This too shall pass and coffee

            This too shall pass and coffee

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Last week I forbade, with wagging finger, I forbade Leo, our Rancho gardener who mothers all of us oldsters, to get sick. The next day Leo landed in the hospital. No, he does not have the virus. But we all had a frightening couple days while Leo was sent to a specialist in Guadalajara for advanced imaging. That’s doctor-speak for a second guess.

Leo’s got the rocks, as they say it here in Mexico. The doc said it will pass. The gall stone giving him such pain is tiny and should pass soon.

Leo is in pain and he is justifiably terrified. For several days he’s suffered. He feels okay, comes to work one day and does not show up the next.

Many of his family have died of cancer, so every twinge scares the young man. Every pain makes him think immediately, “It’s the Big C--I’m done for.” That alone is a heavy burden to haul around. 

People here are matter-of-fact about illness. When Leo does show up, he both whines and laughs and makes jokes about the stone being a slow traveler. He dreads the pain of passage but dreads the thought of surgery even more.  

Yesterday was one of Leo’s good days as opposed to the day before when he stayed in bed all day and described to me in vivid detail that I shall spare you. Perhaps the rock moved on down the line.

In an economy measure, I’ve begun making cowboy coffee in a clay olla rather than my usual French Press method. I add a piece of stick cinnamon to the coffee grounds for sparkle, boil it, and let it settle. I’d stack my coffee next to the best.

You have to know I’m a coffee snob. I like a good coffee. I’ve been buying coffee beans at Costco in Guadalajara ever since moving to Etzatlan. In these dire times, trips to Guad are a dream of the past and a vague hope for the future. My good beans are gone.

Before he collapsed last week, Leo brought me coffee. Coffee is coffee, right? Wrong! This was nasty bitter stuff, sweepings from the factory floor. So I asked Leo to find Marino, which is tolerable. The beans are roasted and packed in Mazatlan so I’m familiar with Marino.

So when Leo came around noon, laden with fruits and veggies, he also had a bag of Marino coffee, found after vigorous searching at Michoacana, a corner tienda. Like any addict, I am happy with my fix.

Leo worked yesterday, mowing and yard clean up at Pat and Nancie’s, John and Carol’s. I said, “You must be feeling better.” He said, “Much medicine.”

Before he put away the mower and weed whacker for the evening, Leo told me the farmers around were complaining about not enough rain, the fields should be soaked by now. I thought, when do farmers not complain there is not enough rain?

It’s true and strange that the Sahara dust blanketing us makes for spectacular sunsets. I thought nothing can equal Montana sunsets, several of which I recall vividly. I’m wrong. Last night the entire 360 degree sky lit up with pink-bronze-golden fires.

Out over the Pacific Ocean, in the night, an unnamed depression formed into Cristina, pushed clouds inland which dropped rain the entire night. This morning is dark as any night. In my house of windows I seldom switch on a light during daytime. I turned on lights in the kitchen and the light over my desk.

My garden plans flew out the door where they lie soggy on the ground. Farmers complain they cannot work in the wet fields. It’s a good day to bake bread. My coffee is brewed. It’s a good day.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

July 9, 2020

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In defense of denial

            In defense of denial

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Sometimes it is better to not know

Uncertainty is caustic

There is no escaping

The pain of knowing

I remember this when night

Visitations of every dread

And shame and mistake

Come calling with rigid certainty

Once I peel off my blinders

I discover there is no adjustment

To put them back. Pretending

Not to know no longer serves

Is truth what we want

Peel off one layer of unknowing

Another takes its place

Equally implacable

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On a rain day

            On a rain day

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I want to die

On a rain come down day

Rain to wash me

To wash my memories

Like baptism. Clean.

I want to die in the monsoon

With air soft as promise

Or when the sky talks up a storm

Wild with electric snap rap tap

Wet wild empty the sky

Rain be my tears

Tears for me, for those I love

For those who love me

For those I never loved

Especially for those.

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At first light

At first light

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At first light they sing

The sun breaks through the horizon

A time of silence, as if in reverence

One by one they fly

With occasional chirps

Doing bird business

To chorus again at sundown

Rumi says birdsong mirrors my longing

Let my silence be my song

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Early Morn

            Early Morn

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I lay in bed listening

The click of the refrigerator

A flock of yellow-heads swish the sky

An avocado falls through tree branches

An iguana scrabbles across the roof tiles

Josue starts his truck, off to work

The silence of sunlight burns off the fog

I lay thinking how content I am

It makes me feel kind of sad.

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Rumors

            Rumors

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Clouds whisper rumors of rain,

Whisper wisps into puffs whitely

Smatter with dark, lower blackly,

Heavy promise to come. Wind

Picks up rumor, knits it into mumbles,

Weaves stories of remembered storms

Through each leaf and spine, quiver

Tales of green renewal, awakening

A season of uplifted throats, dry,

Gasping into song as first drops pitter.

I stand in speckled sun, mute,

Able to hear only a hint

Of the chorus sung.

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One Might Think

            One Might Think

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One might think

God hated women

The way we are treated

In this Righteous Religious

Powerful Man-country.

They say

God made man and woman;

God made man to rule,

Woman to serve. Powerful man,

So powerful that when he can’t keep

His pecker in his pants, it’s the woman’s fault.

So we serve. We bow and scrape,

Clean up his messes. You know

How men are; they have strong needs,

So turn your head and forgive him.

And for God’s sake, never let him know

You might be smarter than him;

That would be woman’s unforgivable sin.

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