Country Beej

Since living out in the splintery acreage of my Great Aunt's house in Arizona I've learned a few things.  How to build a fire, hold an axe, about flying grasshoppers, the language of spiders, the importance of gloves, true darkness,  personalities of goats, night lights, water wells, pumps, plumbing and breakers. Instead of incessant real talk radio it was real silence.  Enough silence to choke out a monk.  A space where even the smallest stars crash landed into the center of my pupils.  I never lived somewhere where I regularly felt so challenged to get over my fears, do it myself and if I wouldn't (because I always could) then  I'd have to live with it -- in that silence.

With sweating, trembling hands I pulled on a pair of jean shorts. 

With sweating, trembling hands I learned to dig up a garden.  

With sweating, trembling hands I squeezed a lemon and bled composure.