A Moment: Phnom Penh, 1995

 

What is it that happens

When you catch the eye

Of someone and they catch

Yours at the same moment?

 

A connection that embodies

The energy that informs

This life we live.

 

I was standing on the street

In Phnom Phen when a group

Of saffron robed monks

Glided past me.

 

I caught the eye of one

As he in turn caught mine

I have never forgotten

That moment and the look

In his eyes

 

They were a pool that

Had the depth of eternity

And somehow in that moment

I felt that he knew everything

There was to know about me

 

WORK

 

He had been working

In the yard

Raking up needles from

The giant Sequoia

 

He had planted the tree

Fifty years before

After removing it from

A gallon can and

Finding a temporary

Place in the yard

For it to grow

 

Now, having never moved

It was an iconic

Specimen easily seen

From a distance

 

We joked that he

Would move it soon

 

That would never happen

And meanwhile it’s strong

Roots bedeviled him as

They pushed up the driveway surface

 

He fell and hit his head

Which, on top of the accelerating

Dementia meant a trip to the

Hospital was necessary

 

As I walked him from the

House to the car

He grabbed the edge of door

And held on with all his strength

 

I pried his fingers off the door jam

He must have known he was leaving

Home for the last time

 

Later that day I found

A small pile of needles he

Had accumulated before he fell

I placed them in a bag and brought

Them home.

 

They were evidence of the last

Work he performed.

 

Tonight I worked in my yard

And thought of him

 

The needles remain in a bag

In my home

 

Naneum*

 

It has been such a cold wet spring. 

More rain in May than ever before. 

Temperatures that still threaten to dip into the 30s. 

 

I put out two tomato plants today. 

I won’t leave them completely vulnerable to nature,

but will shield them a bit from the elements.

 

I was reminded of something my Grandpa Jake Frederick said, 

“We can’t plant until the snow leaves the Naneum.”

 

*The Native American place name for the ridge line on the high hills on the north side of the Kittitas Valley in Central Washington State.