SPRAWL ON THE GRASS- a WISDOM

Worzel here,  He was an odd young man who disliked beets, a friend for 28 years, drifting in and out of my life, but never from my heart before choosing that overgrown fruit orchard back home in Wales, to continue on his way…

I wonder, this January morning, so long hence, what would Godfrey think of the “Whirled” as he called it, now?. Two thousand marched for peace and justice, marched bravely down Wharf street this day, we watched from our window, a decadent experience, redolent of our 70’s youths.

There passed rainbow flags, medi-chairs, all banners and flags, pets in strollers, (Feh, Godfrey would have wheezed). My kind husband, Garnet, reckoned with a squeeze of my shoulder, down there amid the stalwart, in spirit marches Godfrey…

In the park below our window, a hefty brown mutt, perhaps the great, great grand daughter of the dog Godfrey wrote of, pauses in her play, sprawled in the frozen grass, she watches as the marchers pass.

The deep cold now blessedly over, rare ice on the waterway has melted yet small stubborn patches still stick on stone, crusted shadow snow. I, dry and warm, sit and watch from my window. A thread of plaid wool remains of the sock, belonging to Godfrey we hung years ago, to remind folks below, doorbell broken, that we were in. I am feeling my age of late, yet remain assured the promise of spring.

“Souls adrift have always been drawn to harbors”..wrote Godfrey. Quiet the campers tenting in the park these winter nights. This morning the street dwellers played with their dogs, romped in defiance of order and by-law. I was reminded of a half wrote wisdom Godfrey left for to share, I found it on a bit of scrap paper, down deep in side my turquoise chair.

He wrote- “It was cusp of evening, brash ice had gone from the inlet verges, and low was the tide. Days work over, tedious the bus that I ride. And stopped were in traffic on Knockfollie’s Bridge, as habit I wiped off my window, looked out the side. A person, or more perhaps of minuscule mind, I don’t know, had thrown a shopping trolley, off of the bridge and down to the mud flats below.

Water and sky in what I call “Winterset” shades of platinum, orange and gray, and in its wild glory, a Great Blue Heron, had perched on the derelict shopping cart, looking south down the bay.

When troubling images I cannot avoid, and distant bells warn change or danger may near, I recall the beauty no one can take from me, the welcoming places Ive’ been, and know my words will never be silenced, nor will I cow down in fear.

To the Bampot Louts, who threw the cart out, on the mud flats to the park dwellers surviving in  snow, to you wearing fine shoes in the dim halls of power, may you understand what it means to be present …as the brown mutt who romps in sheer joy of living, and the Blue Heron, patient at Winterset, trusts  in the oceans giving.

Dry socks and coffee handed out from a van, round in circles the brown mutt ran, pursuing a stick her person had thrown away. She bowls over the lesser black lab who has joined her in play. I chuckle at the scene, wisdom only a street dog can know- “sprawl in the grass, fear not the bigot, the greedy, the arrogant, exalt in your freedom, remember the brown mutt, when you are weary -“Sprawl in the grass and pant”.