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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...