Integrity

the quality of being complete; unbroken condition; entirety
~ Webster
A wild patience has taken me this far


as if I had to bring to shore
a boat with a spasmodic outboard motor
old sweaters, nets, spray-mottled books
tossed in the prow
some kind of sun burning my shoulder-blades.
Splashing the oarlocks. Burning through.
Your fore-arms can get scalded, licked with pain
in a sun blotted like unspoken anger
behind a casual mist.

The length of daylight
this far north, in this
forty-ninth year of my life
is critical.

The light is critical: of me, of this
long-dreamed, involuntary landing
on the arm of an inland sea.
The glitter of the shoal
depleting into shadow
I recognize: the stand of pines
violet-black really, green in the old postcard
but really I have nothing but myself
to go by; nothing
stands in the realm of pure necessity
except what my hands can hold.

Nothing but myself?....My selves.
After so long, this answer.
As if I had always known
I steer the boat in, simply.
The motor dying on the pebbles
cicadas taking up the hum
dropped in the silence.

Anger and tenderness: my selves.
And now I can believe they breathe in me
as angels, not polarities.
Anger and tenderness: the spider's genius
to spin and weave in the same action
from her own body, anywhere --
even from a broken web.

The cabin in the stand of pines
is still for sale. I know this. Know the print
of the last foot, the hand that slammed and locked the door,
then stopped to wreathe the rain-smashed clematis
back on the trellis
for no one's sake except its own.
I know the chart nailed to the wallboards
the icy kettle squatting on the burner.
The hands that hammered in those nails
emptied that kettle one last time
are these two hands
and they have caught the baby leaping
from between trembling legs
and they have worked the vacuum aspirator
and stroked the sweated temples
and steered the boat there through this hot
misblotted sunlight, critical light
imperceptibly scalding
the skin these hands will also salve.

Adrienne Rich, 1981

Summer 2008

It has been a lovely summer after all. We moved house in April, and it was very sad to leave behind the amazing garden we had there. Our house now is very comfortable and big, but it has a small patio, with no grass. After visiting Melanie, and my Cheslyn Gardens experience, I realized that I could use the flower beds to make the patio look more alive and green. And it is working! Cheslyn Gardens inspired me. I went there for the first time two months ago with Matthew, Lucas and Emilia. It was a lovely sunny Saturday and we took the bikes. It is beautiful. Cheslyn Gardens belonged to a couple, who left the house with the gardens to the council, when they died. Such a great act of loveliness. I didn't have a 'proper' garden, and I need the green so much. I need the bees buzzing, the colors of the flowers, the leaves moving with the wind. I need the quite and peaceful life of a garden around me all the time. You can loose yourself in it. A plant is such a simple thing, it is so peaceful, it takes so long to grow, and it is always alive. It is healing to mimic them from time to time. And these people I don't know they gave us all in Watford that oportunity. You have to find it, it is a secret garden, like Lucas likes to call it. A secret garden with secrets. A secret that I hear from the plants, that I can't say because I can't find the right words. It something to be felt, so when I want to share the secret I just take them to these gardens, and I hope they can hear it too. This picture is when I took my mum, we went in the bikes, with the children. I also took Elyse, and she loved it too.
That is why I am so into gardening our patio. I want to have something to remind me of the secret everyday when I look out of the window.