Today I Prepare

by Lynn Miller

Summering towards

seated moments

found without splinter

found with or without care.

No audience save the

critical unbecoming self.

Were it a long race

to now,

surprised to be amongst

the last running

with a chance to go

to the target beyond end,

tanks full with cupped felt.

So this is the deal.

This is the living life I’ve dealt myself.

Quite past wonderful,

the peaceful purpose

of this old broken down ranch,

these dusty aromatic canyons,

these patient horses,

those skinned over paints.

The big things to come

are all in the building

and the buildings.

There is in the oldest parts of my self

a fear of in-completion,

a fragile marker

in comic fellowship

with arrival.

Yesterday’s “always”.

The stretched and bent note

deep deep within

a return to first

working love.

The three geldings

each a different voice

plucked with dusty steps

those strings my hands chorded

towards tenuous melody,

dirt stirring.

Last night’s thunderstorm

was a lovely perfection

of angry sky,

sharp crackles of light,

wind rushing to get elsewhere,

and wet rain.

All of it laid

over the pulverized dustiness

of our bone-dry desert.

This morning

the shaded moistened sky

is uncertain

of its course for the day.

How is it

that being inside this weather

I find myself

refreshed and hopeful?

Wandering through corners

of the woods

on the ranch

yesterday,

I felt both enchanted

and grateful

as if it were the first time

and not the thousandth.

I also noticed

there were no accusations

by the place

of me.

It was as if

I just might be

the best person

to be here.

The morning light

after a storm

enhanced the interior qualities

of each piece of the forest.

The pines and junipers

seemed to be

holding hands

with heads bowed.

Too short

and appropriately sweet,

I had found

an encampment

for my soul,

a reason to be,

within and without,

embraced and embracing,

excruciatingly temporary.

Sometimes I mistake

the urge to write

for the need to read.

No reading will satisfy

at those times

but recording my own words

always does,

even when the writing

is dull

and pointless.

It isn’t writing actually,

it’s the process.

The reaching inside

and finding a string

which when pulled

causes

marbles

to tumble from the sack.

Today I prepare

to mow hay

with Matt, Rex, Bob and Granite.

The mowing is the thing.

The hay is but an afterword.

The time with the horses

is most important for me.

The grooming of the field

is most valued by the ranch.

If it results in any winter feed,

it is a bonus.

from

“The Other Day”

by Lynn Miller