NEW YORK - I am bucolically befuddled. As a newly minted ruralist, a rube's rube, not only my senses but my sense of justice is in chaos. I spend a great deal of time on the back porch. There's no railing, for the deck slams into a thirty-foot slope. I don't look down at the flowers, the flowers look down at me.
Bees buzz around trying to find better seats.
They're never happy where they are. Every so often a hummingbird flies in, checks out the entertainment, and leaves. And I'm Oedipus. Those are the easy days. Rougher ones include wrenching inner challenges to deeply held beliefs.