On my side of the Fence...

Over the last several days I have heard comments from others who do not believe that I am returning home sometime this year because of one single act and that is the act of my putting in my Moon Garden in my tiny courtyard. In some way it is like they cannot grasp why would anyone go through the time and trouble of gardening if they were "really going away".

On my side of the fence, it seems perfectly natural & normal to do such a thing as to bring about a Moon Garden because I am here and present today. And then it happened, a couple of small, but to me significant things happened.

First being I saw a small ad giving away large white irises with yellow throats similar to the ones in the picture. I always thought of irises as the poor gardener's orchid, elegant, distinctive, can thrive under neglect, yet able to show its magnificent beauty, growing in abundance. (kind of like me in some ways)...

And they are white which is what you need for a moon garden. White flowers of any kind under the moonlight looks like they are glowing. Its a lovely sight to behold and I wanted to be able to appreciate their beauty even at night since as the days grow longer and the nights warmer so their beauty can appreciate them right outside my door.

Well happily, a lovely woman ending up giving me over 130 irises, full grown that will bloom within the next month or so with more to come! I plan to mix them with night blooming jasmine, moonflowers & honeysuckles mixing in between them my moonstones, stepping stone with my poetry inscribed on them.

Ironically, I came to discover later this evening, this very same woman who gifved me the flowers, her husband is a native Louisianian who went to school right around the corner from where I lived as a teenager!

And these lovely irises have a yellow throat with yellow being the color of creativity and here I had for over a year had seemed to have lost my creative groove, just now getting it back. So it seemed to me more appropriate to have these irises. And how appropiate as later this evening, I received a call for submission for a new book on my art and solidified for me how timely that was for me to get that!

It made me think of this poem written a few year back but is right on the mark today:

HeArt of the Matter

By Jacquelyn Hughes Mooney©03

While the water laughed all around me…
And the wind opened its mouth to sing this song to me…

Again.
“I was moving backward on a forward highway…
Shall I question

(again)...

If this is what makes me whole?”
That is...

For me...

the heart of the matter.

This…
This thing, I am tilting toward…
Is it a renaissance?
Regeneration?
Can this phoenix bend the river’s current…
To what needs fulfillment?
For me...

It is

the heart of the matter.

Leading a satisfied life is my heart’s dream.
Throughout my soul are songs reaching…
For what beyond what I settled for.
Suppressing no more as the bough breaks
The matters of the heart, is for me.


No longer fine with regurgitated whine.
A sad, sad song spinning its wheel...
All that it kicked up was dirt…
But going nowhere in so much hurry.
Can I do it?

Will you do it?

I have done it

Turned on the light!

And I banished the shadows...

So I can shine...

Fiercely...
That is the heart of the matter.

Let me whisper loudly from my heart’s recesses.
I am walking proudly...

Graced with dignity.
And preserved all the beauty that is going

forwardly through the shining waters.
It is I...

the heart that matters.

All rights reservedJHM©03

So on this side of the fence as I read at the end of the email from this very kind lady stayed with me and I hope to to use : "Be a New Orleanian.. where ever you are"...

And to that I say

A'twas!