Funemployment

I graduated from UCLA in December and moved back home. While I look for a job and wait for responses from graduate schools, I keep myself busy doing an odd assortment of things. In the mornings I usually spend a couple of hours sending applications and cover letters into the great black hole also known as the job market. In the afternoon I spend a lot of time exercising (running, biking, lifting weights). I have tried to pick up old hobbies that have been forgotten when I lived a busy life--poetry, drawing, painting, reading, knitting, etc.

This past week I was helping my mom in the garden. Mostly I was picking weeds.


Gardening

Clouds sit thick, they silence all sound
Rich and heavy, tranquility abounds
Except the delicate droplet that falls to the ground
Like plump fruit on a tree, succulent and round

Not a leaf stirs, no car engine groan
The green vibrancy, beauty enthroned
Breathing in earth, smelling wet stone
Picking oxalis, I’m in a zone

The hush clings tightly, like a warm embrace
With a gentle tug, the clover gives up its space
I shake the dirt off the roots of white lace
And invite new players to the sun and soil race

Then the sun pokes through, and the moment has passed
A bird lets out a tune, true and chaste
But the feeling inside is not fleeting so fast
The harmony in this garden is here to last.