In the Present Moment
The days of the pandemic continue on. We are at home.
No distractions now, only a little rain. My dog Honey and I look
out at the spring flowers on the porch, purple pansies agog,
what blooms like crazy, a panoply of snapdragons, yellow
and red and purple. I fix a small meal of brown rice, carrots,
green tea, an oatmeal cookie. This is how it is every day
now. A notebook full of new poems about remaining in place,
a new life in the middle of the busy old one, I grow older
but I still think of the gardens I will plant in the future and
what has gone by in my life, how I did the best I knew how to do.
My dog catches toys I kick to her with my shoe, she’s an ace
perfect hand-eye coordination, quick, ready to beat me at this game
that only she knows the rules to. I work on a 1000 piece jigsaw
puzzle of central park and the rest of Manhattan, maybe
impossible to finish but I believe I can do it. We are stuck
here in the present moment, Buddhists, our prayer flags
hanging near the Buddha in the center of the room, ringing
the mediation bell early A.M. after we wake, walking further
than we ever imagined even in the rain, past the palm trees
and the canyon’s rocky edge, in the world we are in,
the darkening sky coming on us, a touch of sun, all the way
to the moon coming up over the mountains and the wild stars above
Charlene Langfur is an organic gardener, a LGBT writer, A Syracuse University Graduate Writing Fellow and her most current publications include a series of poems in Tiger Moth and Hawk & Handsaw, Halcyon Days, The Voices Project and Emrys, and forthcoming a series of poems in Weber: The Contemporary West.
Inlandia: A Literary Journey 