh and ah and

why and oh no and I give up and I believe and—

Let’s just kiss.

Let’s kiss like the bridge is falling down!

Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh Yes!

********

My favorite shot coming up next. Birds on a wire. City on the edge.

Followed by lines from the not-so-long-ago Bard of Brooklyn.

And Witch Hazel flowers I picked fresh just for you. They bloom in the November sun of my gardens.

Don’t jump.

********

Where is it that we tend our gardens, beneath the heavens or upon the roofs of hell?

And what is the work we do there? Is it the repeated raking away at our own dreams, which grow back, only to be raked away again?

We are not gods. Yet how hopeful we gardeners remain—our tedious work such tranquil therapy for dealing with the experiences in life that can never be made right again.

Something horrible happens. It is permanent. It happens to us or it happens to someone we care about.

And the gardener is called upon to catch silver sparkles from clouds of doom. But she prefers, instead, to visit a flower or observe a honey bee or destroy a rogue weed. These are the things she can control.

Within the terrifying flames of unmanageable heartache, the gardener can be heard crying out loud, making her face ugly, and getting her hands dirty. She is defiant.

She retreats to her garden, because there is always work to do there, or something to look at, or a place to sit. Maybe angels hover—sympathetic to the steady work of creating calm, by growing altars.

*****

I watched spring come to my garden through the Witch Hazel, Hamamelis.

The flowers unfurled over several days. They trembled in the passing breeze, like little hula skirts.

Honey bees showed up.

The bloom became profuse on a day when a friend called with tragic news. It was news of trauma that will never be okay.

After we talked, I went into my garden and gathered Witch Hazel blooms. The plant grows divining rods, dowsing sticks, and its twigs are thought to have the power to heal a broken heart.