bird by bird

I am consistently good at doing only two things in this world. One is parallel parking, and the other is compiling a damn good break-up playlist. I don't just have a generic catalog of songs that I send off to broken-hearted girlfriends. Instead I curate a personalized mix of songs with lyrics that [hopefully] hit the spot. I don't say this to brag, but as a free advertisement for anyone who needs the healing help of harmony. I gotchu. Here's my latest playlist, for little Lightfield, who bravely slid a diamond ring off her finger before it was too late. This one's for you, Al :

There are irises in our front yard, we learned, But they live under a weed barrier, And wood chip mulch, And the weight of dull uniformity. Before us, the irises lived imperfectly and wild, Until the developers covered them, Unknowingly, or not, For the sake of maintenance and homogeny. This Spring a few stalks sprung up from the brown. When I crouched down to touch the green, I could feel a bounce below me like a mattress spring. A hundred irises buried below, desperate to bloom. Van Gough painted "Irises" from inside an asylum, Believing that painting them would keep him sane. He drew from the flowers in the hospital garden, And went mad within a year.  I lay awake at night thinking about The buried bulbs that want to become shoots, And the shoots that want to become blossoms, The flowers that want to finally flower. I think of the purple persistence of some To push through toward the light, And the others that are trapped, Under the pressure of