Conditional Reality

I've never seen a snake around the house, but last year I found a complete snake skin in the grass while I was mowing the lawn. I called Kim to come look at it. She carefully pulled it out of the grass, a dry ghost to hold in our hands. The imprint of the head and eyes were clearly visible. The jaws looked ready to snap shut on some unwary prey. The scaly pattern of the skin was there too. It was all dim and translucent, but the power of the snake remained like the essence of a lost love.

I went to my first poetry reading over twenty years ago. The experience mystified me. You mean people come out just to listen to poets reading their own poems? I had no idea such events occurred. Poetry seemed like an impossibly esoteric enterprise that I would never understand. Didn't you have to study poems to "get" them? Wasn't it like learning a secret code? Not like reading a short story or a novel. People around me nodded approvingly at the end of each poem. I struggled to understand. What did that mean? Is there an instruction manual for this stuff?

Our front lawn is adorned with orange California Poppies. They are wild wanderers, finding refuge where they can. They arrived here three years ago and have been reproducing ever since. Their buds look like shaman hats, tall and pointed. Their blooms remind me of the colors Tibetan monks wear. At night they roll themselves up against the cold like tight sleeping bags. In the morning they open up, orange umbrellas catching sunlight. I like to see them lining the steps, waving in the wind, as I walk up to the front door. It always feels like they are saying hello.