I’ve tried everything to make you go away. And make you stay. Because I know that you will never be mine. One of us has to leave, and I suppose it must be me. I have persisted in the wind, and the rain, and the drought and the deluge and the fires from heaven, and like the bewildered ones I know when I am done. You won’t let me sleep or think or even just sit here quietly like an obedient child, after all the work and chores are done and all I want to do is be and run and play and be happy. One day you say I will know what it is to be happy, or not. I’m waiting.

I remember you said that one day after crying all night you felt better after eating a sandwich. And one day you felt better after you took a shower. And one day you balanced your checking account and had an extra $20.00 to spare. One day you took a long walk and no one bothered you. One night you accidentally left the door open and no one came in and murdered you. One day you woke up early and it was quiet. One day you stayed up late and it was quiet. One day you realized there was no one left but you. That day you were happier than you’ve ever been.

I had a day like that. Just yesterday. I woke up really early before the cicadas started. I used to love their singing, their wild maddening flying in and out of every single tree and shrub, and even the tiniest flower. There are so many flying around my garden that when I just walk out the door they attack my head, fly onto my back, and even crawl up my neck. The worst part is when they fly into my sleeves and into my body. Really that is a most sacred space, how dare you. This is what the Apocalypse must feel like, and really it’s not half bad, not what I thought it would be. That is, once you get used to being attacked by silent crunchy fairly small things. Actually they are so crunchy and loud but when they attack you, you don’t even know they are there. They are the silent attackers but even they have to sleep so you can avoid them if you get up at 5:00 a.m.

Sammy’s dog ate too many cicadas and got sick. They almost had to take him to the emergency room but he got better, then he did it again. The cleaning women who clean the house two doors down shriek like banshees whenever they get out of the car and run madly to the house trying to avoid them like bullets. Like the screaming girls in third grade when Johnny laid big fat green grasshoppers on the back of their blouses. Even now as I sit here I think I feel creepy crawly things all over me and from time to time I stand up and shake out my robe and have to remember not to do it outdoors because then I would be naked.

I thought I had protected everything from the creatures. Covered them in ghost bags from head to toe. One of them looks like the Madonna with outstretched hands. She is in that big flower bed on the west side of the house and when the sun sets she is on fire. She is covering the new bordeaux lilac, the one I planted last year, the one that is supposed to get very deeply wine colored, sometimes it almost looks black. The plant breeders you know have been very busy trying to create true black flowers. They are wasting their time, they should just walk around in the dark.

I noticed today that the tall purple poppies are starting. They are quite beautiful, all the stems and leaves and buds are a ghostly blue/gray and the seeds came from Kew Gardens. The last few years I noticed that they only last one day. One fleeting beautiful day and I simply can’t spend all day staring at them, even though I want to so badly, what will the neighbors think. But the one I saw yesterday is still there today, even though it was very windy all weekend. Sometimes the most delicate and slender flower can survive a hurricane. The poppies are growing very tall this year and they are very purple and the centers are indigo blue and fade into magenta then pink and then black. They are so regal and stunning and purple it’s frightening. If beauty could be frightening, and it is. The garden is so beautiful it’s frightening. But the really frightening thing is that it is not beautiful at all, I just think it is.

All the people who walk past day and night and day and night and all the cats and dogs and rabbits and squirrels and skunks and possums and chipmunks. They get in and out of everything and there are always clumps of dirt in everything and holes in everything and tunnels and caverns and wells to fall into. I’m tired of these invaders, though they are very crafty indeed, very devious. They always blame it on the wind or something. I must say it has been very windy the last two days. And cold. This morning it is fifty five degrees; I thought it was June but possibly it could be October and no one told me.

I’ve chopped up lemons and scattered the sourness all over the garden, I’ve sprayed the garlic and rotten egg solution and sprinkled coffee grounds around all the beds. I have thought of barbed wired, chicken wire, knives, blood and sweat and animal guts. Sometimes I want armed guards or angels, big and strong angels not the devil ones. I want them to guard you and me and keep the purple poppies safe and young and tall. The larkspur is starting, all the pinks and lavendars are here but the blue ones you know, the blue ones are the prettiest of all because they are the ones who keep calling to you to venture out, far away to the sky to the meadows and to the sea. That is what the color blue can do to you, for you and with you. It can save you, even though you don’t think you need saving at all.

The yellow ones, the yellow or should I say gold ones, they are starting too. Just starting a tiny bit the gold is. Funny, but last night I was holding my phone in bed as I couldn’t sleep. I wish I could sleep without the phone, I really do, and I wish all the phones in the world would disappear. I prayed and even clutched that little Oaxacan Jesus the one that still smells like cedar and incense and myrrh. I watched a program about the richest families in the world, I mean rich as in billions, the millionaires now are like mosquitos you know, but the billionaires are truly rich and some of them like gold. There is a family in the Middle East that only stays in hotels with real gold furniture. They have gold planes and gold yachts and they even eat gold. They have had to open up all the mines in the world to feed them. After they remove all the gold the mines have that rancid metallic taste of old tuna. I wish I could show them real gold real yellow and red and what black roses can do for you and how the blue water can save you and how the blue flowers might kill you.

The blue ones you know are the deadliest. The deep dark indigo purple blue. Anyone can buy them or use them or sell them. I thought of buying a few and placing them all around the garden, the really tall deep ones that look like knights, like shields, like devils, like lances, but they really just want to protect you. You might say I am playing with fire, courting danger, seeking death and destruction and poison but all I want is to save you my beautiful poppies, my larkspur my roses my lilies my violets and my sunflowers, my pansies my lilies my malva. But listen, just because you can name things doesn’t mean that you know anything. You know nothing, like my heart, here you can pull it, like my eyes, just pluck them like a daisy, yes you can take anything you want now and devour them like the wolves that you are, but soon maybe sooner than soon, maybe even now, you might pass a tall and beautiful flower that you think is just a flower of frightening beauty and you might want to smell it or touch it or even taste it, and if you look close if you are finally quiet if you shut your big fat mouth and open your big stupid mind you will see that it can surround you, make your heart race, tickle your skin, make you dance like a madman, losing control of all your useless human limbs. The world, like a friend told me once, or was it Woody Allen? The world is just one big delicatessen. And you my lovely better watch out, the Blue Knight is watching you, spying on you, but really he is just protecting you, from the wolves, from the gold eaters, from the world, the world that is not there.