Saturday morning decadence

Ah yes, breakfast in the sun with my baby, her staple, oatmeal (hardly elegant) and a fresh pot of Hazlenut roast (decaf - the real stuff makes me too damn jumpy). Now that we have a little sitting area the interior seems so dreary. We haven't had a meal at the table in a week. Palabra.

So we sit together contemplating the colors of the day and I steal a few more minutes before returning to the interminable task of cleaning up after ourselves. Laundry and straightening day, to say the least, not to mention all the reading that taunts me in its neat little pile. We decide to write poetry instead. Or rather she dictates and I scribble madly, trying to keep up as she declaims in her most sweeping, dramatic voice, pausing as her scribe fumbles for the pencil that slipped from her hands. Every word of these poems, to follow are hers, in that order with that poetic intention, she even came up with the titles after composing each thought. Then, after she finished composing, she dances around in circles, climbs up on my lap for more kisses and hugs (we played for a good half hour rolling around like kittens on the bed as she shrieked with laughter and I gnashed my teeth at her, threatening to eat her up). "Can I kiss the flowers for a minute?" she slides back down, points at the thorny rose bushlets, "it would be hard to kiss that one, because if one of the thorns got stuck in my lips - ouch - then you would have to get tweezers and that would hurt a lot!" I nod complicitly. She flits about kissing the kissable flowers, the orchid and purple Campanula, the little red roses and the rosemary ("That one I will definitely kiss!" she affirms emphatically). She avoids the other thorny rose, and comments on the justice of the situation, it is fair because neither get kisses. She then recalls the poor lonely violets (on the other side of the door, a midnight gift from my neighbor Kirsten, the bearer of flowers and kindness). She kisses them over and over, every single flower, "I threw love all over them!" she cries, and then her face brightens, "The only way I can give love to the rose plants is if I blow kisses." We sit for a few more minutes, watch a few bikers race by on the bike path, families amble past with children in tow, vagabonds push carts with which they absconded from the nearby shopping center. Mostly it is quiet. Save for our morning owl, that lives in the Eucalyptus out the bedroom window.

A perfectly poetic morning indeed: (I repeat, I was floored by her poetic notion)

"Graceful trees" (by I.)
The trees are so graceful
as the birds sing pretty songs
and the eagles fly high
still not believing
that down in the mountain
there is the tree that waves all around us.


"Powerful beauty"
How beautiful the flowers sing
and how powerful they sway
with all the rocks surrounding them
while the tree graces them with
lots of powerful beauty.
How the eagles fly high above
with the only grace
of our thoughts.

"Nighttime in the air"
How beautiful the iceplant stands
Surrounding us.
How short the long day,
with people walking around,
in the night,
in their cars
kids playing baseball
in the nighttime
of the darkness all around us.

And finally, reflections on her impending birthday:

I'm happy because
my birthday is every weekend
and I am happy because
my friends get to play with me.
And I am happy because
I get lots of cards from my friends.

-snip, snap, snout, this tale is told out! -