My current blog is called 'the dark & the light'.
You may find it at:  http://thedarkthelight.blogspot.com/
The design is still in progress but there are morsels of writing posted nearly every day. Thank you for your interest -
Linda C. Foss, Ph.D.

# # #

the end.

The poem 'story and soul' is the last creative entry for whalesbreath.blogspot.com. I am in the process of moving, will start up a new blog at some point and post the new URL/address here. Thank you for your interest in my writing!

Sincerely,
linda 

(Linda C. Foss, Ph.D.)

story and soul

story and soul
 

time unwinds
like an old reel of film
jumping and crackling
on a tattered white screen
(oh - the acrobatics of the mind.
pause to repair
the broken story
we don't know
what part went where
each day becomes
terra incognito.)

let it go
let it go
breathe out
and feel that
the soul does flow
we float as one
like the surface of the sea
where there is no reason
only rhythm, rhyme, and Thee

the weaving of trails


The leaf started at point A
and floated down the concrete creek
to a rock and a twig
hanging out at Point B.

One grackle flew over the busy street,
flew from Point C to Point D.
another grackle flew from Point D to halfway across the street
and back to point D. He flew near Point B
splashed his big black wings
in the shallow water.

A car crossed the intersection,
Point E to Point F.
and another came down the street toward me
Point F past Point D and on to Point G.

A little cloud slowly tooled across the sky
Point H to Point I
and crossed a branch
before my eyes -
Point J the crossing.

the weaving of tangled trails
of leaves and birds
people and clouds
whispered threads
of our existence this morning
like the strings of a cat's cradle
in my mind
a pulsing pattern
from points past
to points future
all of us blithely flowing
toward some common destination
some common creation

our street

 

'Let's see, now.'

The girls are thinking. Brenda and Madison are going to tell us about the street they live on.

The Mercers next door have a very tidy front yard with a flagpole. No trees - and the grass is always short. We play croquet and marbles there sometimes. They let Joey and Mike throw the football around.

The Powers have a yard covered with shrubs and vines and things. You can't walk through their front yard. All through the spring and summer, they've got tall flowers like hollyhocks and things growing, and there are lots of butterflies, and some bees sometimes. I saw a hummingbird there! Their orange cat Porky sits on the front step and watches.

The Behrs have a big oak in the front yard - the leaves are all swept up and the grass is short and there's ligustrom making a hedge between them and the neighbors. When the ligustrom has flowers, it stinks! The flies and bees and these little butterflies love it!!! In the fall, there are acorns, and there are squirrels that collect them and there are squirrels that plant them in the dirt.

The Meyers don't have much, they're away a lot, but there's a honeysuckle vine on the fence. They don't mow their grass very often, and there's leaves and clover sometimes and dandelions and thistles and other flowers I don't know. Sometimes, there are blackberries by the mail box.

There's water in a dish by the leaky faucet, and the birds and butterflies go there. one time I saw a frog.

The Yees have this really big smooth driveway. They let us roller skate and skate board on it The dogs come out and bark at us, but if we hold still, they sniff us and wag their tails, and we get to stay. In their back yard - whoa! They've got this big garden and they grow flowers and have an apple tree and they grow pumpkins and squash and green beans and - what's that called - bok choy.

One year they had two chickens that laid eggs, but they gave them away. Somebody called the police or something and you can't have chickens in town or something.

At the end of the street, the fence is broken, and there's an old sofa with holes in it and there are things growing on the sofa. There's a jungle on one side - a big owl sits up in a tree. The shades in the window are all tangled up, and you never see who lives there - just a shadow walking by the window at night. That's the spooky house!!! We stay away except when a ball flies into their yard, and we make Walter go get it because he's the youngest and he won't get yelled at for going there.

And that's the street we live on- we like our street a lot!

Northern Exposure

Two episodes of Northern Exposure, the 1990s sitcom set in the fictional town of Cicily Alaska, came to mind today. The first has O'Connell and Fleischman walking through the forest one night, among the giant and steady trees. They're listening to hear the trees converse. One of them can hear trees conversing. The other does not believe in this at all, but tries to hear anyway.

The other episode shows the town's residents in a state of frustrated stuckness, their minds and bodies irritable as day by day and night by night they are holed up in a seemingly eternal winter. The episode ends with the breaking of the ice in the local river, the yearly mark of spring, the water rushing through the town again, bringing life and fresh air, relieving the state of tension.

Art and photography enthusiast that I am, my eyes follow the dark. My eyes follow the light. I'm looking at a hanging light fixture in the library, cylindrical in shape.  A square window of cloudy gray sky creates a pleasing background. The fixture is on, and it is glowing...like a lampshade shaped like a soda pop can.

Yesterday, a little later than this, I watched water funneling upward in the center of a fountain in a shallow pool. The late afternoon was cloudy, little direct sunlight, but the water cupped light like a chalice, or as a white poppy or lily might hold sunshine.

The light from the fixture is generated from a bulb within. The light from the fountain - I looked for several minutes and am uncertain how the bloom of light and water works.

kumquats

Kumquats are not uncommon in Louisiana where I grew up. Small, spicy, juicy citrus fruits, they grow prolifically on shrubs. The edible skins are much thinner than that of oranges and grapefruits, but still quite durable. Kumquats make good preserves, candied fruit, and syrups. Some people and other animals eat the kumquat whole off the tree; some dispose of the skins, and spit the seeds out.

The New Oxford American Dictionary states kumquats originated in China.

low slung arc
deep blue aglow
clouded old moon
yawning

From 7th through 12th grades, as in most schools of the era, we read lots of books. Some of them were fun; some of them were dense and challenging classics. There were a number of books that taught a lot more, that stretched out through the ceilings of our little school. There was a book about Father Damien and his life among people who had been set apart because they suffered from leprosy. There was Hiroshima - a small, powerful, people-oriented history about what it was like to be living in Japan at the time of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima (the first nuclear device to be used as a weapon in war). There was Black Like Me, and stories about Sojourner Truth and Booker T. Washington, both former slaves. There was The Diary of Anne Frank, a 13-year-old girl who recorded the months before she and her family were sent to concentration camps during the Holocaust of the 1930s and 40s. These books were helpful in gaining knowledge and developing empathy.

We also read and studied the Bible. Our school was founded by Catholic nuns in the 1800s, so that was not unusual as a part of religious education. However, over the years, I've seen that reading the Bible is a valuable part of a general education. In addition to the story of Jesus of Nazareth, it contains stories and historical events from many hundreds of years past. It has a lengthy family tree within it. Its books contain a lot of philosphy, wisdom, and human error. The Bible in some way or another has been considered a core issue in wars that have occurred. (It's worth trying to understand that.) And parts of what we westerners call the Bible are also contained in the holy books of other world religions, those both older and more recent than Christianity. Parts of their holy books might broaden what we find in our holy books.

With school came textbooks in math, literature, and science; civics, French, and history. In addition to the literature, I especially liked the geometry textbook.

One subject that I don't recall ever coming up in our reading is romance. Romance is a fundamental to life yet somewhat underrated in our country, both in school and out.

wash

I like drawings, simple sketches, where each line and color stands clear and distinct. I also like drawings and paintings that get more complicated. This can happen by using a wash. Brush water across the different elements of the work. The colors and locations blend into something more integrated; dividing lines are blurred.

In addition, when using a wash, the paper becomes wet. When the water and colors and paper dry together, the work is no longer pencil or ink on paper.  The media and paper are meshed as one. The work is whole.

There was 'Mother, May I?' 'Freeze tag', 'Blind Man's Bluff',  and 'Hide-and-go-seek'.  'A-tisket, a-tasket', 'Marco Polo', 'Crack the Whip', and 'Red Light'. With larger groups of kids, there might be a 'tug-of-war'. At school, sometimes we played 'Red Rover' outside. The class would be divided in half. Each half would hold hands and form a line facing the other side. There would be consultation among the kids in the team that was to call first. Who should they ask for? Once the decision was made, they sang out together, 'Red Rover, Red Rover, let Georgie come over!' The kids stepped away from Georgie as she planned her attack. This meant trying to gauge which kids on the other side had the least strong hold. Abruptly, she ran toward the other line. If she broke through, she got to return to her team. If the other side kept their grip locked, capturing her, she remained with them. The teams would take turns doing this, sometimes until there was only one person left on one of the sides as the winning team grew bigger and bigger.

a function of art:

Sometimes it's intentional. Sometimes it's not.

Art can be a way of expressing feelings or facts that are so sensitive to individuals or to a community, plain talk doesn't happen. Thus, the trombone solo, the poem, the painting, the play. We can't talk about some wars, family secrets, or tragedies head on, but the grief in a tube of paint can be a balm.

green bean casserole

There is nothing like the sensation and taste of a few peas right off the vine as you stand in a summer garden. That said, in winter, one is unlikely to come upon pods of peas still dangling on the vine. Instead, the wonder of canned goods comes forward.

Here is a recipe of my mother's that she would prepare at Thanksgiving or Christmas. We all liked it a lot. When I grew up and fixed it now and again, it was well received then as well.

Ingredients:

two cans @14ozs green beans, French cut
1 can petits pois (any green pea will do, but there is something special during the holidays about the tiny petits pois)
1 can Campbell's Healthy Request Mushroom soup
8 or more thin slices of cheese (American or Monterrey Jack or other favorite)
one small white or yellow onion, sliced paper thin
about half a cup of slivered almonds (especially good if toasted)
a rectangular glass casserole dish, approximately 13 X 8 inches

Preparation: 

Open the cans, and drain.

Layer 1 - spread 1 can of the green beans on the bottom of the dish. Sprinkle half the peas on top. Arrange half of the onions and nuts on that. Spread half of the soup on top of that.

Layer 2 - Repeat layer 1. Arrange cheese slices on the top.

If your family and guests are cheese enthusiasts, put cheese on both layers!

Bake uncovered at 350 or 375 degrees for 30-40 minutes. When the juices are bubbling, and the top lightly browned, you know it is done.

Let cool 15 minutes or so before serving.

wildflowers

wildflowers
sing with color
nodding in the breeze

welcome to
our gypsy lives
they say

we walk on
through the meadow
city life still audible

(cars grumbling
on the streets)
but for a moment

(flower stems and petals
lit with light)
far away

rumpled poet


he tossed his net
a second time
and snagged a verse
that failed to rhyme

Jingles were big in the 1950s and 1960s. Advertisements via radio and television were relatively new, and it became popular to have a few notes of melody and/or a few words that rhymed to help customers remember the product or service advertised.

Here are a few examples:

'Double your pleasure
Double your fun
With Doublemint Doublemint
Doublemint gum'

'Don't cook tonight
Call Chicken Delight!'

'See the USA
in your Chevrolet -
America's inviting you to call...'

'Winston tastes good
like a cigarette should...'

'Mmm, mmm good
Mmm, mmm good
that's what Campbell soups are
mmm, mmm good'

'Sugar Pops are tops!'

'Little girls
have pretty curls
but I like Oreos...'

When traveling on the road, one might occasionally come across the amusing Burma Shave ads. A series of signs would be placed at brief, equal intervals along the rural road, each with one line of an entertaining jingle.

Heraclitus

The Spring 2015 issue of The Key Reporter, a publication of Phi Beta Kappa, arrived in the mail yesterday. On the first page, there is mention of a proverb and its source:

'It was the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus who said you can't step into the same river twice, a memorable illustration of the principle that the nature of things is change.'

John Churchill, Secretary
Phi Beta Kappa

I went to Catholic schools from first through 12th grades, so I did hear about angels along the way. In first grade, there were Christmas programs, and we little kids sang carols that had angels in them. Later that month, the high school girls put on a program, and I think that's when I first heard the carol 'the first Noel, the angels did say -'. So beautiful, I felt trembly chills.

Somewhere in elementary school, we learned about God's archangels, and how Lucifer and God had a tiff. Lucifer was an archangel, but God and he parted ways, and things went downhill from there. I'm not the only kid who worried about Lucifer being punished for so long and wondered why he and God couldn't just make up and be friends again.

I can't say I had any personal angel experiences as a kid, although I was an angel in one or two Christmas plays, wearing wire covered in aluminum foil for a halo. Once, as an adult in the 1980s, I was reading the daily newspaper, and there was a brief article about an astronaut who thought he saw gigantic, ethereal beings on one orbital trip, but I never could find references to this again and I wonder if I actually read that or not. Wouldn't we have heard about it again at some point?

I liked the angel in the Jimmy Stewart movie, 'It's a Wonderful Life' - he wasn't particularly ethereal - a little gruff really.

A little kid once told me that when her grandmother was very ill, she got up in the night and looked in on her grandma. The girl's mother was in the room, keeping watch and they were the only people in the house. As the child returned to her own room, there was an angel standing on the stairs, she said.

I've given more thought to angels after meeting the little girl.

'as time goes by' continued

Yesterday I posted an excerpt from the lyrics of Herman Hupfield's 1931 song. I had looked at several sources for lyrics, including some discussion regarding how different performers had sung slightly different versions. The version I posted had one word that a performer reportedly switched from Hupfield's original work. It included the phrase 'things like third dimension'. From what I can weave together, it seems the original version was 'things like 4th dimension'. This would make sense as many people consider time to be the 4th dimension, and the name of the song is, after all, 'As Time Goes By'.

This day and age we're living in
Gives cause for apprehension
With speed and new invention
And things like 4th dimension
Yet we get a trifle weary
With Mr Einstein's theory
So we must get down to earth
At times relax, relieve the tension
No matter what the progress
Or what may yet be proved
The simple facts of life are such
They cannot be removed

You must remember this
A kiss is still a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things
apply as time goes by...

As time goes by...

This day and age we're living in
Gives cause for apprehension
With speed and new invention
And things like third dimension
Yet we get a trifle weary
With Mr Einstein's theory
So we must get down to earth
At times relax, relieve the tension
No matter what the progress
Or what may yet be proved
The simple facts of life are such
They cannot be removed

You must remember this
A kiss is still a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply as time goes by...


from 'As Time Goes By'
1931, Herman Hupfield, composer

The Texas Persimmon is not my personal favorite of all fruit, but it is well-loved by many other friends and neighbors from my past in rural central Texas. The small green persimmons ripen into soft fuzzy sweet dark fruit the size of a toddler's fist. As this occurs, the mockingbirds start hanging out in the vicinity. We had one wild shrub below our mailbox, and for a couple of months, that would be a hangout - the mockingbird diner. Golden-fronted woodpeckers visited the shrubs - and I wonder if bats at night ever showed up. Roadrunners, jack rabbits, yellow-billed cuckoos, black-chinned hummingbirds, and armadillos were nearby and may have enjoyed persimmons, but I can't say I ever actually saw them with a persimmon. The most amazing visitor was a tortoise - with a shell about 10 inches in diameter. Perhaps we would never have known of his existence in our neighborhood except for the persimmons - and later in the fall, the fallen berries beneath the pyracanthas. He ate both persimmons and pyracantha berries with great gusto.

Our Texas Persimmon trees were more like large shrubs than trees, reaching maybe nine feet in height maximum. The leaves were small, dark, and shiny, I believe - well suited for surviving the sometimes arid summers, and dusty, limestone soil.

sapling redbud 
your slender knobby limbs
robed in ruffled flowers
the color of raspberry wine

shiny buds of leaves
stretching, unfolding,
like little green socks
at the tips of your skinny branches -
they yawn and look out -
where are we?

redbud sapling - only yay high -
such a funny tender sight
like a little kid
who napped in the laundry basket

Horses once existed in the wild, in herds. Horses once galloped far among themselves, to where their instincts, their ears and sense of smell, guided them.

Now, almost all horses can't survive without a human. Life is like a labyrinthe - horses cannot leave their fenced-in homes without a human-driven vehicle and a horse trailer, or a human guiding or riding them along roads and streets to another gated area. Much of their diets are determined and provided by their owners, rather than met in the wild meadows of grains and grasses, berries, crabapples, and plums. Many are single - out of touch completely from other horses.

Many humans now support the preservation of wilderness areas. (This didn't use to be necessary, a human decision. Wilderness just existed, and humans were a a part of that wilderness with all other species. There has been rapid, dramatic change especially in the last two centuries.) Somehow, thinking of the evolution of horses from their independence, to dependence on and subjugation to humans, makes clearer a bigger perspective. How important wilderness is to the souls of horses, and to the soul of all life on our dear planet earth!

the red thread

There is always something new to discover (especially at a library). Today, I read a children's book called The Red Thread by Grace Lin. The first line I saw was on the front cover flap: 'There is an ancient Chinese belief that an invisible, unbreakable red thread connects all those who are destined to be together.'

old tools and instruments

The instruments of some famous or professional musicians gather a bit of attention themselves. I remember that Stevie Ray Vaughan and Willie Nelson both had guitars that they addressed by name (but cannot remember their names at the moment). Musicians bond with their instruments - to make a glorious sound, for a bit of time, the instrument and the musician become as one.

This is an introduction paragraph to what I was thinking about - the relationship of hand tools to carpenters and mechanics and weekend puttlers. The hand learns the precise weight and shape of the hammer or wrench or saw. The hand changes to meet the tool - smooth pain free callouses in the contact areas. The tools gradually change as well. There is something special about using a hammer someone has worked with for twenty years. The wood handle has grown smoothed - you won't get any splinters. Like the violins and banjos of musicians, one's tools carry with them the history of years of good use.

cranes

Some of the largest birds I've seen in my life have been sandhill cranes. Living in central Texas, we would hear raucous clattering and chattering outdoors, only to find a flock of cranes, making their way overhead, noisy as a bunch of teenagers on a Saturday night. They passed over around Thanksgiving as they were arriving from the north heading to winter on the gulf coast of Texas. One winter, driving between Port Aransas and Corpus Christi, we passed seashore type meadows and could see the colorful head of cranes, with red markings, peering above the tall grasses. They must have been close to five feet tall.

Traveling through south Florida around 2003, a pair of sandhill cranes wandered the parking lot of a motel where we spent the night. We were told they spent a lot of time hanging around, and were given food by those who worked there.

I've never seen the whooping cranes, rather perilously low in population. The only other cranes I've seen, just as fascinating although not of the same formula as birds, are the very tall construction cranes, used to build skyscrapers in cities. They are visually appealing. When I've been in a spot where I can sit and watch them, they look like strange creatures, hob-nobbing in the wilds of the city.

his name eludes me
the artist
sitting near the rice fields -
chair, easel
paints, palette
a tin pail of water -
his paintings growing
beneath his brush
like the green sprouts near him
rooted to the watered earth
drinking up the sun

she pokes a hole
into the dark earth
and plants the seed;
she's growing a poem.
will there be roots
will there be leaves
will there be words
dangling in the breeze
gold and brilliant
as aspen leaves?
she murmurs sweet nothings
to no one in sight;
the seed glows in the deep
of another's warm heart

Four important dates occur each year, regardless of one's culture or the type of calender one prefers. These four dates neatly divide the year into four seasons. They are: vernal equinox, summer solstice, autumnal equinox, and winter solstice.
Vernal equinox marks spring; summer solstice, summer; autumnal equinox the fall; and winter solstice for winter.

These are not arbitrary dates, but are observable events in the cosmic clockwork of our planet's yearly orbit around the sun. Let's say that every day (night and day included) is 24 hours long.  Sunrise marks the beginning of day, sunset, the beginning of night. On the two equinox dates, the day and night are of equal length, 12 hours between sunrise and sunset; twelve hours between sunset and sunrise. Spring equinox is drawing near, with equal night and day. As the days move past the equinox toward summer, they will gradually become longer, the nights shorter, until the longest day of the year, the summer solstice. After the solstice, the days gradually become shorter until they are equal to the night again at the fall equinox. After the fall equinox, they continue to grow shorter until the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. We light candles and put up tiny little lights to see us through the dark season. The days once again grow longer back to the spring equinox, when day and night, wherever you are on earth, are of equal duration.

In ancient times, architects and astrologers consulted, and oriented their sacred structures to mark where the sun rose and set on these special dates.

sun gives the gift

the sun gives the gift
of the wonder of grapes
the wonder of wine
the wonder of berries
right off the vine

written music

Writing has been a means of communication for humans for thousands of years. Some written languages use pictograms, some use symbols representing the sounds of the language when spoken. Some are tactile, such as Braille, which uses patterns of little raised dots as letters. I like looking at samples of ancient writings, and of writing that is very different from our alphabet. I think each offers its own gifts, and each is like a puzzle that uses different parts of the brain to be comprehended. Some are symbols that translate into the spoken language of the writer. But some are visual languages of their own.

Then, there is that writing that translates into wordless sound - such as written music. Anyone who has been in choir or taken a piano lesson or two is familiar with the horizontal lines and the little black dots between and upon them that mark out different notes, a system recognized world wide for some centuries. The lines and spaces between the lines each mark out a half step in pitch.

There are other ways of writing music from different cultures, and ancient songbooks have their own symbols and patterns. Some use colors, others use numbers. Some are written music expressly for specific instruments. For example, with a guitar, there are small graphs and numbers that communicate which strings and which frets are used to produce a certain chord. I like looking at our traditional written music because it translates sound to a physical representation of the path melody takes. Several dimensions become evident. There is the dimension of pitch varying up and down. The pattern of the notes left to right is a kind of timeline.  The silent image of sound in itself is a pleasure to look at - art, language, and physics on a single page of music.

cars and antelope

Bear with me please today - this is an idiosyncratic entry. For some months, I've been pondering over how many names there are for animals like gazelles. I'm still struggling to remember the ones I once knew. I noticed that several automobiles of the past were named after such animals, and then lost a couple of the memories along the way. Below are the lists of words my memory has - grudgingly - coughed up. There is some connection between the vehicles that have multiplied over the past century, and the creatures who have dwindled. There is also something that goes deep in a list of names we have given our truly loved vehicles. No agenda here, just waking up something.

duiker
impala
gazelle
antelope
buick


car nation

chevrolet
buick
impala
sequoia
forester
corolla
corona
chrysler
suburu
honda
toyota
expedition
ranchero
suburban
infiniti
mustang
thunderbird
jeep
volkswagen
ford
rambler
cadillac
lincoln
volvo
seville
new yorker
voyager
civic
delta 88
firebird
gremlin
opel
F-250
cougar
monte carlo
rabbit
Falcon
Model T
odyssey
mitsubishi
skylark
beetle

There is an American tradition of hanging a horseshoe over a doorway for good luck. You have to hang it the right way, like a cup, to hold that good luck. If you hang it upside down, your luck might run dry.

It's a mystery to me why horses require shoes in the first place. They have some of the toughest feet in the animal kingdom!

grumpy clerk

it's Tuesday morning
up the river
of years past
a grumpy clerk
stands behind
a check-out counter
no store
no aisles
no goods
no ceiling
just the clerk
in his white apron
and a counter.
He frowns down at me
his face as big
as a mustached full moon.
'Well?'
he threatens.
His eyes glint blue
behind his wire spectacles.
I choke and giggle
at the same time
and run fast as I can.
Maybe he'll still be there
tomorrow?

baby formula

Our mother was a nurse who served in the army in the Pacific in the 1940s. I'm not sure if she learned about baby formulas from those days, or learned it from nurses' training in New Orleans, but - circa 1960 - she had a recipe, one that she used and sometimes slightly adjusted for different mammals. We used her formula when one of our nanny goats birthed three kids and could only feed two of them. (The third became our pet - Ta-Tee - who we nursed from birth.) We used the formula when a doe was hit by a car, and left behind a young fawn, and we used it for baby kittens. During the severe drought in the late 1950s, she was called for the recipe now and again. (By then, she was an obstetrical nurse, and pre-mixed baby formulas were not yet available everywhere for moms having difficulty nursing their infants.)

She kept the recipe tucked in a cookbook no longer accessible, but the ingredients included powdered (cow's) milk which comes in a box (or evaporated milk which comes in a can), Karo brand corn syrup, which was a clear, thick, sugary liquid, and clean water. (There may have been other ingredients, perhaps egg and a pinch of salt, but the milk, syrup, and water are all that I remember for certain.) Once combined, I think the formula was brought just short of boiling, and then cooled to room temperature for immediate use, or kept chilled in the refrigerator until needed. The infants drank eagerly from a sturdy glass baby bottle with a rubber nipple. The formula was a good one - I know for certain Ta-tee thrived, lively and cute, and gradually joined the other goats in the pasture.

Mom, who was a nurse, was at home from work because we kids - her children - had chicken pox. We were past the fever part, for which we took baby aspirin. We were at the scratching away at runny, itchy, spotty pox part, not dying or anything. She took advantage of the day at home to plant a garden near our front door.

First she planted pansies, deep glowing yellows and purples. That may be the first flower I learned by name because of that chicken pox day garden.

Most places I've lived have local rocks and such to border decorative plants and vegetable gardens. In south central Louisiana at that time, the terrain so flat along the gulf, rocks were not common at all. People used varied plants to border their gardens, and Mama planted monkey grass next, each plant a hardy fountain of low-lying strands of dark green vegetation. Monkey grass withstands freezes and heat, comes back cheerfully no matter what, it seems.

Seeing Mama contentedly planting the pansies and the grasses was a kind of reassuring antidote to our illness, which continued to rapidly fade away.

'Grey Seal' is a song composed by Elton John and Bernie Taupin. I had the good fortune about a year ago to find via YouTube an unadorned, moving video of Elton John singing the song. Not a public performance, it was just him and his piano. The words are poetic, the kind that don't speak quite logically, but rather open doors with little phrases that act like turnkeys. Thumping the piano, he sings with sincerity and passion. The song is addressed to Grey Seal, and I've wanted to hear Elton John and Bernie Taupin talk about how the song came to be.  How did this line come to be: 'Tell me, Grey Seal, how does it feel to be so wise?'

rubber

When I was very young circa 1960, there were quite a few products around us that were made of rubber. There were rubber balls to play with. There were boots to wear over your shoes in the rain. They were called 'rubbers', and sometimes 'galoshes'. Babies wore rubber pants that covered their cloth diapers. This protected furniture and parents from leakage. Not certain, but I assume the rubber bands that held rolled newspapers together during delivery were made of rubber. Bicycle and car tires were made of rubber.

Rubber products are fashioned from the goop that comes from the rubber tree. Plastics - there are so many types of plastics - are made from petroleum and gradually have overtaken the role of rubber.

it's my birthday.
i woke up feeling sluggish
so i'm going slow.
living the day like a slug.
a different world, it is,
when you take it slow -
the air bright and clean -
gremlins and elephants
waving from the trees

poor shoes

poor
shoes
poor socks
poor slippers
with rocks
the sky is falling
and then it's not

the mice teach us
to repair our shoes
we gather the broken
flower pots

poor plants
poor birds
it's been a long haul
but God bless God
hell is under
deconstruction
a smidgeon of heaven
on the horizon

Thinking about proverbs this morning, after all these years, I could only access two of them in my mind. And those - I'm not certain I really understand them!

'A stitch in time saves nine.'
'A penny saved is a penny earned.'

Then came 'Birds of a feather flock together.' But there's also 'Opposites attract.'

Beatrix and Walt

Looking at a compilation of the works of Beatrix Potter (circa 1900), I'm taken by the pleasurably detailed illustrations. Her artistry is superb, and the content of her illustrations if quite a treasure of the trivia of bygone days in England. The characters of the tales she chooses to illustrate include mice and rabbits, sparrows and laboring tailors. Her art is very realistic (in contrast to more cartoon-like children's books). The blackbirds flock to visit the simple scarecrow the farmer makes by hanging his coat in the breeze. The tailor works with fabrics of lace and satin, cloth embroidered with birds and flowers. When his energy fails, the mice take over the sewing while he sleeps, and they stitch dozens of buttonholes. There's a sense that the artist was very familiar with birds and mice, she creates such genuine connection between the beasts and the reader.

I wonder if Walt Disney had any of Potter's books when he was a child. His feature-length cartoon musicals were filled with animated creatures - spirited, and aware, whether mischievous or helpful. I was always drawn to the beginning of Cinderella, with the mice and birds singing as they created a dress for Cinderella to wear to the ball. It's possible he was passing down a tradition of fairy tales and children's stories (in the new medium of animated film), where the cats and humans and fish and rabbits and crickets share the stage, share the humor, tragedies, and wonder of life.

Merrycatterwaller

Merrycatterwaller was a fine spotty cat who lived in a house with a family of humans. Every day, he amused himself, eating dandelions, chasing insects in the grass, and watching the antics of the people. Bells and buzzers went off in the morning, and the humans lugged glumly out of bed. The parents hollered at the kids until they were up too. The parents ate no breakfast, and they made the kids eat breakfast.

To make a long long story short, Merry loved the family of human pets, but would never understand them. Merrycatterwaller ate from his bowl, or the little gifts of herbs and proteins in the yard, when he was hungry, and drank if he was thirsty. He didn't if he wasn't. He never thought about sleep at all, just curled up when he felt like it, and things were calm. Unlike people, he didn't worry about when or how long he slept because he knew nothing about clocks and hours and meetings. He intersected somehow with his girlfriend Jelly Bean, the neighbor dogs and squirrels and sparrows as needed without scheduling. Sometimes when he was up in the night, he slipped through the cat door, and sang and sashayed under the moon. (He had to live up to his fine name!) When he came back in, he checked on each of his peeps, jumping on the bed, orbiting about them, purring in their radius. He stayed on the bed if one was tossing and turning until all was calm once more. He knew he was a bit of a worrycat, but humans! Sometimes they made the hair on his tail stand on end. Merrycatterwaller loved them anyhow.

icicles dangle
from the bottom of a stop sign
on this gray morning.
a cedar waxwing drinks
from a puddle on the street -
they flock and float
like leaves on a breeze.
a gem of ice
falls from a tree
to the pavement before my feet
and sparkles.
a redbud stands
in full bloom.

Carl Sagan on Whales

I've had the good fortune today to read a bit from Carl Sagan's well-received book, Cosmos, published in 1980. On pages 272-273, he writes about whales. He recounts how whale songs can be as long a work as the Odyssey, that the whales can repeat again and again the complex material sound by sound. He reports incidents where pods of whales sing or speak the same song together, and that some repeated communications of considerable complexity change when the pod returns from a migration, as though they have edited their communication. Sagan states that hearing is their primary sense, which is one factor in the development of such a complex repertoire. He states the whales communicated across tremendous oceanic distances in the thousands of years before humans industrialized life, but that the noise production of commercial and military vehicles has greatly hampered their ability to hear each other. He expresses concern about the slaughter of such intelligent animals for unnecessary products.

'We humans, as a species, are interested in communicating with extraterrestrial intelligence. Would not a good beginning be improved communication with terrestrial intelligence, with other human beings of different cultures and languages, with the great apes, with the dolphins, but particularly with those intelligent masters of the deep, the great whales?'

I watched a piece of roadside equipment today. I'm very ignorant of these things and don't know the names for the different machines along the streets and highways and public utilities today. This is the second time this week I've watched intriguing machinery. The first one that was breaking up road surface would take a while to describe. This one is a little easier, maybe. I'm so ignorant I don't even know what parts to focus on, or how to label the parts. The first thing I saw that caught my attention was a kind of jointed metal arm maybe ten feet long when extended, with a hinged, beak-like scoop at the end. It was attached to a vehicle. When I arrived, it was making a lot of racket, the arm aiming down at the ground and knocking like a slow-motion jack hammer, although not designed like a jack hammer. It looked like a shore bird pecking the sand for shellfish. It pecked in one spot, then cautiously tried another, as though it were searching for the right spot. Then it changed function. It gently scooped crumbled earth into a vehicle behind it. Very gently. I know these adverbs like 'cautiously' and 'gently' give it life-like attributes. Yet, they seem to suit what I saw. As I left, I could see there was a human in the little cabin of the vehicle. Was I watching a close-knit human and machine team - like that described in the very old children's book, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel? How does the machine function with replacement drivers? With basic physics and our definition of life, we know the machine is not alive. But does it have feelings?

The only time I've worked with litmus paper was in Sister Guillory's classes around 1969. We dipped one end of a slip of paper into a dish of liquid to determine its acidity. We tested liquids like lemon juice, vinegar, Clorox bleach. If the substance was acidic, the paper changed color to a reddish pink. If it was base (alkaline), it turned blue. There was a number scale - the darker the red, the higher the number reflecting the strength of the acid. The darker the blue, the more basic, earning a negative number. There were some neutral substances - I think I remember water as one of them - that were right in the middle, ranking 0. The paper turned a pale purple. A brief glance at internet resources suggests that current tests and scales may be different than what I recall us using back in the 1960s. The litmus test was easy to use and comprehend, a fun way to learn about acidity.

plaid

a thread of gold
a river of grey
side by side.
the weavers ply
the colors -
some of impulse
some of slow consideration.
cross strings of thunderous blue
or shall the red join in?
over under over under
colors brushing side by side -
or a safe thumb's width apart -
the clack of the loom
sounds a woodsome rhythm
and a visual pattern
bold and noisy
subtle and wise
fabric so fine
is the plaid

When I was a kid, I wasn't very good at reading a map, or knowing which way was south or which way was east. I thought this was some kind of flaw in me, that direction was gift that you either had or did not and I was one of the have-nots in this particular skill. I couldn't point to Lafayette on an empty map of Louisiana. I was easily disoriented - and still have an embarrassing memory of getting a ride from school with some upper high school kids, and not being able to show them how to get to my dad's office.

Sometimes, life draws up its own teaching plan. At eighteen in 1971, I moved to Denver, Colorado for college, and lived there for three years. Without thinking about directions or studying any maps or books, an inner grasp of north, south, east and west came my way like a blessing, for in Denver, the mountains never moved. No matter where I was in town, the mountains were visible, and they were always to the west. The other directions fell into place from there.

The Colorado Rockies were one of the most moving natural features I'd ever met. The aspens shimmering in gold and white each fall - and just the weight and majesty of these giant formations stunned me. The sounds of the motion of the trees so high above, the lightness of the air in the high altitudes, the lively beauty of the streams and the stones polished smooth by centuries of the flow of water. When I'd leave Denver to return to Louisiana, it was often late in the day. From my airplane window, I could see the sun setting over the mountains, the sky veiled by strands of orange and pink and grey cloud. I didn't like the leavetaking, I was so attached, and hoped never to lose this life in Colorado.

band-aid

there's no quicker way
to ease a kid's tears
or a grown-up's worries
about an injury than
to put a band-aid on it.
it's as though the problem
by no longer being visible
no longer exists.
I know the bo-bo hasn't disappeared
and what caused it hasn't disappeared
and maybe it still aches or itches
but i still cheer up
at the sight of a band-aid.
There's a sense of protection -
that there will be no more hurt to the wound
as long as there's a band-aid on it.

Johnson grass

Haven't seen much Johnson grass of late and don't know whether to be worried or relieved. For many years, we had Johnson grass show up in our yard and garden - simple looking plants with single shoots of strong, slender green - up to eight inches high maybe. They were considered weeds. Their reproduction rate was rapid and fascinating. The thin, stringy, strong roots were attached to a hard, black, seed-like ball. From there, more roots grew and another ball would develop, and another, and another and each had the shoot above the ground, and remained connected to many of the others - a kind of underground network that was difficult to slow down, but different from the other wild plants in this fascinating successful approach to reproduction. I'm not expertly knowledgeable about these plants, but you learn a bit from hours of pulling up the grasses over the years. If the root ball didn't come up with it, the grass was only temporarily daunted. Actually, I admired the sturdy little things. I liked the Johnson grass in the yard - drought and heat resistant. It's just we didn't agree on location issues when it came to the garden.

late winter sunlight
filters
through unfurling flags
of delicate green -
newborn leaves
powdery bright
with light

Our dad used to ponder that over 200 years after Benjamin Franklin tinkered with and wore spectacles to sharpen his vision, we humans are still wearing glasses - of varied sizes, materials, shapes of frames and formulae for the lenses. 'Shouldn't we have come up with some new and improved invention by now?' he asked. I look around the library where more than half of the patrons and staff are wearing lenses perched upon our noses, earpieces clasping our tender ears, and wonder the same.

meanings of spring

Many words in our English language have multiple meanings. I'm thinking about the simple little word spring. Without doing any prior research such as looking in a dictionary, a lot of uses come to mind. Spring is a time of year, one of the four seasons, the one where winter ends, and new leaves sprout, and birds flirt and dance and build their nests.

Spring is a coiled piece of metal with many purposes. When you wind an old-fashioned watch, you're tightening a tiny spring. There's a spring in a pogo stick. (The toy called 'Slinky' is nothing but a spring.) There are springs that keep the car chassis from bouncing too hard when traveling on a gravel road, and you can see springs on railroad car wheels. (I don't know the lingo about train mechanisms.) There are springs that pull the farm gate or the kitchen screen door closed after you swing it open. There is a spring in many ball point pens that permits us to tuck the inky point away so it doesn't smear on your shirt pocket.

Another use of the word spring is regarding a natural source of clean water, where the pressure and movement of the water below the ground forces the water to the surface through some natural passageway, like a chasm between rocks. Some surface ponds and streams are fed by springs. Many such springs have been turned into resorts or recreation areas. Hot Springs in Arkansas draws vacationers and people in search of healing. Our visits to a hot springs in southern Alberta, Canada are memorable - breathing the Rocky Mountain air - so cool and crisp - while immersed in a large pool nestled against a cliff, a pool of hot soothing water rising right from a spring. It's source must be very deep to be so hot. Here in Austin, Texas, Barton Springs draws swimmers, especially in the summer, where the 65 degree Fahrenheit water is a treat in contrast to a 100 degree afternoon. (Historical accounts suggest that many such springs were popular with those who lived in North America long before the arrival of the Europeans and Africans.)

There is a verb, to spring, which is to leap like a wallaby, a hare, a frog, or a kid competing in the 'broad jump' part of a track and field competition. There are even fancier springs for people who participate in gymnastics.

Amazing how far one can meander with one humble little word.

the world
¡peligro! compliqué volatile
just a drop
in the great sea

easy recipes

Many people have grown up on the relatively cheap foods provided in fast-food restaurants. There are many advantages to eating fast food - tastes good, ready if you are in a hurry, no dishes to wash, available to those whose living situation does not include cooking facilities. The down side is that there is a lot of waste from the eating utensils and food containers (styrofoam or plastic or paper cups, plastic spoons and sporks, boxes, wrappers, et cetera for the main course).

Another interesting phenomenon is that now, two or three generations of people in some families have grown up without learning how to prepare food, without ever having shopped for and handled some of the basic ingredients. Many, though, are pleased to be introduced to these experiences.

Here are two recipes: homemade potato salad and apple pie. These should be fairly simple. If you like your results, you can always experiment with a more sophisticated version on your next try.



Baking a potato is a cinch. Wash a medium-sized Idaho potato (or use smaller potatoes, like reds, which would less time to bake) with water. Put it in a regular oven, or in a toaster oven that has 'bake' on one of the knobs. Bake at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for about an hour. Remove carefully with a thick pot holder. Tada!

You can eat your potato plain, or with salt and pepper, or butter, or sour cream, or chopped onions, chives, green onions, or some bits of cheese, or salsa, or all of the above.

If you bake an extra potato, or have half a potato left, you can later make:

Baked Potato Salad

cold baked potato
your favorite ranch salad dressing
your favorite mayonnaise
bread and butter pickle slices

Remove the potato skin (not necessary for red potatoes). Cut the potato into little cubes. Chop some of the pickle slices. Place potato and pickles in a bowl. Add equal amounts of salad dressing and mayonnaise, enough to coat the potatos, to your liking. Mangia, mangia!


Apple pie

Buy a package of 2 frozen pastry pie crusts. Almost any type apple will work - you'll want three to six depending on the size. The hardest work is peeling and cutting the apples into thin slices approximately the same size. Then, put them in a bowl. Add a couple spoonsful of sugar or honey or syrup, and stir with a big spoon until the apples are lightly coated. (You can add spice like cinnamon or nutmeg or a tiny bit of clove if you have it on hand, but not too much. Too much spice will overpower your fresh apples. You can add a tablespoon or two of flour if you like thicker juices. Lemon juice for a little spark.) Fill one of the pie crusts with the slices of apple. Dab some butter or margerine (or pour a little olive oil) on the apples if you have some.

Some people place the other crust carefully on top and pinch the edges of the two crusts together. Mine ALWAYS breaks. I cheat some times, and just place squares and triangles of the pastry on top of the fruit. It looks beautiful and artistic when it comes out, and no hassles with pinching the crusts together. Sprinkle a little sugar on top of the crust. Place the pie on a sturdy pan and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 45 minutes or until the juices are bubbling and the crust is happily browned. Let cool for an hour - it stays very hot for a long time! A slice of cheddar cheese, or some vanilla ice cream goes well with apple pie. You've baked an American tradition!

it's 1925

it's 1925
six men in black jackets flapping in the breeze
men with horns and drums and tambourines
rumble down the street
making a fat noise
for old Mr. Martin
God bless

The other day, as I walked home from the post office, house sparrows were darting to and fro in the limbs of a tree. One was on the ground, pecking about in the dust and winter-bleached grasses. When I approached along the sidewalk, the sparrow shot straight up, a perfect vertical line, to a twig some twenty feet high in the tree. This took no more than a second. Although it's possible the wings fanned so fast that it wasn't discernable to my eye, I saw no flapping of wings. I asked, how'd you do that?! The sparrow gazed down at me like a proud little stuntman.

the invitation

Come find me
called one hedgehog
to another
on the far side
of the crumbly stone wall.
you'll know me by
the smell of the February sun
on my head
and the green clover
near the roots
of the old weeping willow.
OK was the reply.

map

'I'd come visit you,' he said, 'if I could just find Mars on my map.'

drum

we come into existence
to the drum of our mother's heart

touch

There are many studies that demonstrate the importance of touch in the development of a healthy mind and body. The two studies - that go quite far back now - that come to mind now and again involve primates - monkeys and humans. One was a lab study from the 1960s that now would be considered unethical, but attracted quite a bit of attention at the time it was reported. The researchers separated monkeys from their mothers after birth. They constructed a cylindrical object about the size of a mother using wire and attached bottles of formula as needed. The infants learned to feed from the wire mother. The researchers also constructed another wire frame, but this time with no food. The wire was covered with thick soft fabric. When frightened, the researchers discovered baby monkeys did not seek out the source of food. Instead they would race to the cloth 'mother' and cling tightly to it.

The other studies followed an increase in deaths from a syndrome known as 'failure to thrive'. These were studies conducted in hospitals that were concerned about babies - such as those born prematurely or those awaiting adoption - who seemed to have no serious physical problems, but didn't respond to treatments and didn't take to feeding.  The failure to thrive syndrome became such a concern, that it was studied closely.

It seems that after WWII, medical services became more programmed and regulated. Babies were to be fed by the clock rather than according to their show of hunger - that kind of thing. Babies were not to be handled too much because of fear of germs. The influenza epidemics - such as that around 1918 - and the polio epidemic peaking in the 1950s - had changed the emphasis from hands-on treatments to sterile procedures. Fear of germs had increased tremendously.

The failure to thrive studies looked at babies who, with the cautious practices of the era, were handled very little. The studies also recorded data on babies treated more like infants at home before the new science of infant care. The studies discovered that babies who were held while fed and cuddled close to a caregiver's body several times a day had a much greater rate of thriving and surviving than those infants that were handled the new way, as little as possible.

The importance of touch - to horses, cats, dogs, whales, et cetera - to old and young - has long since been documented and acknowledged. Many interpret these kinds of findings as demonstrations of the innate nature of love, and that love is integral to life on this planet.

Jack o' Lantern

Jack of the Lantern (a.k.a. Jack o' Lantern) got into trouble a long long time ago some place in Europe. One version has it that he was kind of a greedy guy and didn't share with those about him who were hungry, but who knows what he really did to earn being in some kind of hell for eternity. He knew he was assigned there for forever, and even though he may have changed (over the years, the decades, the centuries) and maybe even was kind and considerate of those around him, he couldn't get a pass out of jail, so to speak. Still - a resourceful and determined fellow - he didn't give up. He carved a big old turnip into a lantern, and used a stick to nudge a burning lump of coal inside. During the night, he wandered about the infernal territories looking for the trail to heaven.

In the United States of America, we carve pumpkins into Halloween decorations and call them Jack o' Lanterns. I've never heard an ending to the story except that Jack o' Lantern continued to walk the nights in search of an exit.

I like to imagine the original Jack o' Lantern one night found his way out. Maybe he learned the passageways of the cities and countryside so intimately that he became a guide for lost souls in and out of the gates of hell, his funky lantern a kind of dim and faithful eternal companion.

i slog up the sidewalk
meeting life like a roadblock.
a thin square of paper
perched on a twig
floats on a whisper.

rip flag

We were a girls' school but we got to play football sometimes. American football - the man's game with the ball that isn't round and with touchdowns and field goals and dropkicks and all. We didn't have tackles, though, like the real thing. We played a version called 'rip flag' in a field across from the school buildings. Each player wore a belt with two small pieces of cloth in the team's color. An offensive player ran with the ball toward the goal line until a defensive player caught up with her and grabbed a cloth - a flag - ending the play like a tackle ends a play in standard football. The ball went into play again at the point where the flag was taken. We didn't play rip flag often but with lots of running, screaming, chasing, and scoring, it was high-spirited fun.

After moving to a house in rural Central Texas in 1980, I fell in love with the blackness of the sky. Our first night, we had no electricity. There were no street lights. It must have been near new moon - I don't remember the moon in view. Just an amazing darkness sprayed with thousands of stars, points of bright light from varied distances afar. The air was crisp and clean and scented with cedar. What good fortune.

At that time, very much the amateur, I could easily identify only two constellations - the Big Dipper and Orion. Living where the sky opened so beautifully, over the years on clear nights, I gradually learned a number more.

The zodiac consists of 12 constellations along the ecliptic, the same circular path as the sun, one for each month of the year: Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagitarius, and Capricorn.  From our perspective on earth, they are lined up in the sky and during the course of each year, one after the other, month after month, processing west, they catch up to the sun and gradually reappear in the east, visible once again just before sunrise. The wobble of the earth on its axis can affect our view of the path of the constellations, meaning if events such as major earthquakes or volcanoes shift the tilt of our planet, that zodiacal path - and the pattern of the stars within each constellation - can change. I believe there has been evidence, and observational documentation by ancient astrologers, suggesting such change has happened in millenia past (and possibly more recent times as well).

All those years, 1980 to 2006, I only easily recognized (meaning, without a guidebook) three of the constellations of the zodiac: Scorpio and Sagittarius, the scorpion and the archer (or teapot), bold and cheerful in the summer sky, and Gemini, the twins, a pair of brilliant stars (Castor and Pollux), not physically close to each other in space, but appearing visibly close to each other from our perspective on earth.

Greek Chorus

I've only read a couple of the ancient Greek plays in my life, and those a long time ago. The only thing that really stands out in my memory is that along with the characters in the play, there was a another part. We referred to it as 'the Greek chorus'. This was played by several people who voiced together what was going on in the play throughout the performance. In their fixed role outside of the acting, they echoed lines, or cast out clarification or judgment.

leaves
skid down the street
like lobsters
like crabs
on the floor of the sea.
brown and arched
they rattle and waltz
and stop and go.
how'd you get here?
i ask.
we fell off a tree!
the young voices cry out
then they snicker and laugh
and race each other
ahead of my feet
as i walk behind
their exuberant lead.

dance

Two quotes from the book 'Dance', copyright 1998, by Dr. Andrée Grau:


- Dance is a series of movements performed in patterns and set to an accompaniment. Every human society practices dance, which may be performed solo, in couples, or in groups. People around the world use dance to express themselves, pass on their histories, and exercise their bodies. In this way, dance can be a celebration of the emotional, mental, and physical human self. It can also be a preparation for battle or an unspoken protest. Dance is often used to mark major life changes or to commemorate an important event in a nation's history. In the earliest societies, dance helped humans survive - it was a way for communities to learn cooperation in working and hunting together - and, like today, dance was probably used to communicate and express feelings that are difficult to convey in any other way.


- For Martha Graham (1894-1991), there was nothing more wonderful than the human body. She saw dance as a celebration of the miracle of the body's beauty, and she called dancers 'athletes of God.' Like athletes, her dancers were expected to move in a disciplined way and to carry out a daily regime of exercises based on her principles of contraction, release, and spiral. Graham's dances were designed to reveal a person's inner landscape - what she called the 'cave of the heart.'

humans & chickens

Two families in Louisiana in the 1960s had chickens. One family had half a dozen colorful hens and a rooster or two.  Though the yard was not fenced, the chickens stayed in the yard during the day, pecking among the grasses with their beaks for food - I assumed bugs and seeds and sometimes little snakes. Their droppings went straight to the ground (as with most animals living on land). The grasses were thick and healthy; the droppings were spread out enough they were not noticed. There was a coop where the chickens stayed at night. The other family 
had a clever cage of chicken wire in a barn with a compartment for each hen and access to chicken feed and a common water trough. The chicken wire floors sloped a bit, and when the hen laid an egg, it rolled out of the compartment to a rim out side the compartments where they could be easily gathered by a family member. The droppings fell through the wire onto a wood surface with a drain; the surface was regularly hosed clean. There were only hens, about a dozen domestic, solid whites, no roosters. The chickens remained in the compartments in the barn at all times.

These contrasts in how humans and other life species relate to each other come to mind often - and I go back to my childhood for insight about how we coexist. Nature and science go hand in hand sometimes; sometimes nature and science are at odds with one another.

the snakes and irises ...

Still not a great artist, but I am prolific. Art is a part of every day for me. Sometimes, I get attached to a particular subject, and it will crop up again and again, like an archetypal experience. The raven (and other corvids), dandelions, ball moss, banana tree blooms, prayer flags, jellyfish, clams, and whales are among those who have surfaced with great insistence. These are not necessarily subjects that hold any specific memories for me - but there they are. When they do surface - the snakes and irises - they bring me a most profound sense of trust and wonder.

 


seventy miles an hour -
the interstate highway and the afternoon
stretch long -
caught up in a steady current
of cars and trucks
(no camels nor burros)-
tires braid invisible trails
vehicles passing this guy
or sailing in the tail wind
of an 18-wheeler
weaving
left lane middle lane right lane
where are we going
caravan of strangers
on the road?

As a kid, I never saw an owl in the wild - not knowing what to look or listen for. My encounters with owls since (Great Horned Owls, Eastern Screech Owls, and one Pygmy Owl) however, have been so intriguing that I remember nearly every one. With only a couple of exceptions, it's as though the owl found the human rather than the other way around. Perhaps there is some reason the owl seeks us out.

People in the United States now have more yard maintenance equipment than ever before, and thus we are more likely to prune our trees and other vegetation. This produces a more tidy look (sometimes a scalped look). The owls are grateful though to find the older, unmanicured, mellowed trees that have branches or tree trunks weathered over the years by insects and lichens and squirrels and such. I was happy to find a pine tree in Lousiana tucked in a corner of a neighborhood - a snag with few limbs still bearing cones and needles. There was much evidence that this aged tree supported a little community of wildlife, including the several young owls peering from a hole high up in the broken trunk.

Jonah and the whale

from the belly of the whale
Jonah thought of wide open spaces
with distant skies running rivers
to ease his claustrophobia.
the whale herself
shared a steady calm
that helped keep Jonah whole

wasp nest

The design and functional expertise of the paper wasp's nest is so beautiful and so geometrically perfect, that perhaps the wasp is my favorite architect. Durable, lightweight, non-toxic in any way, and constructed of sustainable materials - the wasp's work reflects a kind of genius. Last year, I found an abandoned nest perched on a limb. I would not disturb a nest that is in use - this was the first time I was able to look at one up close. Each compartment was so perfectly replicated, perfectly part of the whole. The pale nest was both naturally camouflaged and visually fascinating, a natural wonder. This type of work makes me curious about the nature of intelligence in a paper wasp.

(After writing the above, I did a brief youtube search for videos of wasps building a nest - using 'wasp nest' as the search words. In the first thirty or forty finds, only one video was about the construction. The rest were videos of people destroying nests and the occupants. The subjects in the videos were referred to as wasps, but included hornets and other insects.)

smells

Aromatherapy emerged some years back, and my first thought was here's another gimmick. We don't always cling to our first thoughts, though, and I have relaxed some. There are so many powerful fragrance experiences in life, why not use these with intention for healing purposes? I still know little about the art or science of aromatherapy, but I know of personal olfactory experiences. For many decades I did not drink coffee, but just walking down the grocery store aisle where the coffee beans were nestled was a happy wakeup. Spicy peppers in a garden, pine trees, fresh mint or rosemary near the outdoor spigot all are bright fragrances. The first break in the peel of an orange is like opening a gift - such a poignant scent. Sandalwood inspires romance. Then there are some scents that bellow - keep away!

Subtle smells, some that we may not even notice, of our furniture or blankets, reassure us that we are in familiar territory, that we are safe at home. A child clutches his Felix the Cat toy close to his face, feeling the security of his familiar fabric companion. The smell of a cake baking in the oven, or fresh bread reassures us all that we are loved, that we shall be fed.

The complexity of a forest is absorbed by the senses. In one breath, smell the earth, the mouldering leaves, the different trees and grasses, the stones, the change in the weather. Smell the deer that wander across the tumbling creek, take in the wildness of the bear who just lumbered through. Living in the city, I hold on to the memory of wilderness.

There were two farms I knew as a kid that had about the same number of cows - forty or less. The farmers were very different in their ways of managing their livestock. The younger farm treated the livestock as a business. The cattle were well-fed. There was a trough for sorgham (an unrefined cane molasses) that the cows were offered. There was fine alfalfa hay in the winter when the grasses in the fields were less abundant. The older farm also fed the cows well - a mix of sweet-smelling grains to supplement their diet as needed. Both farms had salt licks out in the pasture - about a one foot cube of solid salt - unrefined - a kind of dark rose color perhaps due to other minerals. I don't know. The animals did slowly whittle the cubes down with their tongues over the year.

On the younger farm, the owners - good people - were not farmers. They hired help, but also oversaw the operation. They used electric fences to keep the cattle in the pasture, and cattle prods to get the cattle to the barn or corral. They wrestled some of the animals to get them in the corral for vaccinations. When they touched an animal, it was to get him or her onto a trailer, or from one side of the pasture to the next. They were novices, and seemed to rely on force to succeed. On the older farm, the owner was the farmer; farming was his calling in life. He knew every cow by name. When he called they came, and he fed them one by one by name. There was no sense that he dominated his herd - he was there every day, and they got up together before dawn. The cows were waiting at the barn when he showed up. They rubbed up against his arm, and he stroked their heads or backs. They seemed to speak the same language.

what if one cold day
i had apple pie for breakfast
apple pie for lunch
& saved a piece of crust
for the grackles
pacing about the parking lot?

When I think of an Eskimo, I see an image that was popular at one time - a calm pale brown face framed by the fur-lined hood of their traditional garb. We were told in school that the Eskimo people who lived way up north near the Arctic circle built their houses using blocks of ice. These houses, small domes with a tunnel-shaped entry, were known as igloos. The Eskimo had fifty words for snow - or maybe it was a hundred - for different varieties of the frozen precipitation - slush, tiny crystals, pebbles, big fat soft flakes. Maybe there were poetic words too, and words for the time of year, and how the snow fell - stormy wind or no wind. They had no word for green, I heard. In their language, greens were labeled as shades of blue. Perhaps in their northern homes, green wasn't seen very much, and wasn't very vivid. Did they every day of the year come out of their igloos to a world of blue sky and shades of white ice?

Living in south Louisiana where snow made only one or two timid appearances in a winter, if at all, it was fascinating to wonder about a culture that had so many words for snow, and homes of ice that did not melt.

voices like birds

he murmured
and she replied
as they walked up the sidewalk.
it was a saturday night -
their voices carried
to the windows of houses
and around the shrubs
and disappeared
in the clean air
below the yellow moon
who wore a scarf of mist
and a hat of cloud -
it was that cold.
the little boy
behind a window
tucked in bed
beneath a quilt
heard the voices
floating near.
The words weren't familiar -
he knew not what they said
but the trickle of conversation
up and down and pause and start
sounded like birds in a tree
warm in their feather coats
content in the cold bright night
and the boy slid -
all is calm -
to sleep.

emu

There was a lot of publicity in Texas in the 1980s regarding the emu. The emu is a tall, flightless Australian bird five to six feet high (similar to the African ostrich who has a reputation of burying its head in the sand when threatened). The emu was advertised as a sure-fire investment for ranchers. The emu produced very large eggs, and its skin made a fine leather. Emu oil was promoted as a product with many health benefits. People who invested in emus were promised a big profit.

We had the opportunity to meet a few emus in what turned out to be a brief era. In our rural neighborhood in central Texas, a pair of emus lived up the hill across from us. They would come to the fence as we walked by. The emu I remember best, though, is one we met when visiting friends in northeast Texas - the Tyler area. This one walked up to the fence also, and we and our little kids admired its height, big quaint face, and gait. Its legs were like stilts. As we turned to go, the emu started to call to us.  The surprising booming sound stopped us in our exit. It was not a call from the bird's throat but seemed to originate in a lower part of the neck, or perhaps even the torso. The call sounded like a low-pitched drum, a moving sound that carried far. It carried far across the field. It carried across time, the history of its species. And the drum beat carried right to the hearts of us humans, standing near the creatures living far from their origins.

raindrops

raindrops that streamed
down windowpanes
not so long ago
now sit on glass
and ponder

Over the past ten to fifteen years, with computers connected online to the public network of other computers and data bases, one has had access to cameras situated in various locations. One could have live views of sites around the world. I wrote long ago about my favorite webcam at the time, which was set up within Crater Lake National Park. Since then, I've made brief visits to a few other webcams - a famous street in England, my college alma mater. I've visited several web cams focused on birds nesting and feeding young.

The National Park webcam was a favorite because I could watch the changes in light during the day, and the changing seasons. I saw when the snows arrived, and how early or late in the year they melted. The other webcams made me a bit uncomfortable, shy about seeing people crossing the street and cars going by without them knowing I was 'there' watching. These were public areas, though, and so it didn't seem that big of an issue.

The birds nesting is a little different. One camera was focused up close on a great blue heron nesting high up in a light fixture. The bird's face and head filled much of the screen. Access to this particular webcam had been publicized, and there was notation on the website about how many viewers were watching the heron at this moment. There was a running string of dialogue, commentary from various watchers online.

Professors used to caution us about attributing emotions to non-human species, but this heron did not look happy. She looked a little agitated, on alert, her eyes twitching from side to side, her head turning back and forth. I wondered if having the attention of several hundred distant viewers focused on one creature could affect its peace of mind - in this instance, a heron who, from what could be seen, looked alone, safe in her nest incubating eggs.

7th grade science, 1960s

Around 1966-67, Mother Pezolt taught 7th grade science, based on a standard text book. Thinking back on the class, she had a lot to offer. We worked on several projects. I remember drawing a poster of oil deposits pooled underground at the base of a salt dome. She arranged for a class trip to see the NASA museum (National Aeronautic and Space Administration) in Houston, Texas. We got to touch the truly small capsule that the astronauts were contained in during their journeys orbiting the earth. (I remember thinking the astronauts could use more window to see out of, that little canister so claustrophobic. There's been commentary that the first astronauts were like lab mice in a sardine can, or something like that. They had no control of the craft - no steering wheels or brakes so to speak.)

The science project I've been thinking about involved making a replica of the sun, one with a segment removed so that one could see the inner layers. I used a styrofoam ball, and it was more difficult than I anticipated, but I muddled through. I don't remember the names of the layers within the sun. I do remember sunspots were thought to be storms on the sun's surface - that their temperature was considerably cooler than that of the rest of the surface. The solar surface also featured - was it prominences and corollas? Like geysers of fire shooting out from below - some went straight out, others arced like a bridge. We were taught about the three states of matter on earth: solids, gases and liquids. There was another form of matter, very hot, that could be found within the sun called plasma. Even in the 1960s, I was curious - how do we know that?

Was yesterday the 12th day of Christmas, or was it the day before? January fifth or 6th? Maybe it starts at sunset on the fifth and ends at sunset on the sixth, and the night in between is 12th night. Twelfth night.

Is it about the Epiphany? or the arrival of the three wise men to the manger? (Did the family stay at the barn that long?)

King's cake - is it the same recipe as challa? only dressed up in Mardi Gras beads and colorful frosting? Where does brioche fall in? If my computer or cell phone were more responsive, I'd look these little mind ticklers up.

Who invented the violin? (isn't it a little odd to tuck one's instrument under the chin?) Who was Lawrence of Arabia? What makes a stork so special this week?

An encyclopedia might help. My life has been enhanced by the volumes of information presented with pictures and using clear and practical language. A comfortable chair and a random volume, say V-Z, can amuse me for quite a while.

the cosmic cartographer

 


he cast his net 
into the night sky
each star, each rock, 
each wandering cat
mapped for a moment
within a square 
of the infinite grid

The Genius of China: 3,000 years of science, discovery & invention, by Robert Temple, first published in 1986, contains all sorts of fascinating facts and pictures regarding Chinese inventions and discoveries. Matches, umbrellas, and 'the magic lantern' - an ancestor of movies - were made in China long before they reached other continents. Suns-spots and solar winds were discovered by the Chinese. Two things that caught my attention browsing through the book are the first earthquake alert device and a simple map-making technique.

The earthquake alert system looks like an elaborate piece of bronze pottery. Dragons' heads circle near the top, and toads circle at the base. Each dragon has a ball in its mouth. Hidden within the jar is a kind of pendulum. When an earthquake occurs, a ball drops from a dragon's mouth to the toad below. The location of the specific toad reportedly points the observor toward the location of the tremors.

Some of the ancient Chinese maps are very simple grids. They don't show the topography of the land, but rather show precisely how many units of distance away, and the location of towns or other points of interest. Seeing these ancient drawings, and other ways of doing things characteristic of the Chinese, is an enlightening experience.

Nice, good and great are words in the American vocabulary used to casually assert approval in a conversation. Awesome! they say when you tie your shoelaces on your own.

Groovy, keen, neat (and neato-keeno) were used in a similar fashion when I was a young kid in the sixties. These slang words evolved into far-out (a John Denver favorite), solid (from The Mod Squad), psychedelic, and others that are fast escaping my memory. Copascetic was popular among an erudite few.

Cool seemed to come in with the beatnik poets of the 1950s, and has survived to the present. Swell was first popular some decades before that, I've read. The elders thought it slightly vulgar and thus the youth used it with enthusiasm. Swell is still heard here and there today, with spot-free acceptance.

Parenting is a big job. We spend a lot of energy and time making decisions that will best help our children grow up to be happy, strong, and responsible. Kids in both strict and relaxed families tend to grow up fine, when the parents are reasonably consistent with their approach - when they don't abruptly change their rules and expectations - when they love their children.

Some of this is coming from my training and experience as a psychologist, some from my training and experience as a mother. Recent trends have encouraged a kind of parenting similar to yanking a pet on a leash. Life doesn't have to be so rugged. Having a strong parent figure that can be trusted is very wise and important and sometimes, in fact, it's beneficial to both child and parent for the child to lead the way. This can hold true for babies as well!