propitious

Today's word is

propitious

What a nice word with which to start a new week!  I daresay it's auspicious.

*****
Tuesday, 3:15 p.m.
OH . SO . TOTALLY . CHEATING !!!
As you will see, this started yesterday -- it did!  it did!  honest! -- but then I realized I would have to wait to see how to finish it.  I'm not even sure whether this is a poem or a story.  (Can't it be both?)  Whatever it is, though, I hope you enjoy it.

Not propitious, that sound,
the sound of leaf blowers
on my calm if windy Monday afternoon.

I look out the window,
and it is as I feared:  the yard crawls
with piratical men, grim and determined,
some in sleeveless shirts
and headscarves
mostly young, some old,
and they are stealing it,
my golden treasure,
my rented half-acre's harvest
of golden leaves!

They are blowing it and scraping it
every last bit of it
out of my clutches, my grateful
vision, and away,
and I am powerless to stop it.

I must salvage something.
Surely there is something
I can keep.

Knowing it will be futile,
knowing it will raise an argument
I will not win,
I open a window.

"Hey!"

Nothing.  The bandit wrangling
the smoke-belching beast hears naught,
his ears still covered
against its fierce growls
though the beast lies still for now.

"HEY!"

He looks up, and I smile and wave
though I am nervous.

"Hi!  Sorry to bother you, but could
you do me a favor?  Do you see my compost
bin?  That big black thing next to the bike?
Yes, that.  Well, could you please put all
the leaves in that?"

He looks, he thinks, and then he nods.
But I do not believe him.

"Great!  Thanks! 
That way they will be food for other
leaves next year."

I smile and give the thumbs up sign,
feeling no faith but
grinning idiotically
and nodding my head
wildly -- ugh -- hammily,
that way I do
when trying to emphasize
my positive intent
while trying to communicate
with people
I assume
cannot possibly understand me.
He smiles back big, but puzzled, and nods,
and returns to raking.

I do not know if he speaks English.
I do not know if he is doing the thing
that mom in that movie talked about
where people who don't speak English
think it's more polite to smile and nod
when they don't understand something
than to admit confusion and
seek clarification.
I do not know if he is doing the thing
men around the world do
where they just smile and nod
to get rid of troublesome women
interfering with their progress
down whatever track they're on.

Later I look out the back,
and my own foolishness again flushes
my cheeks.

Half the yard is covered with tarps,
and all my treasure is heaped upon them,
covering every inch of them,
feet deep,
to each corner.

My compost bin is the size of a large
trashcan upended.

I had more treasure than I knew,
enough to fill a galleon
or a diesel-belching work truck
trailing a big bin on wheels.

I blush again, and fumble off to work.

When I come home, I fear, and do not look.
It can wait 'til Tuesday. 
I will look on Tuesday.

Under Tuesday's thin sun,
I see the aftermath.
The yard is scraped clean.
The bird bath is empty of every lovely
hand-shaped thing gently rotting in it
until yesterday, and bone dry.
Fruitlessly, I seek artifacts,
things I looked for but lost
in the leaves, while they were there.
I'm looking for some kind of justification.
I'm looking for proof that yesterday's piracy
was useful, a good thing.
But they did not find the screw that fell
into the leaves when the rusted arm
holding the sunflower feeder came loose
from the aged fencepost.
Nor did they find the wingnut fastening
the bottom of the feeder until it fell.
Or if they did,
they kept them to themselves,
along with all those fallen, shattered seeds
now gone, too.

Furthermore,
they were not kind to the brunnera.

It must be done.
I know it must be done.
This is not my land.
This is not my lawn.
But, oh, the color lost.
And oh, the pleasure of walking soft
on covered bricks and upholstered earth.
I could have loved it all another week.
And afterward I could have offered
back to the garden
which created it and deserved it
the delicacy of leaf mold,
so nutritious.

I sigh, accepting this latest
small loss, and return to my chores.

Tentatively, I approach the compost bin,
a pailful of stink and a bag of old flowers
in my hands.
I open the lid,
and suddenly my eyes tear.
The brightness!
It's like opening a treasure chest.
Gold gleams forth, packed to the rim.

And all at once,
I don't feel I've lost a thing,
that nothing was stolen,
that those were nice men,
not pirates.

Of course,
it also helps to know
that they don't know
about the mess still gathering
on my balcony,
the one at the feet of dead
potted sunflowers
the tiny birds still peck,
the one a foot deep
and shining bright with many colors
that squirrels and chipmunks
still skitter through,
the one that will keep me
from sitting in either plastic chair
until I've cleared both off
and fed the litter back to
the garden that grew it.

My private stash,
those pirates will have to storm the bulwark
to get it.

Fat chance.

Comments

[moose]

A reading

Most propitious, she would announce,
Reading the bitter tea leaves
Nestled in the bottom of my pot.

She read books of poems,
The drawings of her father's friend,
The daily newsprint smudges.

She read the horse's whinnies,
The dog's breathing,
The egg as it rested on the straw.

She read the mud on the hill,
The wind as it ran through the treetops,
The slant of coming rain.

She read the burr in her lover's voice,
The timing of his arrival,
The trajectories of his hands.

She did not read the message her ovaries
Wrote to her uterus,
Telegraphing their urgencies,

Tapping out surgical scissors,
A reverberation through the inner
Libraries of her body.

The haze of anesthesia,
The sudden flash of silver,
The tug of thread went unread.

Now, she looks at the rivulet
Of scar left behind, ebbing from red to white
And smiles. Propitious, she announces.

[Sara]

Awesome. Really strong. Thank you.

[moose]

Sara, I always look forward to what you write because you have such interesting stories to tell. They are so different from the stories that go on in my own head! Thanks!