the house of dreams and poppies   Dense with the wreckage of my kind, my home in the city went bad. It ground my bones and spat me back to first things (God’s own neighborhood), to this holy pleasure dome and all its earthship amplitude. Alone, just a poor cat-feeding tender of plants . . . even so, I get rich on your aromas, navigate your milky way, and dance your medicine garden ballet . . . while high above the herbs and mirrors, buzzards ride a slow, rising coil of sun-kindled air, lazing in their dignity, with no plan you can ever know — just because they’re here and most of all, I think, because they can.     © Michael Fleming Cazadero, California August 1998