Too Hot Texas
The thermometer says 106.
The grass feels like needles in my bare feet.
Yet the cenizo is blooming like crazy,
lovely purple blossoms opening to receive heat.
I recall dear Abba Moses:
“Go to your cell
and your cell will teach you everything.”
In this cell that is mi tierra, my homeland,
in the middle of a brutal July,
teach me to bloom
when water is scarce.
Teach me to bloom
when it seems impossible.
July 11, 2022
Esperando con esperanzas
So many years ago I taught Spanish
To mostly unwilling students.
I loved to offer them the verb esperar.
It’s a plain old “-ar” verb.
No tricks in its conjugation.
No new dipthongs showing up.
Just the regular pattern,
the structure you can lean into, trust.
Here’s the gift:
esperar means both to wait
And to hope.
In Spanish, you can’t do one without the other.
In Spanish, they are twin sisters,
joined at the hip.
In Spanish, waiting and hoping go hand in hand.
In my garden, during this harsh drought,
as my esperanza shrubs offer up a lush bounty
of deep yellow flowers,
and the hummingbirds drink deeply,
then fly off a bit under the influence,
I want to remember this:
Esperando, even in this season in which
every darn thing is overheated, stressed, blanched,
fried, crisped, dried out
hope is with us, holding our hand,
bringing us
abundant yellow joy and hummingbird friends.
Zinnias—De colores!!
We have had so little rain
for so long.
Yet these zinnias keep offering their fiesta colors:
Magenta, hot pink, neon orange.
Unabashed, unfazed--
the zinnias keep on budding,
keep on blooming,
keep on feeding those buzzing bees.
Of course, I am encouraging them
with cool water every morning.
A wet communion.
We greet yet another day of beastly heat
with a resolve to not only keep on,
but to show off all the colors,
all the beauty,
all the joy.
Viva!
