Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear
for auld lang syne -
we'll take a cup of kindness yet
for auld lang syne ...

Robert Burns

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Naturalists know that one way to locate a particular bird or other animal is to show up at an area that has food that that individual enjoys. You're not likely to find a panda in the wild where there is no bamboo. To see flycatchers and swallows, it's important to find an area that has flying insects. Squirrels like pine trees, trees with nuts. (Birdfeeders make them happy, too.) Dolphins follow the fishes.

Monday, December 29, 2014

Recipes come and go, and there are a few that seem to last through the ages. Others are fads, embraced for a few years, and then forgotten. When I was a mom in the early nineties, a recipe for Amish bread flew from neighbor to neighbor, along with a container of live yeasty culture with instructions how to maintain it for loaf after loaf in your own kitchen, and how to grow more to pass on to the next neighbor. The baked product was a lovely textured, mildly sweet bread.

Beef Stroganoff, a Hungarian dish with noodles, beef, sour cream and paprika, was an every day staple in Europe, I believe. There was little difficulty finding it in many restaurants and kitchens some 40 years ago in the US, but its visibility seems to have waned.

Several cakes, probably still around, but unknown to many were immensely popular in the 1960s. Devil's Food is a dark chocolate cake with rich chocolate frosting. German Chocolate cake is a milder, lightly spiced chocolate with milk chocolate frosting. The filling between the layers was a candy-like concoction of nuts and shredded coconut.


Old cookbooks are a great source for forgotten, but wonderful foods and how to prepare them.

Friday, December 26, 2014

we are each of us angels ...

'We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another.'

- Luciano de Crescenzo

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

library

Sometimes we don't notice the architecture of a building because we are more interested in the contents. We focus on the aisles of food in a grocery store, or on the screen in a movie theater. Here in a central Texas library, I usually focus on the aisles of books, or on my work at a table. Yet this is a cheerful spot, with a clean, modern feel, the pale colors easy on the eye, and I sometimes gaze upward. The ceiling is high, and daylight flows in through square, set-back windows in tidy rows above the shelves. The ceiling is interesting with suspended curved rectangles of thin material - like a faux plywood - attached to a wood brace. Perhaps these panels are to help with insulation - of temperature, and sound as well. But it has the feel of the construction for a sailing ship, as though we were in a bright, spacious hold in progress, or the belly of a gentle whale, the panels like the arc of ribs. The architecture is well-suited for a library, a peaceful public resource.

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Hanukkah Solstice haiku

longest night -
sheaf of distant stars
shines bright -
nearby sacred candlelights

Friday, December 19, 2014

The last three books I finished reading were all children's books. Nothing like a good picture book to bring in a bit of cheer. All of these have wonderful illustrations, creative and bright. Some of the pictures are very thoughtful and deep.

The first is about a tortoise and a hare, the tortoise calm and deliberate, the hare 'hurry hurry' and quick-minded. The story's brief, but the illustrations of fields and critters held my attention for quite some time (and inspired me to write about dandelions the other day). They're simple, gently humorous, carefully detailed, and beautiful. The next book was about a rabbit who is a magician's assistant. He gets lost in the city during a street show. These pictures really capture the feel of a city at all times of day - the buildings, streets, sidewalks, alleys and bits of park here and there. The city people - say in the transit tunnel - are interesting - human but respectfully distant at the same time, just like city folk tend to be. And the sketch of the magician's den at the beginning of the story, filled with fascinating clutter, is just as entertaining as the the first pictures of field in the tortoise-hare book.

The last picture book that I just finished right here just now is about an awkward click beetle. The author's colorful use of mixed media is gorgeous. There's a picture of two beetles, a tree, a crescent moon and crazy stars that would look great on my wall. The picture of giant loafer-clad feet approaching a beetle on its back is very scary indeed.

Hurry Up and Slow Down by Layn Marlow 2009
The Magic Rabbit by Annette LeBlanc Cate 2007
The Very Clumsy Click Beetle by Eric Carle 1999

Thursday, December 18, 2014

winter solstice famished

You know the winter solstice is near when your appetite starts to roar. I ate a muffin around 7 in the morning, and at 10:30, still hungry, 3 refried bean tamales with salsa, a toaster waffle with yogurt and blueberries globbed on top, a slice of raisin toast, and a handful of chocolate kisses. Mangia, mangia -

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Dandelions are so cheerful to see - bright yellow flowers, each with a bundle of slender petals. The green zig-zag dandelion leaves are good to eat - they make a salad look and taste all dressed up. The seeds are fascinating. When the petals start to droop and drop, little spindly rods appear, the tops dressed in translucent, silky white. Seeds are attached at the other end. A breeze sends them flying away, parachuting, to feed the bugs and birds or start a new plant growing. Both kids and grownup humans will pluck a seeding dandelion, make a wish, and set the seeds floating outward on a puff of breath.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

notahaiku


twig of mistletoe
green and light
clings to the curb -
leaves fly by for a kiss

Monday, December 15, 2014

 
There was a little cardboard box -
embossed and fine.
when new, it held stationery.
The paper and envelopes were used up now
but there remained
the sturdy little box.
Soon, a stray of satin ribbon found its way there.
A beer bottle cap with a portrait of a handsome ram.
It had great curling horns.
A stick of gum, a used postage stamp.
Perhaps a green paper clip.
Random treasures -
a twig, a shining bolt.
A tarnished coin. A slender paintbrush.

A week would pass, or two
then - oh, yeah - I'd remember.
Every time I placed something new
it was a conscious thank (i-have-not-forgotten) you.

Saturday, December 13, 2014

the Great Blue Heron
is indoors - seven inches high
and standing on the simple base
of a bedroom lamp.
Gazing toward the afternoon light
that fills the window casing,
the heron sees branches in the room-
leaves long browned and dry
anchored in a bucket of damp soil

a year-old haiku comes to mind:
'new and green,
or crumbling on the twig,
leaves maintain
their plucky outlook -'
Who knows what may take root.
'every leaf has its own soul'
i heard today
and will remember

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Field

One of my happiest moments of late was finding myself in a field. Not like your usual city parks or school grounds or backyards. They tend to be trimmed short, and the ground is covered with a purchased grass and a few stragglers. This field was covered by the moisture of a very light December drizzle. At my feet, there was a surprising diversity of greens - the very broad leaves of what would maybe produce a big thistle, some tiny sumac-type leaves, little flowers - plants and grasses of many shapes creating patterns and bright smells that shimmer with life.

Within a block of the first house I remember was a field. Nowadays, this might be called 'an undeveloped property', but the kids loved it for what it was. Wild, ungoverned by adults. There was a football that was tossed back and forth. The girls called the tall thistle flowers powderpuffs. It was the kind of field where you might find blackberries, skunks, possums, rabbits. That field may be where the call of the bobwhites could be heard early in the morning.

Sometimes you'll see a sign near such a field inviting 'investment' and 'improvements'. A shopping strip, or medical center. Can there really be improvements for such a field?

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

ESP

somewhere
along our brief spans of time
lies an intersection
where you have already - will - or now
meet me (or i you somehow)
and there is was will be Jello
at the crossing
i don't know what flavor - you pick.

a momentous meeting.



so prophesizes
has prophesized
the Lovers' Fortuneteller
on North Memory Lane
someday

 

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

moles

Moles cause no harm. They are quiet, nearly blind little critters who spend most of their time underground. They eat grubs and worms and roots, and dig tunnels and little cubbyholes. You know there's a mole in your yard when you see a line of broken earth on the surface - caused by the tunneling below. Some people worry - 'They're destroying my lawn!', but the earth can easily be redistributed with a rake or hoe. Moles are one of nature's farmers. They plough the hard dirt from underneath, and fertilize it, and make it easier for plants and trees to thrive. Mole mounds are like a work of art, something to show off to the neighbor kids. 'You'll never guess who made this winding little maze of dirt!'

Monday, December 8, 2014

The children's television show 'Sesame Street' is peopled in part by Muppets. Oscar the Grouch, Kermit the Frog, Big Bird, and Elmo are all puppets, manipulated by human hands and speaking with human voices. They have been regulars on Sesame Street for decades, and have also starred in very popular Muppet movies. They have adventures. Sometimes they teach their very youngest viewers to count and spell and get along and how to deal with various temptations. Most of all, they are friendly and likable.

The original creator of the Muppets was Jim Henson, and he also was the voice for several of the characters. There was much grief when he died at an early age. His characters have lived on, and those actors who replaced him have done a fine job. It would have been fascinating, though, to visit with Mr. Henson, to hear his voice and get to know the man who put so much faith, energy, and tenderness into his innocent Muppet world. The Muppets offered a haven that one without worry could let their little kids wander, and at the same time could strike a chord that amused the grownups.

Saturday, December 6, 2014

graphic novels

A graphic novel is a different kind of experience than a novel that is written; worded. Some graphic novels are like illustrated stories - but with primary attention given to the artwork. Some graphic novels have no words at all - the story is conveyed entirely through drawings, or other kinds of images.

The latter dates back quite a ways. In the 1990s, I had the good fortune to travel with a friend to France, the first time I went abroad. We spent half a day in the cathedral at Chartres. The cathedral was built across many decades (completed - was it in the 1200s?). On the outside were many statues around the frame of the great doors and much sculpting of the exterior walls. There were gargoyles, and statues of saints. There were statues of ancient Greek philosophers and mathematicians. (Aristotle and Pythagorus come to mind.) Some of those statues cleverly tucked in high places were carved images of the construction workers themselves. 'I was here!' they seem to say. Inside the immense building was a kind of clock-calendar that was large piece of intricate mechanics, decked with images of the moon, stars and sun. In the middle of one field of the interior was a long avenue of bas relief carvings. That was my first meeting with ancient graphic story telling. We were told most of the people back then did not know how to read. The carvings, like three dimensional frames from a silent film, told stories from the Bible.

Written novels today feed images and plot via our language centers. I believe the wordless graphic novels feed an experience more than a story. We enter another existence through the wordless images. We learn some things that cannot quite be expressed through words, things that are not stored in the language part of our brains.

Friday, December 5, 2014

Scorpio

Scorpion 
of the summer night
slowly glides
from left to right
gleaming from the southern sky
above the roads
and cars and houses
down below.

his heart is a star -
Antares! - bright and red
his stinger just for show

he's a shining softy
don't you know

keeping watch
through the dark of night
 

it's winter now
he's far away
but the scorpion returns
come the longest day
Now Orion's striding
across the sky
our giant friend
come the longest night.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

butterflies over the baby bed


A mobile
of cellophane butterflies -
transparent blues and purples -
deep rich yellows -
dangled above her each morning
when she opened her eyes.
This was her first year:
Tilting colors
silent beauty.
Light in motion.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Home Economics

Aunt Plenty and Aunt Peace are two spinsters in Louisa May Alcott's book 'Eight Cousins'. They house their niece, Rose, who has lost both her mother and father. Rose's guardian is her uncle Alec, who is some sort of merchant at sea, now staying at home to parent Rose.

There are lots of aunts and cousins - seven boys - in the neighborhood. Aunt Peace and Aunt Plenty don't have a large role to play in the book amidst the cousins' antics. Their main occupation is the running of the household - cooking, sewing, carrying out the rugs in the spring to be aired and shaken. But Alcott gives them a kind of tender attention. Uncle Alec asks Rose to spend some time with the under-appreciated ladies and they teach her to sew and bake. 'Bread and Buttonholes' becomes the challenge.

The story was written and set in the mid 1800s in New England, the northeastern part of the United States. When I was in school, and perhaps still today, classes were offered in 'home economics'. Kids learn about measuring flour versus measuring liquids, how to substitute this ingredient for that. They come home with a simple dress or shirt they have sewn. Perhaps they learn about bread and buttonholes.

I avoided home ec because I absorbed in greater things. Math! Science! Literature! Home ec seemed low on the ladder somehow. Fortunately, snooty me did learn some of these things through Girl Scouts. I've always remembered that Louisa May Alcott, the great writer, gave a lot of attention to the arts of maintaining a home. I came to see baking and cooking are in many ways scientific endeavors. Hanging clothes to dry, shelling pecans, stitching and knitting have been calming and meditative activities. Household arts - especially regarding food - pay off in a tremendously rewarding way - both in immediate satisfaction, and in holding together the intimate fabric of love, family and friends.

Monday, December 1, 2014

Pachelbel's Canon is familiar to many people in the United States, although most may not know what it is called. Some consider it trite; it's played so frequently at weddings and recitals. There's likely a reason that it is so popular - there is something so lovely in its intricate lacework of sound.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

During young adulthood, I avoided orchestral music. The in-thing of the era leaned more toward rock, folk, blues. Orchestra was a sound from my parents' generation. But as I've grown older, I've come to embrace the music of their era as much as my own. Coming upon the upbeat sound of the intro to the long-running Johnny Carson show, for example, creates a happy nostalgia, a kind of bridge between the Rat Pack years of my folks and the last decades of the twentieth century. The Big Band sounds of Benny Goodman are a joy. The orchestral introductions to the musicals like Guys and Dolls, or Camelot, or Fiddler on the Roof can bring tears to my eyes. 

Orchestras are rather fascinating. There are so many instruments, so many musicians, each with a unique noise, that collaborate to create a complex work of sound. Oboes, violas, French horns, cymbals, triangles, saxophones, xylophones, cellos, piccolos, tubas and so on. The music performed comes from a wide selection of styles - classical, jazz, operatic, musicals, et cetera. Sometimes the sounds wander rather aimlessly, like when band members are warming up. It can be awkward or humorous - it's sort of like being in the wild with frogs croaking and woodpeckers knocking on wood and meadowlarks warbling melodies, and waterfalls crashing, wolves wailing. A harmony of not-randomness. I always enjoy the sounds of the instruments warming up in the same way. Some compositions are deliberately structured in such an organic, natural manner.

The product of an orchestra can be tame and very controlled. Or like in big band, it can cut loose. Some performances give voice to more than the composer, more than the musicians, more than the instruments and audience. The performance reaches deep and far, like an intricate formula has been uncovered, or a key has been turned to release an epiphany.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

1959

1959

two cats
one orange, one black and white,
sway along the rows
of the early summer garden -
they own the little backyard world
the tilting stalks of corn
the scent of sweet pea blooms on the vines
purple and deep rose, pink and white
hovering in the warm air -
sleepy black snake winds through
the dirt and patches
of fine green grasses
the butterflies and bees
shiver
in sunlight
bright
of paradise

Monday, November 24, 2014

We know about bears. We know about wolves and bobcats. We know about mice, deer, whales - and we know about human beings. But there are many mammals on our North American continent that I've never heard of, much less seen. Today, the muskrat came up. Now, I have heard of muskrats - but only because someone wrote a song about 'Muskrat Love' in the 1970s. What is a muskrat like? Where do they live? How do you find one?

I went to friendly Wikipedia and looked them up - cute little things like short-eared rabbits or long-furred guinea pigs. Except reading about them, if the article is accurate, their behaviors sound more like that of beavers. Their fur has the density and qualities to withstand water. They swim and make nests that look like river igloos - made of mud and leaves and sticks instead of ice. They're family critters, like beavers and otters. And yes, muskrat love exists - they produce young with some frequency several times a year.

A few years back, we had a reference book on mammals, and I was suprised to see how many different mammals share the territory where I live - central Texas - and yet we've never met. Perhaps that kind of distance is in our mammal neighbors' best interest - or maybe if we knew more about them, we'd be more considerate of their habitat and food preferences.


Friday, November 21, 2014

sewing and healers

You don't have to be very good at sewing to sew. Even the most rag-tag kind of stitching - short stitch long stitch straight and crooked - can hold two pieces of fabric together. Your needle has an 'eye' - the little hole at the top. It should be big enough to let you slide the end of a length of thread through the eye. You tie a knot at the end of the thread. Some like to tie the two ends together - sewing with a paired thread. Some just knot one end. You use up less thread that way with a single, but you have to be careful the unknotted end doesn't fall out of the needle! The knot keeps your stitches secured to the fabric.

It's been a while since I wrote about traiteurs - Cajun term for healers. (In Mexico and the southwest United States, they are known as curanderas, I believe.)

I don't know if this is true, but I read that traiteurs don't ask for money. They accept gifts, but not money. I read that as a traiteur comes to the end of their time practicing, there is someone next in line that they pass their skills to. The lineage alternates, man to woman to man to woman, and so on. This keeps a kind of balance in a community. Yin-yang. Once a traiteur transfers their healing gifts, their own practice ends, deferred now to the new guy or gal.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

sans mot

sometimes
i envy the worms
the rabbits
the woodrats in the fragrant grasses
who live life all out
know fully each moment
without a word

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Doctors, nurses, aides, and caregivers learn a lot about a person's current health using some basic tools. With a stethoscope, one can hear more clearly the sound of the patient's breathing - listening for congestion of the lungs, for example. One can listen to the speed and regularity of the heart's beat, and to that of any little babies on the way (by holding the stethoscope up against the mother's abdomen). With a thermometer, one can measure the patient's temperature. 98.6 Fahrenheit give or take a few tenths of a degree, is normal for most humans. (A high temperature might suggest a virus or infection.) With an otoscope, one can check the eardrum, look for signs of infection or blockage or foreign objects. Blood pressure equipment measures - guess what - blood pressure. A scale measures weight, which can be documented so as to note any dramatic changes since last measured.

The older, mechanical equipment, if properly calibrated to current standards (regarding units of measurement and markers of 'normalcy' - a subject unto itself), has a history of being quite reliable. Some newer gadgets are hard to calibrate, and are affected by battery levels and some hi-tech factors as well. That said, some of these require less time to get a reading, and can be highly accurate if properly calibrated and maintained.

With the basic information yielded via these instruments, and a simple interview regarding pain and symptoms and 'how's it going' - one can learn quite a bit about the nature of any physical concerns that need attention.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

For the most part, our parents let us do our homework without any interference or supervision from them. They trusted us to get our work done, and we generally did. I can only think of two times our mother took active part in our projects and one was in early grade school. We were supposed to create something for a school exhibit. Our mother suggested a plan, got the supplies, and completed both me and my sister's project.

This was a little frustrating at the time, because the supplies were quite appealing, and we pretty much were not allowed to touch them. She got us each a tray - like that a waiter or waitress might use to carry beverages. She got some sand, and some tiny Japanese figurines - people and lacquered arches and little bridges and shrubs, and mirrors for water. She made two scenes - one in each tray. We were not to touch. There was some difficulty getting them into the car without objects toppling or sand spilling, but we did. And those were our displays for the school fair.

I'm smiling as I type. We were fascinated too, watching her assemble these, her enthusiasm and the scenes taking shape. Those sand trays Mama assembled were really quite beautiful. 


Some two decades later, this activity became a core part of my practice as a psychologist. Called Sand Tray or Sand Play, the client gets to assemble a scene using a tray of sand and their choice of figurines. Clients like this. I enjoyed the ones I've made off and on, and the ones colleagues and clients have put together. The creative process has calming effects, and it's a useful, appealing way to non-verbally process stumbling blocks in life.

Monday, November 17, 2014

migrating bluebirds

During the mid 1990s, I drove down a rural road in central Texas to pick up my sons who were playing with friends for the afternoon. The weather was brisk and thrilling - the first cold front of the year making its way toward us. The wind had only just shifted - was now flowing from the north. The cool air was welcome after the heat of the summer and early fall. The friends' mom and I visited for awhile, and she showed me their house. As we gazed from an upstairs winter over some dry pastureland, we saw a pair of little birds, glowing like jewels from the top wire of a fence, looking a little disoriented. Bluebirds! 

Eastern Bluebirds wintered each year in our area, as the weather up north was too severe for them. Such a delight to see their return on the northerly wind after a long summer absence.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

earth beat

thumping rhythm
bebop de bop
drums around the world
birds in the jungle
and on the street corner
blood and song
pulsing to the earth beat
quiet but strong
beneath our breathing breath

Friday, November 14, 2014

the wristwatch

Turn the tiny knob
near the face of time
each morning around nine
rock it back and forth
back and forth
winding your watch for the day
hold it near your ear
hear the ticking?
is it working?
Will you please show me
the tiny springs 

the shiny gears inside?
they parse out perfect seconds
one gear moves this way

the other that
interlocked within 

a tidy steel case
on the back of your wrist.
how can that work?
o, what a gift.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Over half of the fifty states in the USA have names from Native American languages - words from those who were living here as the people from Europe and other continents arrived. There is not clear agreement on the sources of every state name (consulting info from websites and a World Almanac), but there is a general consensus on many of them. The state where I reside - Texas - has a name that was used by several tribes to mean 'friend'.  Michigan is how local tribes used to refer to Lake Michigan - and it meant 'great water'. Nebraska means 'flat river', and Missouri 'the big canoe people'. Kansas is a word from the Sioux meaning 'People of the South Wind'. Ohio was given the Seneca word for the Ohio River - meaning 'it is beautiful'. Most of the states' names refer to the water, the land, the wind, and neighbors. It's interesting that none are named after individuals, unlike many of the states with names not related to American native peoples.

The lands and waters and ways of life, the weather and the kinds of living species in our country at this time, reflect a dramatically different world from that which existed for many thousands of years before 1492. What an experience it would be to visit North America circa 1300 or so!

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

identity replications

The replication of identity likely goes far back in human history. How many Betty Davises and Marilyn Monroes have there been? How many Richard Nixons, Bill Clintons, and Ronald Reagans have I seen at Halloween parades? Quite a few! Of course these are rather obvious replications - masks from costume shops are all that's needed. No one is fooled.

There have been look-alike competitions for some celebrities. Elvis Presley imitators are kind of a genre all their own, and come out of the woodwork every year on Elvis's birthday. For a long time, the town of Key West, Florida sponsored a convention of Ernest Hemingway replications. Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake seem to have become icons who inspire followers to literally live in their shoes.

There have been actors who have embraced the histories and personalities of certain celebrities. For example, a couple decades back, the actor Hal Holbrook performed a one-man show as Mark Twain. Of course, everyone knew he was not Mark Twain, even though Holbrook fully researched and lived the writer's identity. Mark Twain died in 1910. In recent years, however, the rules have relaxed, and there are performers who live on stage and camera as actors or athletes who have long retired or are passed without acknowledging that they are replacements.

This may have been true in the past as well. Reading about Joe Jefferson who became rich and famous playing a one-man version of Rip Van Winkle, it occurred to me it's unlikely in the mid-1800s he could have very easily showed up in Europe and around the United States in as many places as are reported. There must have been other actors who saw his success as an opportunity.

For some impersonators, it's a kind of passion, a release from the bindings of one's own history. For others, a need for money and/or attention drives their new identities. Some are likely hired to liven up conventions and other gatherings. For those of us in the audience, some of us are reassured to see rejuvenated new versions of our favorite people from the past. Others are jarred to see a stranger replace someone who has meant something to them. (When replicas arrive at your office, your doctor's, or in your own home, that's worrisome!) Occasionally, there is a replacement who makes the audience happier than the original celebrity ever did.

Monday, November 10, 2014

paintings and photos of roses
are like portraits
the blooms vibrant, but composed,
stationary

this afternoon's roses
are in motion
petals in the wind like wings
on a bending stem

Saturday, November 8, 2014

blessed lightning

the air hung heavy
the street was still

no body to be seen
yet every breath
was like a crowded plane
wan, with smells of
3-day clothes and
yesterday's after-shave

he walked on broken sidewalk
clouds looked dark
but no scent of rain
please break the spell
he asked for
please fresh air
and blessed lightning

Friday, November 7, 2014

Professor Grover Krantz, an anthropologist, maintained a small museum in Johnson Tower of Washington State University in the late 1970s. My psychology grad student office was in the same building, and thus I wandered in to see what the museum held. The entire space was devoted to Krantz's research on Sasquatch (popularly known as Bigfoot).

Sasquatch, named by Native American Indians of northwest US and of Canada, is traditionally identified as a kind of ancestral spirit that manifests itself as a very tall, fur-covered human. Over the years, people have reported sightings of a Sasquatch, and there have been grainy photos and bits of video, but the shy Sasquatches largely keep to themselves. They've been reported to be comfortable in the wilderness, often at higher elevations.

There have been similar reports of such beings in the Himalayas, reports across many past centuries. They are known as Yeti (later Anglicized as 'the Abominable Snowman').

I know little about either the Yeti or the Sasquatch. Dr. Krantz's exhibit had reports of sightings, and plaster of Paris imprints of footprints, which were quite big, like that of a barefoot, flatfooted human. I knew secondhand of a respectable ranger at Crater Lake National Park around the same time who reported seeing one cross a back road. The ranger was experienced and accomplished at observing wildlife in the back country.

Any time I have looked them up, there are stories of sightings, and there are stories of jokes and hoaxes. Yet a serious and respectful thread keeps our awareness and interest alive. There are tribes, cultures, and varied individuals whose awareness of life in our world includes the mystic Sasquatch and Yeti.

Thursday, November 6, 2014

poboy bread

They might not use this title, but just as there are connoisseurs of wines and gourmet foods, there are connoisseurs in Louisiana of ordinary French bread. Poor Boys (poboys), the local name for what other parts of the country call submarines, hoagies and grinders, vary from parish to parish in the types of French bread used. For example, a very dear relative often described the French bread in New Orleans as crusty on the outside and tender within. A chewier product seemed to be the custom for a lot of folks in Lafayette - in south central Louisiana. Back in the day, one could trust there would be a plate or basket of thick slices of good, fresh chewy bread at nearly any restaurant in town.

For some time during the past couple of years, I prepared meals for my father. He was content with just about anything, and he never complained about the French bread that came with the gumbo, or the poboy bread that held the fried oysters. But one day, I spied a baguette - one of those long, skinny French loaves - from a local bakery. It was still warm. I nabbed it and brought it home. There was a moment - there may have been tears. The bread was so good, so wholesome, so fragrant, so crusty yet tender, it seemed to bring together the past, the present, and hope for the future, right at our little round table.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Farmer Woodpecker
plucks a ripe raspberry
dangling in the sunshine,
carries it to a branch in a tree
and eats.
Mmmm.
The juices and matter
of the berry nourish him
quite well.
The seeds and undigested fibers
pass down
through the tubing of his guts
and drop to the earth.
Some of the seeds,
now encased in moist, fertile goo,
take hold in the soil.
They grow into bushes that will
provide him, his sugar, and his bambinos
plump berries
during future seasons,
as long as there is rain, sun,
and no run-ins
with a mower.

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

sampan dream

the pull of the rope
tied to the sampan
was steady
she walked the shallows
bearing this other
his weight
whole and present
within the boat's shelter
her face shaded
by a broad-rimmed hat
the waters
in motion
Correction:

Dia de los Muertos

Monday, November 3, 2014

November 1 was All Saints' Day. Yesterday, the second, was All Souls' Day. Day after tomorrow - November 5 - is Dia de las Muertas - Day of the Dead. October 31 was Halloween, formally and formerly known as All Hallow's Eve (the evening before All Saints' Day).

That's almost a full week span of opportunities to celebrate, mourn, and wisely learn about death, which naturally happens to all critters, be ye a fish, a falcon, a flea, or a human. (I like to ponder how death, like birth, is both an ending and a beginning.) There are dwindling traditions of whitewashing family tombstones, and taking care of the local cemetaries.  Catholics celebrate All Saints' Day with a Mass - it's considered a 'holy day of obligation'.

These special days give us a yearly reminder to honor the dead, and to celebrate life. There is some yearly fun too in looking at death; on Halloween we dress as skeletons and ghosts and goblins, and go from door to door, jack-o-lantern to jack-o-lantern, expecting our neighbors to pretend to be afraid, and give us a fistful of sweets.

'Trick or Treat!
Smell my Feet!
Give me something good to eat!'

Friday, October 31, 2014

eavesdropper

eavesdropper
i have been
on the chords of a weekday night organ
drifting from a church door ajar.
A trombone once called
like a soulful beast
from an upstairs window,
its whine entwined
among the leaves
of a tree arching near.
The little grunt
between the lines
of a recorded song,
the singer not performing,
snags my heart.
The loon and the whale
are calling out -
they steal the lead from the stars;
trickling piano notes
from a long-ago soul
play on so cleanly.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

morning light
in gloried abundance
sheds upon October roses
peach and white
and goldance afire
masses of wild pinks
both withered and bold -
the freaky old blooms
nod cheerily to the cheeky new.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

seaweed for supper

I've enjoyed many international foods. I like adventures in eating - although I prefer to be with someone who has some familiarity with the terms on a menu that are foreign to me, and familiar with how to order. I like foods from India, but have not memorized the names of the different dishes I've enjoyed. I'm slow with that. Even so, as much as I like Chinese, Vietnamese, or Thai foods, at the end of the day at home alone, I tend toward the American standards like mashed potatoes or peanut butter and jelly - or Tex-Mex that I've enjoyed for over thirty years. It's really easy to warm up some canned refried beans and a little cheese in a soft tortilla using a microwave.

The one exception regarding home-alone international foods is seaweed. There are seaweed snacks that consist of dried seaweed pressed thin as a slice of paper. They're fun to eat. There's 'nori' which is chilled seaweed salad, green thin threads lightly pickled.

In the past I've read that seaweed is a food with an extraordinary wide range of nutrients. A lot of creatures in the deep seas, as well as humans, dine on it. But I write about seaweed because it's something I had no experience with most of my life, yet my body welcomes it now like an old friend.

Monday, October 27, 2014

freaky little ghosts 
they're mine!
up and at it again
formed of newspaper, string
and white cotton handkerchiefs
they hang from the windows
and the railing outside
and grow more personable
each passing night
hobnobbing among themselves

floating with a breath of breeze
they yield the pleasure
of a halloween shiver

Saturday, October 25, 2014

a square of fabric
cut from the sky
a wren in the window
twitters from the cosmic sill

Friday, October 24, 2014

Swiss Trails

I've visited Switzerland once, and that was in fall 2005. It's great to spend time in another culture. When you experience how other folks live and how they get things done, you see yourself and your own way of life in new light. The Swiss compulsion for precise timing - for example buses arriving the very minute printed on the schedule - was startling as was the compulsion for very clean streets - no scrap of litter survived an hour.

Hikers of all ages could be found everywhere. Acres of land here and there were devoted to farming, a patchwork of fields. I don't recall fences but remember the unpaved trails along the edges and sometimes across the fields. Hikers had the liberty to use those trails to cross the properties owned by others. Where trails crossed, there were simple wooden signs on posts that gave the distance (in kilometers) to the next villages or crossings, as though the town was a national park, open to all, or as though the main means of travel in Switzerland was by foot.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

roguish light and shadow

When i was young
the mystery of light and shadow
was complex in its composition,
logical in its behavior.
You shone a light toward a chair
or at a piece of cardboard
the shadow could be found right behind.
But light has grown more playful
as i collect my badges of years -
it bends like an acrobat through the dark
and pools in little secret corners
like a tiny lake seeking the lowest spot
or a sleepy cat
curled for a nap.
the shadow of a dove in flight
creates a roguish path.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

twin comets
sailing side by side
in the dark of the seas
of space and time
reach in the night
to the planet earth
toward an antique shrub
robed with pale blooms
and a frail 2-legged being,
his binoculars focused
toward the sky,
a constellation
with diamond eyes





****

(NB: imaginative poetry intended here, not news!)

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Today I gazed upon the beauty of the old crescent moon rising before dawn. Later I found a huge acorn in the street - a variety of oak I'm not familiar with. I tossed it into a puddle in the creek bed, wishing it a chance at taking hold somewhere someday along the banks. It's been many moons since I've seen a heron or fish there, but the creek, as the drought slips away, has taken a step back toward life.

Monday, October 20, 2014

playing house, 1961

The playground in second grade had one shady tree. Sometimes we girls (it was an all-girls school) gathered beneath to 'play house'. We used stray branches as brooms, and swept the dusty ground until it was smooth enough to serve as the floor. We swept leaves into rows and rectangles to create the outlines for rooms in the house, and took turns being the mama, the daddy, the brother, the sister. Small piles of broken leaves filled our imaginary pots and pans, and we stirred the leaves round and round with a stick for a spoon. We brewed coffee and we cooked rice and gravy. We served it up to each other, eating and drinking and washing pretend dishes until the bell rang and it was time to go back indoors.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

It is too early
too early you see
to be up on a Saturday morning
street lights still glowing
on the dark lane outside
below my bedroom window

but the hoards of mischief-makers
in the night life of the mind
are too disturbing
i must be up and going

down the steps
and to the blackness of the street
the air sweet with northerly breezes
and the fragrant promise - could it be true -
of rain. Count the blocks

to the suburban coffee shop
the 'OPEN' sign just lit
I sit
in solitary warmth
behind the pane glass window
and lift the flowered cup
to the clouded dawn

Monday, October 13, 2014

from 'The Famous Adventures of Richard Halliburton'

...We had no time to be conscious of the fact that we were four hundred miles away from the nearest spring of water, four hundred miles from the nearest human being.

Despite our long delay, with luck we might still hope to reach Gao before nightfall. But luck, this time, deserted the Flying Carpet.

The hot desert wind, which had been dead against us all day, seemed to double the force of its resistance as we left the tank behind. We were forcing our engine well above cruising speed, but the flatness below seemed to be standing still. We began to watch the desert with growing apprehension, fearful lest the sand spouts would spring forth any moment and recommence their diabolical dance.

By five o'clock we were struggling for every mile.

By seven o'clock there was still nothing but limitless Sahara in sight. The sun had gone down in flames, and a pale moon told us night was at hand.

We must land again while there was yet enough light, and resign ourselves to spending the night wherever the Flying Carpet stopped rolling.

Again on the ground, as a precautionary measure we anchored the airplane with sacks which we filled with gravel. For supper we allowed ourselves a small ration of water, and a can of beef. Then as darkness deepened, and the desert moon rose higher in the sky, we uncovered our portable phonograph brought all the way from California, and had a musicale in the middle of this still, dead world.

The full moon gave us ample light, pouring its glow over the vast rotunda that was our concert hall. Schubert himself would have been moved and subdued by the melody of his 'Serenade' spreading over the moonlit Sahara. The gentle, plaintive notes of the 'Song of India' ceased to be wearisomely familiar. They became soaring, pure harmony, true and beautiful. We felt we'd never heard this old, old song before. We played the 'Hymn to the Sun' from 'Coq d'Or'. The audacity of this clear clarion chant sent chills and fevers through our blood. Its cascade of icy notes pierced the night with sweetness and reached the stars and bade them listen to the miracle of music rising from the heart of the wilderness.


***
In the above passage from the autobigraphical 'The Famous Adventures of Richard Halliburton', the year is 1931, and Halliburton and his fellow pilot/mechanic Moye Stephens are flying across the Sahara Desert in Halliburton's plane, 'Flying Carpet', on their way to Timbuctoo. The work was first published in 1932 by The Bobbs-Merrill Company. I have the 1940 edition on loan from a public library in Austin. As with many books I have perused or checked out in the past three years, no matter what city or which bookstore, there are signs of unauthorized, at times offensive, editing in this copy, so I can't assume the authenticity of every word. But it is a beefy work, and there is plenty of narrative that enriches and expands the mind of the reader.

Saturday, October 11, 2014

A book called 'Diario de Greg 3 - Esto es el colmo!' by Jeff Kinney spoke to me from the library shelf. It has a handsome green cover with a cartoon that looks as though it were torn from a lined notebook. I've never been taught Spanish - español - but I know a few words and so tried to read the first pages. I think the first chapter is about a family's new years's resolutions. It's a challenging puzzle for me to decipher, it being in Spanish and all. But there are lots of amusing sketches to keep me reading and guessing what the heck is going on.

Friday, October 10, 2014

turtle crossing the road -

A turtle was stranded in the middle of a busy highway a couple of weeks ago, looking about as though wondering, 'How did I get here?'

It was so small, and the cars and truck were so big. I don't know at what speed this turtle could travel, but the vehicles were flying by at 65 or 70 miles per hour. Turtles have these very sturdy shells that, across the thousands of years, have kept them safe from most predators. The shells make up for the fact that they don't move fast enough to outrun a fox or an owl. When trouble arrives, they tuck their heads and feet into the shell, and are about as vulnerable and unmoving as a stone. The predator leaves, and the turtle's head and feet peek out, and he or she goes on about their business.

The turtle's design comes long before the invention of trucks and highways - even the sturdy shell has little chance when up against a vehicle in motion. Cars may be the biggest threat to turtles. So when I see a turtle in the road, if there is some way I can pull over and carry it the rest of the way across, I do.

On this particular day, it was challenging. By the time I parked and walked back, the turtle was in a center turn lane, head, feet and tail no longer visible. A minute or two passed before there was a break in the traffic. I walked into the middle of the road, picked up the turtle and briskly walked back.

Part of the shell near the turtle's tail was badly crushed. Water and a bit of blood drained from the shell as I carried the turtle but I could feel it was alive. Because the damage was a relatively small area, I think it's likely that it could heal.

There was no creek bed or safe natural area apparent near where I found the turle. The wildlife rescue center I called could offer no help. So I found a quiet spot in a park in town with a bit of pond and some tall, woodsy trees, a half acre that smelled like wilderness of the past.

I've thought about the turtle once or twice since I left it. Maybe a kid took him home for a pet. Maybe the turtle found another turtle or two living nearby. Maybe the turtle will thrive and grow and still be in that bit of woods four hundred years from now.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

hiking in the city -

Living in a city, it's easy to become focused on all that concrete and asphalt around you. Streets and freeways and colossal cloverleafs and parking lots and multi-storied garages - they are all a vital part of getting from here to there within motorized vehicles - and you have to watch where you're going. This morning, I was lucky, handed the opportunity to focus on other aspects of life on earth. I got into my car, and turned the key and all was silent. The battery was dead.

So, I hiked to and from my destinations. The best part of this slowed experience of morning was that which was wild, striding along one of those natural areas somehow tucked along the sides of the road and in corners of a city, just past the noise and vehicle activity. The grasses were tall - they whispered and nodded now and then to one another. Wildflowers - lantana and a variety of silver-leafed nightshade - were tucked near the scrubby shrubs.  The breeze was mild, and fragrant were the clusters of yellow blooms on tree branches above me. Then I was past it, crossing multi-laned streets again and pausing on the concrete islands between the rivers of cars.

Later, I came upon a mom and four young kids out for a stroll along the front yards of a row of houses. With that brief encounter came another entry into realness, that which is timeless and reaches across continents. This may sound a little exaggerated for a moment with a mother and children walking in the sunshine and the shadow of trees. But I've been in the car a lot of late - in the world of stoplights and heated pavement, horns and brakes and truck engines in neutral waiting to exit a parking lot into the flow of traffic. This morning there was another true world that thrives at the pace of a youngster's meandering.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Perhaps you could call it art. For certain it was a fad. For a couple of decades - the nineteen sixties and seventies - it was not uncommon to find in a home a bowl of plastic fruit. Often the bowl was of good quality - perhaps of polished wood and filled with realistic plastic bananas and apples. Grapes dangled over the rim of the bowl in an appealing way. Occasionally, you might find an orange or a plum. As a kid, I was fascinated. The plastic reproductions were usually quite authentic looking - not cartoonish - and pleasing to hold. 

Perhaps their popularity was practical - unlike with a decorative bowl of fresh fruit, there was no worry about spoilage. Though not edible, they still brought to mind the comfort of food, sunny fields, productive vines and trees. 

Plastic was still relatively new in the home - intrigue with something different and rather impressive could have led to an impulse purchase. Or perhaps it was just the in thing to do - we're in with the in crowd - we have a bowl of plastic fruit.

I feel a little bad about making fun. There was something reassuring to visit friends and discover the bowl of fruit on a counter, or in the center of a dining room table, an icon, gleaming and unchanging.

**
Glad to be back after a two-week hiatus from this blog - whale's breath. Buried within greater Austin, Texas - I finally found a place to live. The process of moving took time and the blog was set aside for a spell.


linda

Monday, September 22, 2014

Atalanta, Hippomenes, and the golden apples

In this ancient Greek story, Atalanta is a renowned runner. She's of age for marriage. Either she or her father - King Iasius? - it is unclear who - wants to keep marriage from happening, and the announcement is made that Atalanta will not marry until a suitor who can defeat her in a footrace appears. Any suitors who show up to run but fail to win will be executed.

Several young fellows lose. Details of their executions are not given nor are reactions from Atalanta or her dad.

Hippomenes shows up with an interest in wedding this fast and beautiful daughter of a king. However, he does not like the idea of being executed. He comes up with a clever plan that should improve his odds of winning, and keeping alive. He consults with the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite (Venus). She gives him a sack of special golden apples and a plan. When the race starts, he keeps a little ahead of her. When she catches up to take the lead, he rolls an apple ahead of her. Atalanta is distracted by the apple. She bends to pick it up and Hippomenes takes the lead. He's grinning. He has a chance. But then, he hears her foot steps close behind. She's catching up! He rolls another apple, and she bends to pick it up and Hippomenes moves ahead once again.

This continues until Hippomenes has only one apple left in the bag. Atalanta is sprinting to pass him and reach the finish line. Hippomenes rolls an apple, and it falls by the side of the course, down into a shallow ditch. Atalanta grimaces. She likes this fellow, but she has to win the race. She looks at the finish line and at the apple. Maybe she can win and have the apple. She darts to the ditch, Hippomenes takes the lead and increases his speed. Atalanta catches up, is almost back at his side again when Hippomenes crosses the line, winning the cruel contest and the speedy bride.

Friday, September 19, 2014

desserts

I slept over at friends' houses a few times when I was a kid, and I remember some by the dessert that was offered there - even though this was decades ago! Each one seemed to be the most delicious food I'd ever eaten. There were the toaster waffles with sliced fresh strawberries and whipped cream on top. There was the angel food cake broken up and combined with canned peaches and whipped cream, and then chilled in the fridge before serving. There were beignets made by frying in a skillet the biscuit dough that comes in tubes, then sprinkling generously with powdered sugar. I was in my early twenties when a friend's folks served up vanilla ice cream with fresh sliced bananas and strawberries. That sounds simple, but I'd never had ice cream with fresh fruit - it was so good. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on white sliced bread - the only kind around - with a glass of cold milk - that was new to me.

It was good to visit the homes of others, and try new foods.  It was as though the parents embedded themselves forever in my heart by making a special dessert. It's taken me a long time to realize the happiness that came with these foods was a message from my body saying - yes! this is just what you need.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

There was this big seagull in Oakland, California, who liked to chat up the pigeons on the wires of the power lines. The seagull seemed to prefer hanging with the pigeons rather than with his own kind who hung out over the water. Maybe it was just that his day job took him into the peninsula where the land birds live, and late in the day, he went fishing with the other gulls like him, looking for seafood remains humans cast from their boats. Or maybe he and the other gulls didn't get along. Anyway, the pigeons and the gull, they looked so cool and together - at ease and complete.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

coexistence with pets

There are tales from the past where pets were not so much dogs and cats, and only the most well-to-do had horses. People walked from one destination to the next, and the pet who kept them company was a mouse or a cricket. During many of the years I've lived in Austin, Texas - we had gerbils and they brought us considerable happiness and companionship. Had I to do it again, however, I think I'd try to learn ways not to interfere with their freedoms as individual creatures. Would there have been ways for them to be companions without keeping them in cages? I'm sure the answer is yes, even though I don't know how exactly we might have worked that out.

Monday, September 15, 2014

on pain

Pain protects the body. That seems a little unlikely since pain hurts - it must be bad for us, right?

When a creature feels pain, it's a warning signal. 'Move away from the fire.' 'Set down that hot skillet.' Paying attention to the warning keeps flesh from getting destroyed by burns. 'There is something in your eye - rinse it out.' 'You are ill - rest until this passes.' 'You hurt your foot - don't put weight on it and make the damage worse.' It's good that the body puts out this signal!

However, sometimes, pain shows up that has nothing to do with injury or illness, and the false signal is confusing. If pain centers in the brain are stimulated in unnatural ways, you might feel a sharp pain in the foot when no injury has happened, there is no stick nor stone in your shoe. It just feels that way. You might stop walking or go to a surgeon thinking something is wrong with your foot when your foot is fine. You might keep taking that shoe off and shaking it. The pain is a hurtful feeling not related to any injury. To artificially cause such pain in another is usually cruel.

Some people have few pain signals at all, or the volume of the pain is very low compared to what others experience. These people may take more risks because the consequences are not very painful, and in the long run they may be more crippled by damage because it didn't hurt when it was happening. They may walk or run when they have a broken foot, preventing it from healing properly.

Chronic pain - pain that continues day after day - can be disabling in itself in that the individual feels too uncomfortable to focus on anything else, too uncomfortable to enjoy life.

There is emotional pain, such as grieving over separation from a loved one - but that's a whole volume in itself.

In a community - it can be helpful to have people with different pain thresholds. The very sensitive people will give warning that something is awry, there is something hurtful going on or approaching. The less sensitive people, the people with a higher pain threshold, will not notice perhaps, feeling no pain. But when there is need for someone to stand up to the threat, they may be cheerfully willing because they are not afraid of hurt; they don't know pain.

To artificially disconnect a person's pain sensors, for example with drugs, may not be in that person's best interest in the long run. It's helpful to know when you have an internal injury or a fracture. However, once the person knows there is a problem, and can address the cause, or finds there is nothing further to be done, pain relief can be a blessing.

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Amado M. Peña, Jr. is an artist who was fabulously popular in the 1980s. His paintings, imbedded within the Pascua Yaqui tribe of southwestern Native American life, were stern, dry and visually compelling. Sometimes we think popular artists who are able to sell thousands of prints are commercially successful, but not the 'real thing'. Yet, I would attest he created works that reached deep and drew the eye over and over.  To me, that is the real thing. There was something new to discover each time you gazed at his paintings and yet they bore the same imprint; he touched upon a tribal archetype within each work. Though his subject matter had complexity and detail, his instinct for balance and composition was not sacrificed. The paintings were complex, but easy on the eye.

Were I to have lunch with Mr. Pe
ña, and were encouraged to ask him one question, my question would be about the hats his subjects wore. The arcs of their brims are simple, yet often seem to shelter a small world of their own. Tell me about those hats, I'd say. How did you come to repeat that specific arc again and again?

Friday, September 12, 2014

contemplation of the clam


contemplation of the clam

crusty old clam
denizen of the deep
sitting on the ocean floor
contemplating his
nonexistant navel
a brain in a growing skull of shell
thinking thinking
wise un-thoughts
humming along
with the sleeping-waking-
sleeping-waking rhythms
of the creatures breathing air above -
and the creatures swimming below -
the flat barrier known as
the surface of the sea
the ceiling of the sea
his non-thinking a web of connection
sighing, now fluttering
rising and falling like a wave or a
breeze beneath a prayer flag
pondering existence each to his own.
each mind is a part of the physics of the universe;
each mind is a contained universe
far larger than its bony container,
the clam
so much bigger than his shell

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Rumi's writings from the 1200s bring comfort, but not a cozy cocooning kind of comfort. His poems open doors and windows, letting out stale air, and bringing in awareness of the infinity of experiences available to us. Reading Rumi, one breathes in something bright and delicious.

There are many references in his writings to his friend and teacher, Shams-i Tabrizi. These include not only reflections on the brief time they shared, but his experiences of connection to his Friend after Shams departed. Reading these works made me think he saw his love for his teacher as a conduit to God's love.

I've looked for samples of Shams' works in the past with few results. Like many materials on the internet these days, there appears to have been some informal editing. Still, I'll share the quote below:

'The universe is one being. Everything and everyone is interconnected through an invisible web of stories. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all in a silent conversation.'

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

sign language

One day, a kid passed around a bundle of cards with pictures of how to sign the alphabet with our hands. Amazing how fast kids will learn a new language when it isn't a requirement. I think just about all of us had the alphabet down within the week and were signing secret messages across the class rooms.

As I understand it - and I'm no expert - there are several sign languages that use the hands to communicate. There is one that is more literal in that the hands communicate word by word the same vocabulary and grammar that is spoken verbally by the community. So if you want to ask, 'how is your car engine behaving this week?' you sign every word of that sentence. There are also sign languages that fly on their own. They don't use words that are in the spoken language, except perhaps to communicate the names of people and places. Instead, the hands use motion and signals to communicate direction, feelings, whether something is past or ongoing. This is hand poetry, a wordless complexity and simplicity. With this visual art in motion, the body perhaps communicates on more levels than words can usually reach.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

the cousins' canoe


the metal canoe
gently rocks
under the moonlight.
the cousins talked of going floundering
but the gear is untouched -
they relax, bare feet
touching the water.
lights freckle the shoreline -
small waves
splash the side of the boat
the wistful rhythm
of summer
dwindling to an end.

Monday, September 8, 2014

the genes of a song -

Music is like a family tree. The style of singing, the rhythm, what instruments are used, the palette of notes - you could think of these as genes. Someone who is well familiar with musicians of different generations might recognize a guitar riff from a blues guy three generations back. There might be an Eastern European strain, or an instrument that is found only in Korea. Our music teacher in high school, Ms. Lee, taught us how to identify various genres of music, and I sometimes listen for the attributes she pointed out.

Randol's, a restaurant in Lafayette, Louisiana, has a dance floor. In the evenings, local bands play - usually Cajun music which I've thought of as Louisiana Acadian French - also known as chanky-chank. Sometimes after eating, we've stayed and listened as dancers move around the floor. Plaintive Celtic melodies unexpectedly surface from the Cajun music, with the accordian used like the drone of bagpipes. Mexican and German accordian is strong. There are the Louisiana French lyrics.
You can hear blues repetitions. The blues has origins from African chants. Zydeco has a lot of African-American and Creole influence. The word zydeco is the local spelling of 'les haricots' - French for snap beans. 'Les haricots sont pas salé' the song goes.

The area I grew up in prided itself on its Cajun roots, and there is that and there is so much more. You can hear the family tree in the local music.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

dogs on leashes

If there were leashes on any of the neighborhood dogs circa 1960, I don't remember them. We lived on a lazy little one block long street, and I remember a dachsund (they were casually called 'weiner dogs' because of their long bodies and short legs) and a bassett hound. Dogs followed the kids in their families up and down the neighborhood - like they were 4-legged siblings. Puppies were a little in the way some times. They hadn't yet learned the rules of the street. Adult dogs, though, were bright and protective of the kids.

Well - I'm remembering an exception to this - our own dog! We got a collie named Zip around then. Collies were popular because there was one with her own television show - 'Lassie'. Everybody watched 'Lassie' - week after week she followed Timmy, the kid in her household, everywhere. She rescued him, or other animals or neighbors, from the calamity of the week. Zip - our dog - wasn't quite at that level of maturity. Our folks kept him on a rope attached to the clothesline post during the day. Even then, there was many an evening our mom rode slowly through the neighborhood calling Zip's name out of the car window. He was good at untying knots.

Soon after this, we moved to the country, and Zip got a big fenced yard, and a golden retriever named Duke to keep him company. We got Duke because he'd been owned by hunters and was expected to retrieve ducks from the water. He failed to get out into the water, much less fetch a duck, and the highly frustrated owners gave him to us. Duke ever after jumped into every puddle or pond he came across. He just didn't like hunting or the noise of the guns I guess.

I see the speed of the many cars on the streets, and I see lots of leashes, and dogs kept in crates indoors, and I know times are different now.

Saturday, September 6, 2014

the slam of a car door
below my window
triggers a pinch of happiness
it's 1967 and our mother
is home from work -
she'll soon be inside
in the warm kitchen light

Friday, September 5, 2014

bobwhites

The first bird I learned by name was the bobwhite, a species of quail, when I was around age 4 in the late 1950s. We lived in south-central Louisiana near what was a field of varied grasses, and thistles close to five feet tall, I'd guess. Sometimes in the early morning, you could hear the bobwhites. Our mother occasionally would initiate the call from the open kitchen window, and wait to hear the response. I'm pretty sure her whistled call was only two notes: 'bob-white!'  But I also remember a call that was three notes: 'bob-bob-white!'

When I lived in rural central Texas - around 1980, there was a covey of bobwhites near our house. They nested near the ground and sometimes would walk in line, a parent with three or so juveniles trotting behind. The invasion of fire ants came a year or two later, and it wasn't until after 2000, after the fire ant population stabilized, that I heard another bobwhite.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

scrambled books ...

I'm looking at a hardcover book that I recently picked out. The cover art is rather beautiful - a black and white background of trees and snow with a small red bird in the foreground (that somehow looks like part cardinal, part finch, and part hummingbird). The title, and a review quote on the back, are printed in black on what looks like a brass plate with elegant decorative etching. Simple, and appealing book design.

The contents however include much cruel material that seems intended to deliberately repel rather than appeal to the reader. There are lengthy redundancies, and places where the characters' names are jumbled. These appear to be errors or intentional offenses, not some sort of artistic device. I read about an eighth of it, got suspicious, and glanced through the rest only to find that it gets more persistently cruel the deeper you go.

I'd just let it go, except I've come to realize across the last fifteen years or so that a number of recommended books are broken reads, with the same issues as this one has. A formulaic wrecking of what was perhaps once an engaging work.

Some of my favorite authors came out with new books that were not readable, in the same way that this one is not. At first I thought well, maybe the writer lost his or her trusted editor. But then, I bought or borrowed books that I've read and reread in the past. Some of the new printings no longer contain the same material - and they have problems like those listed above that were not there in the past. A messed up children's classic, 'Anne of Green Gables', doctored books by John Irving and by Jean Auel, Bill Cosby and by Anne Tyler. I've seen altered Bibles, art books and reference books with greatly misleading material and phony illustrations. It is a grief, the undermining of our treasury of cultural and scientific knowledge. Others are aware of this situation, not just in literature, but in sciences, the arts, music and film. I don't know how the problems are being addressed. It might be helpful just to label damaged material as 'edited without permission of the author or publisher' - a kind of 'beware' for the readers and viewers, as a starting point. Over time, perhaps we shall gradually recover what has been lost.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

gems and jewels

Crystals and jewels are something about which I know very little. Still, there is appeal in the words and appeal in the fairy tale illustration thoughts that come to mind. Children's books have images of pirate treasure chests brimming with gold and various crystals. Great green dragons with forked red tongues and fire and smoke issuing from their throats and nostrils can be seen guarding their stacks of jewels and gem bedecked crowns and ropes of pearls ... and more overflowing treasure chests.

When we were kids, we knew the stone for the month we were born. In our family, there were some well known birth month gems, but two of us had stones that you don't see mentioned in stories and movies: peridot and aquamarine. The colors are lovely - pale crystals of green and blue - but that's all I know. Across the decades of my life, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds have come up with some regularity in books and news articles and museums. Sapphires and opals and garnets are not as frequently mentioned, but still in the everyday vocabulary. Quartz has lots of applications - and is easily found in streambeds in the mountains. Pearls are not gem stones, but an animal product formed within some oysters. (Too bad for the oldest oysters - they have been collected by divers around the world hoping to strike it rich with the discovery of one gleaming, symmetrical pearl the size of a marble.)

Topaz comes up now and again. Topaz is familiar to me because of family with African ties who long ago collected specimans in creekbeds of Nigeria.

Beryl is a gem, and it's a word that fascinates me. But I wouldn't recognize it if it were placed in the palm of my hand.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

today is with clouds
is a beautiful day
a sky no longer
pale and lonely
but one set in motion,
animated by odd characters
that bloom and shrink
with the capricious currents of air.

a dark strand
of prism colors
arcs across
a watery blur to the east.

the clouds just above
are bright and hobnobbing -
they toss a spray of droplets
down to my heated brow.

the sun is curtained
in grays and purples
limned with glory.

Monday, September 1, 2014

alligator encounters

When my sister was around age one, and some twenty years later when my son was around age one, we had the experience of encountering an alligator. Well, actually, an alligator appeared for each of them, and I happened to be a witness. The first encounter was with a young gator about two to three feet long that was making its way through our yard in Louisiana after a hurricane. I was wheeling my sister in a wheelbarrow and came to a halt, uncertain whether this was a living alligator ahead of us or a big piece of pine bark. Then it snapped and it was alrighty, time to fetch an adult - no - first I must take the baby away from this amazing scary wild creature. The second event - when my son was a baby in a stroller - we were near the edge of a lake at Avery Island near New Iberia, Louisiana when we noted a huge grandaddy-sized gator's head above the water's surface some ten feet away. The alligator wasn't moving - maybe even was gracing us with his peaceful appearance - but we very promptly pulled the carriage away from the pond.

I think about it now, though, and wonder if these events were dangerous, or if perhaps fellow creatures just briefly let us see them, be aware of their presence, when we arrived in their space.

Maybe six years ago, I took a tour with a friend on Lake Martin near Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. We were in a small boat with an outboard motor. The guide would pause here and there, and among the many birds, fishes, snakes and insects we saw, there were several ancient gators who just floated in the water, peaceful as silent logs, only with resounding charisma. An egret was grooming his feathers, perched on an alligator's back. Another time at Lake Martin, I saw alligator babies about the size of a pencil in a shallow ditch-like area, with the mother not far away. None of these situations were threatening - they just called for respect for the animals' personal space. We were just visitors passing through their only home.

Sunday, August 31, 2014

august morning in the city


traffic lights are flashing
above the dark streets -
gold. gold.
red. red.
a man drives by
thinking man thoughts.
a single summer cloud
is drifting -
dark gray against
the pale before dawn.
the cafe lights are dim -
there will be no coffee
for another hour.
a chain clinks
against the metal flagpole.
i sit in my car,
windows open,
playing solitaire.

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Wash and save the glass jar next time you run out of mayonnaise. Next hot summer day, put a couple of scoops of your favorite ice cream in the jar - add some milk. Tighten the lid on the jar and shake vigorously until the ice cream has mixed and foamed with the milk. (They call this treat 'shake' for a reason.) Pull a couple of chilled glasses from the freezer, pour the mixture into the glasses and share.

You can add mashed fruit, or a spoonful of powdered malt to the ingredients to vary the equation. Life is good.


Friday, August 29, 2014

the mouse and the money

Once upon a time, a mouse named Hal was heading home through the little woods in the back of a neighborhood. He clambered over leaves and the roots of trees, and he stopped to eat a tiny wild strawberry nestled in the varied grasses. He foraged on and thought he should have found another berry, or maybe an acorn, to carry home to share, but there were none. But, lo and behold, he saw something new and unusual ahead on his little trail. It was smooth and flat and cornered and had a pungent, unfamiliar scent. The markings were in greens and beiges and a few colorful lines and curleques. One pattern was repeated on some of the corners. It looked like this : 1000. He tugged the leaf-like rectangle toward home.

Maybe this was money. He had heard of money but none of his friends had ever seen any that they knew of. Still, the wife - Opal - she would know what to do with it. He dragged it further and it flapped a little in the breeze and it got caught on thorns and under vines, but he set it free and got it to the opening of their nest.

Fortunately, it was soft enough that its shape bent and folded as he tugged it down the tunnel into the living room they had carved out beneath the root of an elm. Opal's shiny dark eyes lit up when she saw what he had brought in. She walked all over it, then walked under it. Would it attach to the ceiling? Was it good underfoot like a rug? She didn't know.

Hal walked away to get something to eat. He looked up from the wild onion root he was nibbling on, and stopped in alarm. Wait! But Opal already had the bill half chewed up into tiny strands and flakes and curls of fiber.

She lined the cubbyhole in the back with the debris, packing it snug here and there. She curled up, and, after all that work, took a nap atop the new bedding. Hal tentatively put his paws onto the stuff. It was good insulation for their cubbyhole. Warm and soft - not bad. He crawled in and fell asleep, too, curled up next to Opal.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

the summer table

pleasant peaceful days
flow quietly in the past -
unfiled unflagged memories
the details blurred and distant
but i can make my own little flags,
and remember the calls of the chickadees
to mark what's gone by -
the blue glass pitcher
is filled with cool water
from the limestone aquifer
the voices of kids
echo from the front patio
a pair of does
amble through the backyard
a half-grown fawn
peeks into the living room window
the black and white cat
stares right back
it's growing darker
we clear the summer table
Venus glows in the dusk
of the western sky

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

There's an episode of the television program 'Northern Exposure' (1990s) where Maggie O'Connell, the prop-plane pilot, meets a man out in the Alaskan forest who is fishing in a wild creek. He stands poised and motionless. In a blink, he captures a fish from the sparkling water - perhaps salmon? - with his bare hands. Astonished, Maggie approaches him and the two of them talk, and he shows her the cave where he lives. She comes searching for him at a later time, and cannot find him. But there is a great bear at the creek, poised and motionless, among the rocks at the creek's edge. A sudden movement - he catches a fish. He glances at Maggie and she - and the viewer - become aware that the man is the bear, that this is his true self.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

I heard a man's voice yesterday. He spoke Hamlet's line to Ophelia, 'Get thee to a nunnery!' I thought that was amusing, and, having no other plans for the late afternoon, I thought - where are there nunneries around here? (meaning Austin, Texas, and surrounding area.)

Four different Catholic churches came to mind - but as far as I know, none are associated with convents. I am familiar with some convents, but they are in Houston and south central Louisiana. (And there may be one east of here that raises miniature horses?)

Then - ding! - of course! Two enthusiastic nuns founded and ran a very small school in our neighborhood in northeast Hays County in the 1980s and 90s, kindergarten through third grade.
(This was good - as close as I could get to the concept of nunnery on such short notice.) Our sons went there. The school closed around 2001, after the sisters retired. 

I know they no longer live there, and the school is boarded up by a different owner. But I'd just completed knitting a scarf, so I took it and the one I finished a day or two earlier as offerings of appreciation even though the nuns are not there.

No one was on the property when I drove up. I walked around the old parking lot and driveway where we once dropped off and picked up our kids, and where festivals were held. It was very hot and very dry and peacefully overgrown. Though the place looks woefully abandoned, decorated with this and that debris, it somehow still rings with the voices of children and teachers who grew gardens, and brought their sandwiches and carrots and cookies to school and went to Mass and stuck paper signs with Spanish vocabulary words on everything that stood still, and colored and wrote poems and played basketball and learned about distant countries, multiplication tables, and famous writers and composers. Still, there is a big contrast between the tidy little school when it was active and its state of deterioration today.


I hung the scarves on the broken railing of the covered walkway with a note - 'Dominican Academy lives on in the students who learned here.'

Somehow, I know the good sisters got the message.

Monday, August 25, 2014

to water a tree

It doesn't take much to water a tree. A bucket can work, or a hose. Any time of day or night - the tree won't complain. If you have a hose, you can spray the tree up and down and all around its branches and trunk. Trees like that. You can bring it water until you are tired, or happy, or both. The tree will be happy too.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Everybody has a heart. Everybody has a capacity to love.

Some of us just don't wish to be forced into acknowledging that love exists for them. Some, for many reasons, do not feel any inklings at all of that kind of stuff yet.

The experience of love is your yes or your no, it's your not now or your forever, or your not ever. You are not to be forced.

I think of love as a seedling. It responds to sun and darkness and water and breezes and the company of animals and other plants. It blooms on its own joyful timing, without thought or worry, and not by force.

I think all love and God are the same. The love we experience in our lives comes in many shapes and from many sources; the Greater love comes in smaller packages so that we can find it, we can be drawn to it, we can digest it. That love quenches our thirst; it helps us thrive in peace and happiness; it flows through us like light through water; it brings light to others.

I'm thankful for the love I've received from my parents, my kids, my cats, kin, lovers, and teachers, my friends old and new, the scrubby shrubs and birds and clouds, the music-makers and comedians, and the occasional stranger in a grocery store line.

Friday, August 22, 2014

old moon

deep in the summer months
we have no rain
but before the blazing
heat of day
there's this poetry
in the dark before dawn
written against the sky

the old crescent moon
thin as an orange whisper

glowing in the east
before the sun

is even out of bed

the speeding cars
their eye-lamps burning
ride the dim over
and under passes
near the humble moon

Thursday, August 21, 2014

One of my favorite books is the classic, 'Kim', by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1901. An elderly monk from an isolated Tibetan monastery in the Himalayas is on a journey to find The River of the Arrow. He has walked many miles for many days before he meets up with an orphaned Irish boy named Kim who lives on the streets of a busy city in India. The book is about the journey, and it is about the friendship between the young kid and the old man. The lama (teacher) is gentle-spirited and naive. For being a deep elder, the man knows little about city life and social expectations. The kid is street smart, knows people around town, and easily finds food for the monk and safe places to sleep.  It's the kid who takes care of practical concerns, who bargains for good rice and vegetables for himself, and to fill the monk's bowl. In general, this is not difficult because many people consider feeding a monk on a journey an honor, or good fortune. Kim sees himself as a caregiver for the monk and takes satisfaction in this new role in his life. The monk calls him his chela, or student.

There is a lot of political activity and subterfuge behind this thread. While traveling with the lama, the boy comes into contact with various characters who are a part of a network of everyday espionage and strategy. He is also rediscovered by some of his father's contacts in the British army. Years pass by as Kim is turned over to obtain traditional schooling, but he maintains contact with his friend the lama who seems to grow no closer to finding the object of his journey.

Kipling creates many colorful scenes that introduce the reader to the romance of life in India, to trading, magic, to the poor and the well-to-do. As a four-time reader of the book, I have a bit of a blind spot regarding the political intrigue, and am always surprised by its existence within the book. The storyline of the relationship between the boy and the lama, of the boy's natural reaching out to learn from this teacher he has found, however, glows throughout and give the story its wholeness.


There was a movie based on this book. The only scene I remember is the ending where the lama has been ill and given up hope. He makes a slow effortful walk outside of the home where he is being tended, and finds epiphany at a stream running at his feet.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

communion of souls

So many categories and dividing lines in the human life. What color are you, what is your religion, what nationality do you claim, what side of the freeway do you live on?

Our souls know none of these dividing lines. Souls don't drive cars - fancy or cheap. They don't wear shoes, worn or shiny new. No color is visible, nationalities perhaps are not relevant - that's how I like to think. That when a kindred spirit approaches, our souls recognize that connection, and feel a passion in that union, however momentary, however different or at odds we may be in the physical world, even however different the species, like a boy and his dog.

Sometimes, though, kindred souls may be hesitant or even avoidant. Our minds have their prejudices, or may obsessively cling to earthly memberships, statuses and rulebooks. Sometimes our minds get in the way of the greetings of our souls.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

home

a light above the door,
the tablecloth set -
we're hoping to find home

Monday, August 18, 2014

The first thing that caught my attention watching curling yesterday was the shoes on ice. There were no skates. The second thing was the rocks in motion. They are so symetrical that without the handles, one might not know how their position shifts when the thrower sends them flying on the ice. But the handles are relatively large and bright colored, and you can see how the rocks sway from side to side as they speed forward by the movement of the handle.

Watching the handles, I noted an odd little quirk. As the end of the handle swung my way, there was a gap in the handle's location as it rotated - like a blink, or like a portion of a second was skipped. It was like watching a second-hand smoothly circling a clock and abruptly skipping a beat. Either a glitch was occurring in my perception, or something was happening physically, some interaction of the stone, the earth's pull, the rock's speed, and the rock's spin (and perhaps the perception of the viewer). I've seen videos of hi-speed jets taking off where it looks as though as much as 2 seconds were skipped as the jet broke a certain speed. Onlookers are suddenly in a slightly different location.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Curling

Watching the winter Olympics on television back in the 1990s, I discovered curling, the funniest-looking sport I'd ever seen. And here at an ice rink in Austin, Texas on this Sunday morning in August, 2014, I got to see curling live, in person, for the first time in my life.

There were people all over the ice, not in ice skates, but wearing shoes. They were a range of ages, from middle-school to upper-middle-aged adults. These lozenge-shaped rocks, like granite hockey pucks the size of a small watermelon, were sailing down the rink. Two people carrying small brooms, or fabric mops, met each rock and started fast-walking backwards, sweeping the ice immediately ahead of the rock - without touching it - as it moved toward a target behind them. They were synchronized-sweeping as fast as they could! This odd activity can increase the stone's distance and affect its direction. I was entranced.

There was a fellow watching from the sidelines, and I asked if he knew anything about this sport. He told me this is the Lone Star Curling Club, of Austin. He shared with me some of the details of the game's history, how it is played, and the strategies used. The vocabulary for the game was new to me - for example, there's the skip, the button, and the guards; the hammer, the house, and the hack. 

Curling dates back at least to the late Medieval period, to the 1500s, in Scotland, and more recently, rose to great heights in Canada.

I watched quite a while. The goal of the game is to get the most points by landing your rocks as close as possible to the button - the target. This sounds like other games - from bocce ball to horseshoes. But curling is on ice, and as I watched the players in their different vigorous roles, it was as though there was more going on than points as the broom-wielders shuffled, and the heavy granite rocks with their spigot-like handles swung and rotated as they skidded across the ice. We weren't so far from the players and stones and onlookers of a distant time.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

There are little eras where curly hair is popular, and others where straight is the thing. Dry and fluffy or oiled and sleek. Short or long, wild or restrained. Humans can become obsessed with hair trends, products, colors.

When I was a kid, the ladies and girls leaned toward curling their hair. There were a number of at-home techniques that were popular. To make pin curls, a damp strand of hair was twirled into a ring and attached to the scalp with two bobby pin that were crossed to hold the curl together. You waited until the hair was dry, removed the pins and voila - a head covered with soft curls. Rollers and curlers were popular (and still are used today). The older models were coiled wires shaped like little cylinsers and covered with stiff netting (or something like that). You wound the damp hair like thread would be wound on a spool. The later models, which are still available today, were lightweight plastic cylinders with tiny teeth or prongs to catch the hair and keep it from slipping off. Bobby pins were used to attach the curlers to the scalp. The little rollers produced loopy curls, similar to the pin curls. The big rollers (in my era, some of us used cardboard lemonade/orange juice cans) paradoxically produced  smooth, straight hair with a little bounce to it.

I don't know if spoolies are still around. They were made of rubbery material - usually pink - and looked like little toy trees with a disk at the bottom, a short stem, and a conical cap. You spooled the hair around the stem and then snapped the cap over the stem and base. To be frank, the pin curls and rollers were fine. The spoolies were entertaining but more effort, and equivocal results. (Curling irons or tongs were around, but they were limited mostly to the beauty parlors.)

As you spun your damp hair in these various ways, many would dip their fingers into sticky gel products - so that the curls would hold their shape longer once dry. Dippity-Do was the gel of the mid-60s. It came in glass jars of dangerous shades of green, pink - and maybe blue or purple goo? The ads ran on TV with frequency matched only by the local car dealers. 'It's Dippity-Do!'

Sleeping with a head full of pin curls or rollers was not uncommon. But - ouch - not a good night's sleep. The verdict was mixed about whether a person should venture outside of the house with the head full of curlers. For some, that was a strict no-no. However, on Saturdays (date night), it wasn't unusual to see teenaged girls out and about with their heads arrayed with the big plastic spools. Older women might be seen at the corner grocery, hair pinned or in curlers, wearing a favorite scarf for cover-up. There was something a little sci-fi-looking about it - and there was something a little vulnerable about it. An act of hope that these repetetive, time-consuming practices would transform one's appearance into something romantic, or exotic, or sophisticated - or just acceptable.

I've had a lot of fun writing this, but why I'm writing this, I haven't a clue.