the thousand year stare

The thousand year stare
scaffolds up a hundred transparent moments
my attention wanes
and sharpens abruptly.
I flirt with an emerald hummingbird
on the sun's side of the window
but he only sees his reflection, not the ghost
nods goodbye to sample a Gerber daisy
timid
peach-colored
proud
one of two on a stubborn plant.
I return to the kitchen.
Lines ingrained in pressed wood trace my finger
alphabet letters and preschool portraits
smiley faces
pencils tapping out songs leaving stars behind
the cadence of children making music around our table.
Window smudges.
Moss on the gate grows unchecked
the siding glows
this incessant heat
how long will it take to return after I scrub it away?
I remember something my mother wrote
words of tonic water when they finally went down
still undigested
does she resent me for not being her
or for being myself?
The books I ordered should have arrived
it has been nearly two weeks.
Piano lessons, nursery rhymes, the gingerbread man.
Dinner.
Milk?
High-pitched silverware slides
with plates like cymbals
piercing.
My family sings melodies of white noise in the background of my daydreams
I wish I could discern the tune
the fine points, the rough edges
find an intrinsic harmony.

garden haiku

If you want to start writing poetry, the haiku is a user-friendly introduction to it.  With a three-lined verse that contains the syllabic pattern of 5-7-5 and no requirement to rhyme, amateurs can make their foray into this Japanese art form without the emotional and time investment that other types of poetry require.  Purists might argue that it's more complex than I let on, and I suppose it could be, but I don't want to scare any burgeoning poets away.

This morning I was inspired by a contest to write some haiku.  I haven't written much poetry in the past few years because it takes a lot out of me emotionally, but this was simple and without that commitment.  Haiku is like the one night stand of poetry.

garden wanderer
pauses to view robin nest
dive bombing ensues

night time insects cry
katy did, katy didn't
cacophony choir

Feel free to comment with your own haiku or link to your webpage or blog :-)

thoughts on May 21st rapturization

Well, it looks like the day is finally here--the day that the end of the world begins.  I'm still here.

My kids and I have been trying to get through the 3-hour-long Avatar movie.  I've been wondering if the rapture will be like that, where your body will suddenly go limp and that'll be it.

If it is gonna happen today, I doubt it's gonna happen to me.  My next-door neighbor is still around, and he has a lot going for him.  He was named after the Apostle Paul, he told me that he never curses, he hosts the church youth group for a backyard get-together every so often, and he always has a piece of candy in his pocket and a smile for a stranger.  I am nowhere near oaiopaslk;jgkl  908t 8gti  nlkalhe480ah fgie


ATTENTION HUMANS:  THIS IS THE ANGEL GABRIEL.  I HAVE BEEN CHOSEN TO COORDINATE RAPTURE ACTIVITIES.  IF YOU HAVE BEEN LEFT BEHIND, YOU WILL STILL BE ABLE TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR RAPTURED FRIENDS.  THEY ARE LEARNING A NEW OPERATING SYSTEM IN HEAVEN AND WILL BE BACK ONLINE IN A FEW DAYS SO THEY CAN GLOAT AT YOU.

YOU ARE FREE TO ROAM ABOUT THE PLANET.  LOOTING AND PILLAGING ARE NO LONGER PROHIBITED SINCE THERE'S NOTHING GOOD YOU CAN DO THAT MATTERS ANYMORE.  HAVE FUN!

sullen teenage mockingbird

I won't do it.  You can't make me leave this tree.  Humph!

argiope aurantia, our charlotte

This little girl was spotted in our front bushes in May, 2009. She took up residence there and remained for the entire summer. When I arrived home from work in the early morning I would check for her presence in the web. If she disappeared for a day, we would worry that something terrible had happened to her, but sure enough she returned soon after, sometimes in her old web, sometimes in a new one. I guess you could say that she had a high "web-site tenacity," which is the probability of how long spiders remain in their webs before they find another site. This term was described in 1973, long before the internet was around! She had a good food source there, but we think she just liked us. :-)

She ate flies and beetles that ventured unknowingly into her lethal web. After paralyzing them with venom, she wrapped them tightly in silk.

Her abdomen, which was usually flat, grew large and round and stayed that way for days after eating. We came to know when it was time for her next meal.

As time went on, she somehow carved for herself a little depression in the leaves so that she could expand the web out further. After all, she was getting larger, and needed to be able to catch prey that was worthy of her size.

In this photo she holds a large winged insect, perhaps a cicada. We did see a few of those last year.

My favorite photo of her. The yellow and black markings on her legs and abdomen are clear as she rested after a long meal.

Her home began to extend above the bushes.

When the lower bushes were too confining for the size of the web she wanted to build, she moved up and anchored onto the pillar of our front porch and the Euonymus Alatus, or "burning bush," growing next to the house.

One morning, after I did my usual check for her, she was gone again from the web. I searched the bricks and within the leaves. I finally found her on the soffit of the front of the house. I knew it was time to say goodbye. She was drifting away from where we could be close to her and watch the details of her life play out. The mornings were becoming chillier, and I knew that she couldn't hang around forever. It was time for her to build a nest in which to make her egg sac. After laying the eggs, she would grow weaker and eventually pass away.

We had adopted her as part of our extended family, and last summer I found her offspring on some of the bushes.  I called them my natural mosquito-killers.  This spring we should be seeing Charlotte's grandchildren.  I will welcome them joyously into my garden too!

convention of the river spirits

black coal river

the strawberry saga continues

Here we have an intact strawberry, full of hope and promise for a long ripening, and almost ready to give up its juicy sweetness to the humans who planted, watered, and cared for it:         

  

This next one shows that I need to go into stealth mode with night vision goggles in order to witness the precise moment of ripening (before the birds wake-up and have a feast):         

                              

Finally, this last specimen has helped me to realize that maybe the farmer's market is a better option:

Hopefully I'll make it there early enough on Saturday before all the strawberries sell out.

pigeon--the other white meat

According to the rule-out ADHD diet, fresh or frozen pigeon is okay to eat.  What a relief!

the ambiguous path of humanity

I think of the animals, who go about their daily lives in the prescribed patterns that suit them.  They obtain their sustenance, reproduce, fight over mates, their food, and their territories.  There is the alpha male whom the others respect and fear, but he is not (typically) a tyrant.  The animals live how they live without question, with instinct.  A bird does not decide that his society is not working for him and go off to build a new colony of birds based upon a new philosophy of living.  He will leave the nest to start a family, but the methods of survival remain based upon the threads of instinct that have been woven through hundreds of past generations.

Despite all of the intelligence that humans (in general) possess, we haven’t yet found the optimal way to live; we still fight over the details that should have been worked out hundreds of years ago.  Evolution has failed our brains in this way.  Perhaps we did have a good idea about how to get it right once, but passed it by with our increasing knowledge and technology, and in gaining that we have lost much of the instinct that drives our survival.  We’ve become hammered down by the details and have lost the view of the big picture. 

With greater knowledge comes greater indecision about the "right" way to live.  As humans, we try to find our guides in religious texts, but there are so many modern questions that these don’t answer unless one skews the interpretation to fit their comfortable point of view.  The fact that there are hundreds of religions, sects and denominations shows that we are thoroughly confused.  So many choices, so many cultures, so many tints through which to view the world.  

Is there one perfect ideology for humans that will maximize our intelligence, needs, and wants, yet still perpetuate our species at a sustainable level while allowing us to respect all others that aren't human?  No, there is not, when seen through the lens of time.  As technology has grown, so have our wants, so what we think we want is a matter of the reality that we live in.  Our reality of today is different from even ten years ago.  We are now at the point in time when our needs and our wants have become reversed, with it easier to provide for our wants than our needs (it is easier to go to the store and buy a new cell phone than it is to grow food).  I believe that this is a dire situation for us.

Because we are of a higher thinking order than animals, maybe it’s not possible to find that one true path of living that is good (or right) for all, but shouldn’t the one true philosophy, that will bring happiness for all and preserve the earth, transcend politics and opinion?  How will we know when we have found it?  Or will we only discover it in retrospect, when all is lost?