Here we are

I am standing outside in my backyard at mid-day. I stand with a pick in my hand and there’s a root on the ground, staring at me, tantalizing me. I will defeat you, I say in my head. I reach in my pocket and take out my ipod shuffle. But before sending musical signals to my brain, sending waves of goodness around my aura, I stop and think: do I feel like listening to music while working in the yard, or do I feel like thinking? I role up the headphones around my ipod, stab the pick into the Earth and walk over to the shade where I lay my ipod on the table. I decide to think.

Before reaching for my pick and finally getting rid of the root, I notice the sky’s blueness. Summer blue. I lie down on the ground, arms spread out, legs spread out. I look up,

at the sky.

The green leaves of the trees contort the blue and the clouds make their wispy contribution to the developing image. It’s moving with the wind. I close my eyes and immediately see a darker shade of the shape of the sky, like an afterglow. With my eyes closed, I hear my heart beat louder. It has a steady thud, bouncing off of the ground, perhaps even following the beat the internal Earth radiates with its natural energy.

All things natural come to me. I imagine my shed, getting hit by a lightening bolt, sending the lawn mower running out screaming, crashing into the deck. Then Saturn’s rings cut through my shaped sky, as if by a Roman gladius, making the clouds dissipate like a panic-stricken crowd. I step on its rocks and pebbles, noticing the design of the rings as I look down at my feet, my backyard in the background behind them. From the telescope the rings look as if they were made by sharp, clear strokes from crayola markers, but up close they are thousands of organized islands stuck in traffic, flowing around a big gaseous ball. I jump back down and run behind a tree before the stampede of animals trample all over me. In the nick of time, I had seen the animals crush my neighbor’s steel fence. Rhinos, hippos, T-rex, zebras and . . . flamingos? The coast is clear and I come out of hiding, stumbling on some rocks. In the remaining dust, come shadowy figures. What now? All the people I’ll ever meet, I’ll ever create relationships with, whether it’d be close and personal, personal and distant, or just acquaintance-like. They are people I’ve met in the past and that I’ll meet in the future and that I see almost every day. Family, relatives, friends, strangers and some uncomfortable tissue. There they are, standing before me, quietly naked, created by dust. Shadows on the floor tell me they’re moving closer to me, and I to them. Eye contact. Shoulders, legs and arms. Faces, necks and chests. No words spoken, only feelings giving tokens. Of what, though?

Gone.

I lie down on my mother’s ground, in the steps of the people. And look up,

at the sky.

My goodness, it’s still there, blue, green and white. The sun’s light carries the colors. I close my eyes. My muscles relax and each breath flows out like a lullaby. My breath sings out softly in harmony with the wind. And then I open my eyes. Sitting up straight on the ground, I bend my head and look down at my hands, filled with dirt and scratches. To my left, stabbed in the Earth is my pick. I look at it and stand up. After reaching for my ipod, I grab my pick and make one big heave.