What the Muses Leave Behind

"There is a number hidden in every act of life...numbers screaming to tell us something." - Paul from 21 Grams If it were only a matter of numbers - five hundred and seventy seven minus one hundred and fifty, leaving four hundred with a little margin for error - would that be enough to stave off that one deva who divines calamity, calls it a sacred door? Intrepidly blue as the Arabian Sea, my worries drift on crimson petals, each envious of the nautilus chambers, beautiful raft of Fibonacci numbers - one, two three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty one. But still the world cracks open, flooding us in a feast of breezes filled with squirrel chatter, who don’t care if we’re counting. If it were only a matter of numbers would it be enough to divide a year into seasons, days, and hours, littering walls and tables with the couriers of our imperious fourth dimension? The mist that curls my book's cover is an ample almanac. And even if our whirl-a-gig minds press for meticulous rh...

Last August as barometers fell and skies spun their pewter webs, we dreamed of rain.  Watching thirsty Sourwoods  blush Before the light shifted, we presses that buxom summer to fill our shelves with bottles stacked high in bread and butter pickles, spicy salsa and home brew.  Those dog days courted fat winds out of Alabama, teased us to seventh heaven and hid downpours in fox grapes and persimmons.  That year we looked up, sought safe haven in a farmer's almanac, and days sailed toward summer's end within the graceful orbit of Earth. We prayed like refugees for any clever idea to reunite land and sky.  Patience sweltered in us between line dried sheets. We believed sun-dogs were omens; that we could pull them apart like wishbones and find water. Instead our oracles hid in flowers. still tucked up in the dry soil among the warts of a mother bulb. Come April, they swelled open right on time - each lusciously wet and brilli...