Looking out my Backdoor: My world and mathematics

There is magic in my world.

If I do not see it, it doesn’t matter.

If I do see it, it doesn’t matter.

Every day is a song.

Yesterday’s music fell to earth, gone.

Today’s voice is in the wind, the sky.

You may listen. Or not hear.

This morning I awoke to Cathedral bells,

To bird song riding pale green sunrise.

The first sight out my window, a western tanager

Atop a cluster of new mango leaves, strange fruit.

One moment. One moment of attention.

I’m granted only moments. I’m too small

To take in the totality of what is offered.

Lavender in pots line my entry,

Lavender twitching with bees in love.

I stand beneath an umbrella of purple jacaranda,

Stand atop a carpet of purple blooms, dropped

From above. Listen. I hear a mountain creek

Rushing along its rocky path, chortling, alive.

Look. There is no creek, no water. Birds

Sing the tree in chorus of water song.

It is Holy Week. Whatever one’s beliefs, it is good to take time to reflect, to think about life and death and hope and grief and love. We are surrounded by these things in the very air we breathe but seldom stop to feel them deeply. Wait. That’s me. I don’t stop often enough.

I lost another friend this week. I search my photos to look at my freshest grandbaby.

This morning the air is hazy, first time since last summer. I can barely make out the outline of the mountains over toward Magdalena. The mountains in my backyard are blue like a child’s painting. Hazy and soft, like the air at the ocean.

Holy Week in Mexico is when everybody comes home. No matter where they live, no matter where they work, they pack the car with clothes, food and immediate family and come home. Or come home and pack the rest of the family into the car and go to the beach. Even more than Christmas, Holy Week is a time for family.

I walk out to the highway, turn around, back and forth, back and forth, my morning trek. At the road I see cane trucks straining under illegal weight, or rattling back empty, headed for the fields. There are the usual delivery trucks, farm trucks, construction trucks. And family cars, loaded with coolers and luggage, even mattresses, atop the roof.

Life and death, each divided into the other, equals a circle. This is Higher Mathematics.

——

Sondra Ashton grew up in Harlem but spent most of her adult life out of state. She returned to see the Hi-Line with a perspective of delight. After several years back in Harlem, Ashton is seeking new experiences in Etzatlan, Mexico. Once a Montanan, always. Read Ashton’s essays and other work at http://montanatumbleweed.blogspot.com/. Email [email protected].