Sober, grateful and computer-deprived, snatching time on a friend’s pc.
Large lumbering buses roar up and down the roads of the village bring mourning families in for Aids funerals. This is the sombre reality that begins each week. Continuing strikes and lock-outs and criminal violence. Small planes overhead spraying pesticides on orchards all around the village: elderly people have rashes on their arms and faces from the invisible toxins.
But this too: the flame of the coral trees, scarlet blooms on ironhard branches. The herbs in my raised bed are rushing up into bushy abundance and when I go out to water at dawn, the air is fragrant with wild jasmine, origanum, the new lavender. Each deep breath I take in the spring morning light is clouded with poisons but full of hope.
This beautiful broken world and the importance of just staying present to it.
Beautiful, the world is beautiful. The people in it sometimes not so.
Spring is such a wonderful season.