Now let us have a little talk with ...

The morning had broken a clear blue and I stepped outside to put on my gardening shoes. There were sunflowers and moonflowers to thin in the front bed and weeds to pull. The sun was warm and rising higher into the sky. In time I began to shed my extra flannel shirts. I mostly kneeled in the soft soil, pulling up plants and tossing them into a five gallon bucket. I was in no hurry and I didn’t feel alone. Gardening can be an easy time to think about people that I care about.

And then I recalled a young woman from the other day and a conversation unfinished. There’s rarely time for more than a word or two while she’s working at the coffee shop. We were talking about loneliness – about someone that she knew who was learning to live alone. She told me that you can always talk with Jesus.

Now I haven’t spoken much in my native religious tongue in a long, long time. There is too much dissonance in my mind between the words and the tunes. I would just rather talk with a barista close enough to touch – but actually just glancing into each other’s eyes from time to time. Her very audible voice almost sounds in my ears before it reaches my mind and then lodges in my soul. I think that I still have a soul – whatever you want to call it. And then, that morning in my garden, there she was, close in my mind. You should know that I have a mind full of memories. And some of the old songs still resonate.

And then - then there was this. I only remembered just the one line from somewhere within me. A deep bass voice singing up from the depths: “Now let us have a little talk with Jesus, and da da da da dah.” And then I supposed that what happened after was only a bit of randomness. It wasn’t as if it was the very next instant or anything like that. But a yellow swallowtail landed among the moonflowers almost close enough to touch. I could have spoken my heart’s desire in that moment. It might have been a prayer. The wings of that yellow swallowtail beat almost in time with my heart. I didn’t feel alone.

Then the butterfly and whatever possible spirit fluttered off and I eventually finished my tasks for the morning. After lunch and a nap, I would walk to the river. And on my way home, I would stop at a coffee shop and have a little talk with a barista. I’ll give her some of my extra moonflowers if she wants them.

So sing it again for me, Willie. And thank you for listening. Sometimes the people who listen to what I have to say are the next best thing to a Great Spirit or a Creator of the Universe. These are merely the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart, after all. And perhaps I’m imagining things - but not that yellow swallowtail butterfly. If I lift up mine eyes, I see patterns of beauty and life enduring – if not forever.

I don’t feel alone.

YouTube - Willie Nelson sings ...