You won't find me anywhere near the thickening center. The desire for extremes is the longing for death, and I find no use for it. It is a regardless inevitable. I picked a dark red poppy and all the petals blew off in the breeze, filtering down like bloody feathers to the hard ground. Poppies for dead soldiers. They grow in barren poor stripped sandy ground, prickly aggressive spiky silvery foliage that produces long fuzzy stalks that end in a bulbous flower pod that pops open a brilliant pink or orange or red or white in the sun.

Someone asked what do we pray for except what we want, and I can't help but think that is not prayer. Prayer as I know it has nothing to do with desire; prayer has to do with guidance for oneself and with hope for others.

A seven-legged spider spent the night in my bead box. When I opened it yesterday he came crawling out, waving myopically in surrender. I lifted his small green glass body on a strand of silver beads & took it outside, where I draped it over a pink rose and off he climbed. Life is beautiful. Even seven-legged spiders are beautiful.

The swallows have returned; they hunt early in the morning. I can't see their iridescent green and silver flitting bodies but I can hear their soft sharp cheepacheep burbles in the dark as they skim just above the ground, banking and swerving around trees and hedges. They nest in the big fir trees across the road.

I do not fear aggression but I avoid feeling it. These days I find balance and strength inside myself, and do not worry about opinions so much. I know who I am and none of us can say where we're going. One day we'll all be gone. The darkest corner of the yard is overgrown with grape vines that threaten to completely cover the woodshed this year, and the laden apple tree groans against the cedar fence.
Decay always accompanies growth.