It’s ripe, the melon
by our sink. Yellow,
bee-bitten, soft, it perfumes
the house too sweetly.
At five I wake, the air
mournful in its quiet.
My wife’s eyes swim calmly
under their lids, her mouth and jaw
relaxed, different.
What is happening in the silence
of this house? Curtains
hang heavily from their rods.
Ficus leaves tremble
at my footsteps. Yet
the colors outside are perfect–
orange geranium, blue lobelia.
I wander from room to room
like a man in a museum:
wife, children, books, flowers,
melon. Such still air. Soon
the mid-morning breeze will float in
like tepid water, then hot.
How do I start this day,
I who am unsure
of how my life has happened
or how to proceed
amid this warm and steady sweetness?
August Morning by Albert Garcia
I took a walk this morning hoping to remove each layer and piece of the world’s drama that sometimes threaten to overwhelm me. With every step I took I left one word behind. As “tragedy” and “sorrow” were left by the side of the road, my narrative became freer, almost lighthearted until the only thing that was left was me – and who am I but a tidy collection of particles in the quantum soup of the universe? Bliss. This was just where I needed to be, my happy place – nature – a place I go to when I want to savor the extraordinary experience of being alive.
I live in the wild countryside. The Gers is a peaceful and almost forgotten place, an oasis of tranquility, where daily life is simple. In this rural paradise no one drives for pleasure, so on my three and a half kilometer walk I didn’t see a car. In this part of France cars are only machines that get you where you need to go. It’s early enough that the hungry driver looking for his mid-day meal won’t pass me with calculated indifference and inches to spare.
Daily life is real. The two biggest, unsolved village mysteries are finding out who put 50€ into Jacqueline Lartigue’s mailbox without a note, and whose car hit the prized chicken of old Madame Florentinus so that now it walks backwards. Bread is still delivered by baker, in fact my local post office sells bread as well as stamps.
Daily life here is profound. This morning I awoke to a cow mooing in the distance, church bells tolling the hour, birds chirped in the trees, but I didn’t hear them at first. I’d forgotten that the beating of a butterfly’s wings and the throbbing of a human heart are the holy grail of life.
As I returned to my house the crumbling top of the 11th century church in nearby Cuxtan was bathed in a luminous light that Renoir would have loved. Immersing myself in the natural world reminded me of what’s truly important. Midsummer days can be full of unfettered magic.
Go outside.
