To the trees just off the parking lot at city hall

This picture was taken on a parking lot at the city hall where I work.

I stood on a border, some kind of state line, where my car idles on one side and a tiny forest on the other.

The entrance was almost imperceptible, but it’s the first thing I noticed. A narrow triangle of an opening at the base of the foliage suitable only for a child’s exploration.

I knew the earth would be cooler there and the spiny branches poised around the mouth would feel like guardians of the realm if only I were on my hands and knees looking back at them.

I’m holding onto this image before bed tonight because it reminds me that getting up and going to work every day is a good thing. Saturdays and vacations aren’t necessarily better than any other every single day of our life.

Thursday afternoon on a lunch break was just as good a time as any to take this picture. It was just as good of day as any to feel magic in this little world within a world that was always there. One of a million mantels decorated by God, both ancient and new.

I can wake up tomorrow with the sense of urgency of a predator, an explorer, a thief. A low simmering that starts in the belly and burns through the senses by day’s end.

What will I notice tomorrow?

And after all, “we are here to abet creation and to witness it, to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed…so that creation need not play to an empty house.” Annie Dillard.

Day 44.

Love,

Sobriety Poet