Love's a funny thing with a mind of its own, even when it lives in your heart:

I stood there with my feet on crumbling pavement, carrying a heap of worries and a 30 pound bag of dog food. Summer's branches lay dead on the driveway under a black winter sky. Icy stars and the sound of a faraway truck groaning up the long hill on Route 34 greeted me.

I watched Orion shift above bare tree limbs. I had a dream of tattoos in my head -- the needle filled with indelible hues staining me with buds, blooms, and bouquets stretching upward from my fingers and wrists, and decorating my arms.

From one gardener's lips tonight were beautiful words: If you have a good idea, do it. Lifetimes of space and struggle may rest between the thinking and doing. That's why we're here, I guess.

I am not good for too much now. I am tired. January and February walk off with my spirit and make it cold and small, then return it in the weeks before spring so I can bleed and strain a little more to revive it. But then the witch hazel will bloom and sunrises will push an earlier dawn. I really look forward to those ragged strands of yellow blooms.