a confession

it startd when I was a boy. I'm not sure I was a weird child. all children seem weird. but somewhere along the way I became an arbophile. we had some willows that divid'd our property from the neighbor's. I loved climbing those trees. & yes I really did write some of my first poems -- awful wannabe pastoral paeans -- in those trees.

my current love is an apricot tree in the front yard. my architect   Richard Martinez   gave me as a housewarming gift 5 or 6 striplings in pots which he'd grown from pits. the ones I plantd in the back yard all died. but both of those I plantd in front remain 13 years later. Nature did one of its numbers on these trees. they are near each other & have been given the same amount of care but one is much smaller than the other. the larger one now has my affection. I delight in standing beside it while shooting water from the hose up into its branches. it's a simply glorious feeling of being alive.