Basil and Rue

 This morning I walked out to the front porch to water a basil and a rue before the sun came up. I know a little about basil, but nothing about rue. Yet when I saw these two at our local nursery, I found them so beguiling that I brought them home. Rue is reported to have medicinal qualities which I will probably never test. As usual, I have been slow to repot these plants, and now the heat wave just seems too intense to subject them to such a dramatic change of venue. My gardening skills are lax which is probably why I like hanging out in other people's gardens. 

As I stepped out on the porch with water pitcher in hand, I noticed a small reddish spider spinning or perhaps re-spinning its web. The spider is so small I could not see the web. Her tiny legs, which seemed more like arms to me, moved patiently in a slowly increasing circle. It was as if she was playing a harp that I could neither see nor hear. I took comfort in those few moments of listening to that which could not be heard, and watching what could not be fully seen. 

​The sounds of the stream

   splash out
      the Buddha's sermon

Don't say
   that the deepest meaning
      comes only from one's mouth

Day and night
   eighty thousand poems
      arise one after the other

and in fact
   not a single word
      has ever been spoken

~ Musō Soseki, translated by W. S. Merwin