Ash Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Maybe Monday and Tuesday

And we thought Lent was over. "Ashes to ashes; dust to dust." We are cavalier. We are masters and mistresses of our universe. We live in the modern age, even post-modern, if you will. "Apocalyptic" is an adjective reserved for theologians or drama queens or alarmists. Besides, it has too many syllables. Apocalyptic. All by itself, one line of a haiku about endings -- with no end in sight. We conquered nature, didn't we? Nature. She's so last century, so pre-millennial. (And who says Nature is feminine, anyway?) From ashes unseen on the ground, under a true-blue (liar!) sky, our high-tech world is insulted by dust. Fibers that upon ingestion by a jet's turbine can stall an engine or flame it out. The rudeness of these volcanic particulates to ruin our techno planet, to stall the mighty engine of progress, to flame out the fragile text of the future. We were just getting used to "global" as an adjectival cliche. If these ashes turn to fibers, is it like the angel hair we put on Christmas trees in the 1950s, causing us to scratch an invisible itch? These Icelandic (the nerve! Iceland!) ashes, this devil's hair, are the molecular patron saint of Luddites Universal. Who are we such that ashes drifting above an azure-cerulean clarion-clear sky force us to huddle, to encamp in airports, would-be Haitians in waiting, communing with not nature but each other, as if the Me Generation had no choice but to admit the potential of a We Generation. Generation Ash. Five syllables. Another line in the uncompleted haiku, the haiku with the missing seven, the missing middle, searching for the heart of the matter. Ashes.

Leaf It To Me

The garage again.

I'm walking up the stairs, between the second and third deck. I spot a triad of articulated saffron leaves, on a tiny branch on the landing. Each of the three leaves is nearly oval, lanceolate, almost labial, pointed at the top, jagged points along the sides.

This trinity of ambrosia is there, for the taking. It is meant for me. Or for anyone who cares to see it and embrace it.

I lift it up into my hands, in procession to my car. The perfect coda to a day, a week, a life. The incense for this holy walk is my own breath.