Coconut

Here are an image, a quote, and a song - all about the coconut:



Image by Franz Eugen Köhler, available via Wikimedia Commons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cocos_nucifera_-_K%C3%B6hler%E2%80%93s_Medizinal-Pflanzen-187.jpg

In Sanskrit, the coconut tree is known as kalpa vriksha, "the tree which provides all the necessities of life". (Wikipedia)

Harry Belafonte's song, Coconut Woman, can be heard at youtube.com: ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF5LGyTEpIk )

happy st. valentine

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

the great divide

I never wanted to be rich or famous. Maybe a little recognition for poetry I wrote, or for photos. Play guitar in my back yard. Enough money to pay the rent, help out my kids, and comfortably travel now and again. Running with the in crowd was off my radar - never crossed my mind. Running with the quirky folks - the arty and the somewhat wild-minded - the park rangers and songsters and state employees - was more in my comfort range.

I never wanted to be poor or forgotten. Middle class security was a good match for me. The people I most admired had worked for the railroad or played weekly at local dance halls or nurtured high school bands or taught people about birds and nature on weekend trips. They shared vegetables from their flourishing backyard gardens, and paid your kids in the summer to feed the pets while the owners were on vacation.

The United States for a long time seemed defined by its strong middle class. There's more of a great divide now - the very wealthy and the poor to lower middle class. Now, the rich can be very generous, supporting local museums, schools, and services. The unexpected consequence of having very very wealthy people about is how they can gain control of a community. They can buy out schools, property, and local businesses. Obtaining jobs and places to live becomes less a matter of luck and effort and more a matter of who you know and the master plans of the big players, especially those with controlling natures. And if like me you're kind of quirky and blind to social expectations and who's who, and you stumble around, unsure of how to flow with the status quo, or unwilling to flow with a troubling status quo, life can pinch you hard.

how many times did I gaze in fascination at 'The Sleeping Gypsy'? The framed poster of Henri Rousseau's studies of a lion and a robed gypsy hung over the white painted mantel of some dear friends. The poster's colors were bold but not abrasive. The gypsy and the lion were well delineated, and their simplicity permitted both figures to stand out in the glowing blues of twilight. Rousseau created a suspended moment, the painting faintly breathing from the wall. He created two powerful creatures, dispassionately connected by their unlikely proximity at night.

so comes the inevitable question - are we right or are we left?

We're left-foot right-foot left-foot right-foot left-foot right-foot... would we get anywhere otherwise?

the Beatles

I missed the broadcast on the Beatles tonight, but there was noise on Facebook about their February 9, 1964 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. I do remember that night. I'd been in a children's Mardi Gras pageant earlier - a princess in long, pale green tulle and a sparkling tiara. There was a party that followed. The other kids went to a different school than I did and I didn't really know them, so I stopped for a moment to look at what all the screaming was coming from a little black and white TV and there were The Beatles, lean young men in dark suits, walking to their instruments on stage.

The Beatles have been covered and analyzed, head to toe, over and over across the subsequent decades. But I'm no expert on the Beatles, and as a kid, didn't get it until we saw the movie 'Help!' and spent a whole afternoon watching it run, over and over, at the picture show, the charismatic Beatles skiing in the snow.

I love the music that erupted from them, and that there have been discoveries for me - songs I missed until I was in my forties or later. (I'd never had their albums - I was only familiar with their 'top ten' songs, the ones with lots of air time on the radio.) 'Blackbird' and 'On the Wings of a Nightingale' both have tugged at me these past few years. (Was the latter a later Paul McCartney song?)

But the screaming. The kids, especially the teenaged girls, screamed as The Beatles approached the stage, and screamed through their entire performance, sometimes weeping and tearing their hair. For the next few years, they screamed at Paul Revere and the Raiders and The Turtles and The Monkees. What was that all about?

Hemingway's sea

'He always thought of the sea as 'la mar' which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her. Sometimes those who love her say bad things of her but they are always said as though she were a woman. Some of the younger fishermen, those who used buoys as floats for their lines and had motorboats, bought when the shark livers had brought much money, spoke of her as 'el mar' which is masculine.They spoke of her as a contestant or a place or even an enemy. But the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favours, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them. The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought.'

Ernest Hemingway
The Old Man and the Sea