A Critique of Tomatoes

A man once sold me a piece of furniture. A table. The table where I sit to eat most every meal. Built by his hand. The design he stole from a monastery in British Columbia. His table would stand alone even amongst the droves of washed out and stained, dented and dinged, old or are they new tables in the streets of Taos.

He appears to me. Not as an apparition but as a frequent happenstance never coincidence in the streets of Taos. First, at the grocery store where he kindly reminds me I owe him the blanket I borrowed to transport the table. Now, at the corporate box store where he smiles as I interrupt his critique of this year's potted tomato plants.

The exchange of words today is the same as the day I met him befuddled and busy in his tiny workshop. There every workbench and every tool was covered in dust and the neighbor's dogs spyed feverishly from the windows of old junk cars. He said he had a bad run with booze and at 61 he was gonna beat it. And make a late return to the art, the color, the pleasures long since drowned. I said I had a bad run with trying. Trying to fly when I was better off walking.

With him it's easy to talk about the blessings in life, so today we do. Then about cell phones and head cancer, and the pros and cons of the wholesale furniture business. We shake hands the way monks would shake hands. Gentle and unknowing in the streets of Taos. We part ways and I sit on a cheap and uncomfortable bench waiting for a ride. Content as a magpie and not less colorful.