burns the fire

Just came in from the garden, our heavily mortgaged patch of paradise on earth. As an inbred city girl, I am increasingly fascinated by the mystery of life and death in our little backyard. Last month, I stumbled on a stiff mouse in the cut grass. Last week, I uncovered a bird under the ferns, spread-eagled on a feathery funeral pyre, and this morning I found a batch of trampled yellow flowers woven with matted tufts of fur. Mammal locks. I trailed the stuff with a stick only to discover more and more of it, snaking it’s way through the aching poetry of the flower beds. Black crows circled overhead, and it hit me: where the hell was it all coming from? A belch shot up my throat, and I swiftly recalled my resolve to look life (and death) squarely in the eye (see: If you can’t stand the heat), so like the late Diane Arbus at a freak show, I unflinchingly rooted through the garden for chunks of furry flesh, or crazed clouds of insects hovering ecstatically over glistening pounds of fresh, bloody kill. 

At lunch (grilled tofu and salad), my husband solves the mystery by telling me he heard a cat-fight in the back last night when I was out, a vicious battle for feline supremacy under the pear tree, that screeched like cats in heat; only much more violent and traumatic. In other words, like death. 

I’m strangely pissed to have missed it (where once I would have shielded my eyes), and realize with total serenity, that my bloodhound attraction makes me an animal, too.

(Final remains, under the ferns. R.I.P.)

GOOD NEWS FLASH: Check out Rabbi Michael Lerner’s (Network of Spiritual Progressives) passionate article ‘My Talk with the Saudis and What I Learned from Them’ about his fascinating, and dare I say- hopeful experience at the 2008 World Conference on Dialogue.

MOVIE PLUG: Fantastically community-minded filmmakers Kerry David (Agent Cody Banks, multi-award winning “My Date with Drew” and “Making Miles -The Miles Davis Story” for HBO) and bestselling author Michelle Cove invite you for a wild night on the town: a fundraiser for their documentary “Seeking Happily Ever After.” If you’re in LA on Thursday, August 14, please go, and give these enterprising gals your support. Also, check out IndieProducer; Kerry’s indie film site that seeks to bring us all together to make our dreams come true.