Extravagant

Extravagant is what gifts should be

Those lovely extras beyond the usual

functional necessaries

of a lean self-allowance.

The special chocolate or hand made salt from afar

the golden bees wax candles that smell of the hive

the fine design, the greatest of the small satisfactions

of still being alive

the catapulted sensory lift 

from the impacts of time, gravity

wear and tear

and mostly, of the mundane

In a world of plastic and polyester resin basics

extravagance is anything natural, elemental

non-composite, non-genetically modified

unprocessed, unfortified, unadulterated

In my world of paycheck to paycheck 

and hey, I’m grateful to have one,

extravagant is anything beyond my monthly bills.

Its the quality upgrade or the handmade, homemade

of extravagant hours submerged in creative productivity.

Extravagant will be that row of garlic next summer

bending in the breeze long after frozen fingers

and stiff joints packed them into their little graves

covering them for the long winter’s night

with their blankets of leaves.

Extravagant is the sensory world

when attention is grounded

the deep cleansing breath

the long sighing stretch

the simple life well attended.

The extravagant life is the antithesis

of mental poverty and superficial wealth.

It is what is fine, sublime, beautiful, comfortable, natural.

It is the luxury of time and presence

and the richest of it inherent in simply seeing, hearing, feeling 

and smelling the natural world and making something of it.

November 22, 2010