“…drinking it all in but
never filling, never filled…”“This,” Luisa Igloria
I will water the plants when I get home, the nasturtiums’ quivering nonsensical tendrils, the fragrant thyme and globe basil, I will water them when I get home. I will care for these littlest things like I used to tend the altars, cutting wicks and wiping dust with absurd meticulous faithful care. I will water the plants. I will attend to them and drink meaning from my attentions like drinking life from the sun. I will put away the laundry which I washed and dried and folded with the unshakeable conviction that doing so made this day a better day. I will water the plants and put away the laundry and clear the paperwork from the kitchen table. I will do all this. I will slip into the not-cool-enough sheets under my grandmother’s quilt and I will not think about the hour–one or two or three–when sleep might crack like a fragile ornament. I will lay down full with the small tasks of the day counted up like marbles in a sack hanging heavy in my pocket. I will not think about watering the plants again tomorrow, I will only think about their undaunted yearning growth and I will draw a parallel from that and fill with it. I will water the plants when I get home.
“This” is in Luisa Igloria’s latest chapbook, Night Willow, published by Phoenicia.
如 (thus) 是 
What was what? I… I didn’t quite catch what your intentions were.
Signed,
Kevin
so mean
Of course, comedy only works with proper delivery. That was supposed to be, “What was THAT?”—but I tripped right out of the starting gate, so I guess the joke’s on me, and there’s no “delete” button with which I can sauver l’honneur. The punishment: I should water your plants for a year.
Beautiful. So beautiful. And this speaks to me on so many levels — about the daily tasks we take on; about sacred service; about being in the moment; about trusting in sufficiency. Yes.