Looking Down on a Cottonwood Sky

I could tell you how blue the sky is or how my heart is slowly breaking because the Russian Olives have reached their peak and are dropping their yellow blossoms and fading from the world once again. I could tell you how hot it was today, the air solid as a wall which allowed no room for breathing or sweating and smelled of tires and hot oil and traffic. I could tell you about the seemingly endless sound of Duncan panting and slurping at his water dish then panting again and laying on the tile in the doorway to cool down. I could tell you about all the obvious things, the big, easily noticed things, or I could simply say that there were small discoveries today that made the rest of it bearable, even beautiful because they were reminders that truth and poetry and magic are in the details, the things we step over and take for granted if we notice them at all. Walking with Duncan today was like sledding across the clouds, looking down on a world I could only dream was real. Thank the universe he led me to the base of the Cottonwoods, where the grass was cool and smelled sweet, bathed as it was in mist and mystery, otherwise I might never have discovered the joy that made today wholly unique way and one I will always remember for the beauty of grass and flowers and seedlings.
*For Greg, the Midnight Gardner, whose journal is kept in the careful tending of his garden and his devotion to color and dreams.