The Whole Damn Thing

Earlier today I was in a valley where small hills marched over and around and through. For a month now the sun has been burning the ground gold, but in odd patches there is still dark full spots of green. Under the occasional spread of trees a few animals huddle. It's amazing how a little piece of shade can feel like grace.

And we stood there. A new friend of mine and myself talked. He much older. Wiser and Aged. We talked about Mexico and a city that is commuted by tunnels and tall stairways and how Diego Rivera once called that place home. He told me words in Spanish and then showed me their similarities in French. We smiled and laughed as we talked about women with firm backsides and how one particular woman from that city who has a thumb for gardens and heart for business was a woman he once loved. We looked along rows of different plants that produce both fruit and flowers and some that push bulbs deep into the soil and for all of it, if farmed correctly with both knowledge and gumption there can produce both happiness and healthiness even on the hottest of Portuguese summer days. Onions. Zucchinis. Green Beans climbing up a thin blue plastic string. Strawberries that reappeared. Then, we each with banana in hand, talked about our experiences with India. Mine as a child who held his mother's hand. His as a spiritual wanderer who delighted in a few languageless exchanges with strangers. But still smiles, laughs, and snorts, well they are languages in their own right.

Then, when we finished our bananas, we threw them into a small field. Both of us laughed as two fat black-footed pigs hollered and snorted as they ran toward the bright yellow skins. 'An exotic dessert,' my friend said about what we were watching. His eyebrows raised as he laughed. The sun was warm but the air surprisingly cool. I said, 'Yes.' And I smiled as well. But as the breeze continued to stir between all the life that stood around us, I myself was talking about the whole damn thing.


-Remoy