Early Afternoon Yard Work (So Perfect)

I have never seen so perfect a man as he.

I am watching him sweep the patio from the dining room. The way he moves, each stroke so swift with vigor and resolution, his face dims with concentration. His focus gives him strength.

It is 2pm, and the sun peeks through cracks between clouds and early spring haze. Under skyscraping 150-year-old trees that strive to become one with the atmosphere, he looks up to the house, to the very roof top that covers me. He does not smile, only gazes with determination, embracing weighty responsibilities to make this house his castle with his queen. Perhaps it is a mammal-like instinct, like birds busy building their nests, or bears with caves ... or like humans with their shelters.

Arthur the cat (the real king of the castle!) runs across the lawn to climb onto the neighbor's patio.

He looks up and smiles at it. The dimness of concentration evaporates with the beams of light shining through his smile as he greets Arthur and the neighbor. The way he converses – he opens his heart and his life with each word he shares, soliciting for the world to do the same for him.

I have never seen so beautiful a man as he -- so much like me, yet so different, adorned with glorious merits and blemished with ugly faults, so human, so proud, so strong, yet so vulnerable. He represents what we all are.

See him.

See life.