About a Painting: "Natural State"

Natural State

It’s worrisome this “natural state”

this thing I proclaim to embrace

rejecting the manicured

the perfect

the weed-free

buried in the mire of physical labor

muscles hurt

weekends filled

dirt on me

everywhere

burrowed into the space between the tips of my fingers and the nails that grow there.

all of this natural state

trying to keep things as they are

as they should be

I say!

and then the winds and water come

and mother nature has a different notion

and suddenly

the state of natural is newly defined

the order I knew has become chaos.

he tells me not to worry

he tells me to accept what is

embrace it, he says

he is kind that way

maybe, I am not

I long for the perfection of what I already knew to be.

my notion of living in the state of natural

surrounded by the lush.

but nature is a changing vehicle

she never stands still

she spits out what we serve her

and spills it out haphazardly

she rejects our notion of natural for her own.

this woman

she rules always

my plantings and my messings and my laborings

they are incidental

a cough or a sneeze to her.

this woman

she rules always

it is her that decides the order of things.

I understand this now.