bright big venus

sometimes chores are a pain in the ass.  & sometimes chores are a kind of pleasure.  let me explain.  i am past the age where i think i need to be having some exotic adventures in order to fill my quiver for poetic material.  i am deep into middle age.  happily so.  never thought i'd make it this far.  i am happily married too.  anna & i have been together for quite some time.  but that ain't the crux of my thinking. because chores are a grounding to this earth & to this life that i have chosen to live.  doing dishes may not sound like poetic license but come on.  have you read some of the great buddhist texts?  often they are about friendship, wine, sex & the domestic life.  like issa who told the fleas that infested his house not to worry for, 'i keep house causually.'

now, i am not making a direct comparison of my own life & my poetics to the great poets of yore.  but i take strength from them.  if they can write about ordinary life well so can fucking i.  & yet, i ain't so freaking young.  so physical labor takes its toll.  yesterday, anna & i undertook a deep cleaning of our gardens.  our postage stamp patch of city is not so big but damn! it does collect a crap load of leaves & debris.  so that is what we did, cleared out most, but not all, of those leaves & debris from the backyard to the front yard making a pretty good sized pile for the city to haul away.

still, i am in pain even as i type.  last night i had a fitful night sleep as the muscles of my arms, legs & lower back said, use us?!  we're gonna fuck you up!  you are gonna feel us!!!

okay, still, even with my sore muscles it was fun being with anna as we did some necessary work.  i am past the age to complain about needed tasks.  rather, i do my best, even if i am bitching about having to work these chores, to roll up my sleeves & dive right in.  often, i put my air pods in my ears & listen to a favorite podcast as i work.  sometimes, i don't & let my mind drift wherever it might want to roam.

we used our electric leaf blower, rakes, shovel, & other tools to get the shit to the street where we made a nice big pile of leaves & other things.  i was happy as i toiled beside my great love.  we have made a life together.  one that is fulfilled by the ordinary things that create poetry.  afterward, we ordered dinner from our favorite thai restaurant.  there were a few things we needed at the store too.  so i did something i normally don't do: i drove, because i was so freaking sore!  i was beyond the threshold of pain, or so i thought, but every little thing i tried to do physically was cross wired with all kinds of silliness.

but as i walked to the car in the parking lot i saw a great sphere of light in the southwestern night sky.  i am no great, or even good, night sky watcher but i knew it was a planet i was staring at.  lo!  i took out that miracle of 21st century technology, my phone, found my astronomy app & pointed it at that bright sphere of light.  it so was bright it was like a small full moon.  venus, the app identified.  that made my happy.  why, i can't tell you.  maybe it was because i was in the delirium of pain.  maybe i was happy because i identified a planet in our solar system using a miracle of technology.  maybe i was happy because i was alive & could see that the cosmos, & our solar system, along with all the bodies within it, are there & sometimes these bodies can be seen by the naked eye.  whatever the cause, there it was bright big venus hanging in the northern califnornia night sky, not for my edification, or mystical wonder, but because it was there on its own, beautiful & indifferent to any eyes that might look upon it.  it was beautiful because it was there.