Some Antonio Machado magic for these dog days of summer:

And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

From his poem, “Last Night As I Lay Sleeping,” translated by Robert Bly

O the courage of yarrow, 

impossibly blooming through 

abandoned asphalt. Yarrow—

meaning healing & love, 

meaning even the thickest lid 

above the wild seed of our hope

cannot contain tenacious life.  

Fifteen summer solstices ago—give or take a matter of hours—I wrote my first blog post here on Wordbody. There have been many books and paintings since then. Many things lost and a few things won. I’ve shared most all of them here. Some posts are long, considered essays. Others are the equivalent of a photo and caption. Some I think about for weeks. Others pop into my head the day I decide to post, inspired by a word or image. Like this one. 

You can easily guess at my inspiration. I came across this stuffed unicorn on my walk. It was much larger than it looks: almost five feet long, lying right there on the shoulder of our country road. I couldn’t help but wonder who had lost it, dumped it, or left it. 

These days, a unicorn is often a metaphor for a uniquely successful start-up or entrepreneur. But once upon a time—back when the equivalent of television was stained glass and tapestries—it represented qualities like purity, freedom, gentleness. 

I don’t have a grand plan for this post—it’s one of the quick ones. But to honor my blog’s quinceañera, I wanted to give her a gift. Not the dirty stuffed unicorn but what that mythical being once represented. Actually, I’d love for the world to give itself those gifts. Purity doesn’t have to be unique. Freedom doesn’t have to mean a financial boon. Gentleness doesn’t require a horn growing from the middle of our heads. Really, it’s a gift to know we can cultivate these things right where we are. 

Happy birthday, Wordbody. May the next fifteen years be full of everyday magic, too. 

O sweet seed—

you small not yet,

smaller already.

The final flower waits

in speck-sized faith.

Come forth—unfurl 

the gentle petals

of patience.