9 a.m. Cherie Nelson

Monday, March 8

CHERIE NELSON, 9 A.M.

BESS COOLEY, 11 A.M.

Green

We might paint our new front door on the white house a hunter color to match—compliment maybe—maple trees, the tulips an older lady planted there that begin to come up in early spring before they bloom to other colors—

yellow, white. When we finish our hard days’ work landscaping, digging around in the peatmoss dirt we’ll relax in the grass with iced matcha tea, a salad of lettuce, spring onion, cucumber, perhaps even a slice of pistachio cake.

The next day we hike in the forest long and slow, up some Smoky Mountain hills choked with kudzu and tall with fir and go plodding over the algae rocks, we’ll look up and the sky and sun will seem very far away.

Who could reach them? We don’t have a rocket ship: just day packs and sturdy shoes and a long climb.