Sheila's Dribs 'n Drabs

My Oregon - 5 - Oregon Green The green of forest and meadow define this state, with shades touched gold, touched blue, or rainbow-hued in fields of blooms: The blue of water and white-capped waves like clouds fighting to escape: And the mist, unfinished painting of the Gorge, brush-strokes still fading, changing before your eyes: A road that climbs through forest deep, up rocks of silvered gray to water-falls to leap infinity: And a dry, desert land where I seek a lost angel, green lichen wings and robes of red, leached elements on rock… Not lost, for sacred legions float the breeze and ever guard this Oregon.

My Oregon - 4 - Remembering Blue After my first summer’s failure I hooked up the hose. Bright rainbows promised flowers, or gold. And I kept the dripping water from the siding with a chipped, cracked cup. Blue skies deep and wide as the Oregon ocean poured comfort down on me. And yellow dandelions winked up from brittle brown grass. Why plant more colors asked the summer sun. Why pour more water asked the river and sea. And lacking a green thumb I knew no answers, but rainbow bliss and a soft and soothing spray at the end of a day. Forget-me-nots heralded the next year’s spring.

My Oregon - 3 Orb of Gold That first winter, a single rose survived through wind and rain. Frost rimed the ground and tinged the petals brown, but still the last bloom’s yellow sun quivered, round and perfect and pure, at the end of a forgotten stem that I’d failed to trim. The base of the tree was a tangle of knotted wood, all the vines leading left, not right, as if something were blocking the way underneath. Something buried. Some secret nourishment that fed my secret rose. I could have dug for treasure, but instead I enjoyed the flower’s sweet summer scent on winter’s frozen wind.

My Oregon - 2 Pretty in Pink The bushes I planted my first year here were dead by the end of the season. I hadn’t realized Oregon summers would be so hot and dry. After all my labors only brittle twigs remained. I crushed it unseen while pulling weeds. Now six years on, six long hot summers, six droughts, and I’m weeding again; dandelion suns, daisies like bridal veils webbing the grass, and something dusty purple—or borrowed or blue. But the tiny pink flowers that trickle from pale woody stems are surely not weeds. Those bushes I planted my first year here bloom again, forever new.

My Oregon - 1 - Tangerine Moon I’d never seen the man in the moon till we moved to Oregon. I knew he was there of course; I’d seen pictures. But I thought maybe others had eyes more skilled, or imaginations more free. Then a friend said, “Look at the moon,” and I saw—the whole of his face, eyes, nose and mouth. Truly, a man watching from Oregon’s moon! Later that night, when hot summer’s sun turned to wind and rain in the midnight hour, an orange moon from the pumpkin patch was spying over me. I wondered then, what other mysteries hide in this countryside.