Words

Words have power. I like that. It's one of our few accomplishments that animals can't do better and easier. We can use words, not just say them.

Words have power. You’ve heard that before, meaning….Hitler turns a country on its ear; Churchill galvanizes countries. I don’t mean speech-making, I mean words. Tell a good lie, and it becomes a novel. Call a man a name and he never sheds that label, right or wrong though it may be. One sentence can plant a suspicion that will bring down a movement, or a business—or make them a success. Tell a man in a way that convinces him that he is dying and he will most likely find a way to do it. If you can say a thing, you can make it true. Granted, of course, that it is said in an effective way, and reaches the right ears. That latter was a real problem for much of history. Now we have the capability of putting a word or a declaration or an insinuation out “there” and it will float around forever. Sooner or later it will reach the right person, simply because it never disappears.

There is no magic, here, no supernatural hex at work. An effective writer can plant a seed. Like a plant’s seed it can lie around for a long time, until conditions are right for it to flourish. Then, one day, having forgotten it was even sown, you discover that seed is growing, spreading, taking over the area around it and jumping to other areas. Life-enriching sprout, or bad, weedy invader---doesn’t matter now it’s free.

But it does matter. It annoys me to see junk science, batty assumptions from bad or insufficient facts, and horribly biased viewpoints, so arrogant they allow no other interpretation—seeing them circulating on the Internet as straight truth, makes me crazy. And that's a power words have that I don't like. I have an opinion. So do you. We’re both allowed to air ours as we choose, but let’s name it an opinion. And let’s not twist and stretch supporting facts to make ours the only right opinion. If it can stand scrutiny, facts to support it will gather to it. We don’t need to force the process.

The alternative is that we will no longer be able to believe a single thing that is said or written. Words are already losing their power. We already, some of us, doubt a thing simply because it made the news, or was offered by some stuffed shirt. And when words are no longer a power unto themselves, communication becomes moot---an argument about arguing. Except for pedantic harangues, it has no purpose. We can go back to grunting and body language for the true things, and give up on talking and writing, which become tools useful only to those who delight in their own ego. Dinah Mulock Craik said, "Don't believe half of what you read, and nothing of what you hear." Don’t swallow anything whole...and check out everything before you pass it on. Then maybe the powerful words will help, instead of confusing and alienating.

99 AD

What is in your wallet, this week?
Mine seems to have sprung a large leak.
Living on plastic,
Condition’s drastic,
No paddle….I drift down the creek.

Scherzad Awakes

Our poor, captive scribe, Scherzad, had finally escaped into sleep—his terror and despair, his exhaustion, lost in dreamless sleep. Until…the dream started when he imagined he heard heavy breathing and opened his eyes to the momentarily unfamiliar cavern. The fire still blazed high, as it had when he’d sought its warmth and had his meager meal. Across from where he lay, something still reflected firelight, but he could not make out the shapes of the gleaming things. The mound of refuse stacked in front of him had become no sweeter smelling with the fire warming his side of it. All was as it had been. Blast it! He'd have preferred the dream remove him---place him back in his familiar bed in the village.

No! No, it was not as it had been. There was horrendous change. Across the mound he saw a great, grinning crocodilian head, which watched him bolt to a sitting position and feel around for his staff without daring to take his eyes from the apparition. The monster was so huge it easily glared at him over the mountain of discarded trash. It lay across the tunnel entrance he had hoped would grant him an exit, the one he’d explored to his dismay before falling asleep. This dream could end now----NOW! He hand blindly found his staff, and he began scrabbling backward toward the boulders surrounding the fire. The cave-floor warmed uncomfortably beneath him, and he stopped his rear-long flight---and realized this was no dream. Too much detail, too much sensation….this was horribly real; he was awake.

Staring at the fierce thing across the cavern modified his first comparison to a crocodile. The long snout was rounded more, the skull larger, rounder; those evil eyes, big as meat platters, showed more predatory intelligence. He’d once seen a captive croc. A traveling performer had come to his village festival one summer, the strange reptile his sole claim to entertainer-status. Besides being small enough to be this thing’s newly-hatched offspring, its eyes had lacked the cunning and contemplation he saw here. The dragon’s gaze was mesmerizing. He could not tear his eyes away, though it was the most unpleasant sight he’d ever encountered.

And then it spoke! “I see you found your belongings. I assure you everything is there. I was forced to open your bag to be sure you had nothing dangerous with you, and I apologize for the damage.”

Scherzade was speechless, himself. In fact he discovered he was no longer breathing, and attempted to draw air through his paralyzed throat and chest. None of the tales told of dragon speech! But there was no convincing himself of a hallucination. The voice rumbled around the cave and echoed off the boulders behind him. It sounded much as he imagined those boulders would, if they could speak---deep, reverberant, crashing gutturals, but overlaid with a menacing sibilance no boulder could produce.

We’ll leave our trembling hero to absorb this new shock, continuing the tale later.

To Teeth

Sew on buttons---they bite off the string;
Chips and nuts---crunching pleasure they bring;
They decorate lips,
Give playful love nips.
Sing praises to TEETH--aw come on, Sing!

Surrender

It’s cloudy; it’s making me yawn.
The sun, the blue skies—they have gone.
The dog has it right;
He’s yielded the fight;
He’s out there, asleep on the lawn.

Serenity's Enemy

The sky is blue. The sweet grass is green,
It’s a painter’s lovely, tranquil scene.
Puffy clouds float by.
Singing birdies fly---
And then in walks my angst-ridden teen.

Do The Math

Dogs may, or may not, go to heaven,
Short lives, cut by factor of 7.
But with scale-of-10,
Dogs rank, vs. men,
An undeniable 11.

Saturday Night's Alright

Brush your teeth, comb your hair, and smile.
We’ll party tonight for a while.
If we do it right,
No lampshades, no fight,
We won’t have to live in denial.

Banning The Buzz

To bee or not to bee
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the stings and….
Bee my, bee my baby, oh my….
I needs to be bee’d with
.be = Belgium
Be = beryllium, atomic weight 4
Bee my guest
Johnny bee good
Lady Bee Good, B(ee)24 Bomber

Beeing one of the lovers of nature and its ways, I see a bee invasion as a thing of great interest. I find it deplorable that some people cannot find it in their hearts to share their property with such helpful, fascinating creatures. And I cannot imagine how anyone could heartlessly kick the homeless to the curb, thereby showing their arrogant disregard for the less fortunate. However, such a thing did just occur. If we can’t open our walls and windows to the wonders of the natural, then we are sadly lost.

For some uncharitable reason, a nearby home owner has refused the lease of one wall of a building on his property---a building presently housing only stray cats. This homeless, gravid mother comes begging for shelter, bringing mere thousands of her closest friends. All she asks is a small area, no larger than the kitchen waste basket, where she might have her brood in peace. Is she welcomed with open arms? No, she is spied upon, rejected and ultimately evicted. What has happened to the milk of human kindness?

Oh, the owner complains that instead of using the dime sized door provided for the unused rental, the squatting tenants attempted to make a whole quarter of the building their hallway and escalator. Overcrowding is another problem, to be addressed later. This owner, instead of properly adding accessible entrances, as provided by law, dispersed the crowd with an illegal, tear-gas equivalent, hung a “Condemned—No Occupancy” sign on the original entrance and went back to his chicken dinner. What is the world coming to?

Said owner tells a hardly believable story of disenfranchised and frightened cats, to say nothing of dwelling endlessly on the disturbance of his life, the emotional upset of one other long-time, paying tenant, and the complete traumatizing of his roommate. Putting these human needs before the needs of nature’s pollinator, and contributor of sweet honey to the betterment of countless lives, is one of the most selfish things I’ve encountered.

I’m thinking of organizing a demonstration and sit-in. But I think I’ll wait until the angry bees have moved on, bag, baggage and stragglers.

Final Comfort

The right time of day…the sun was about to edge past the window frame and touch the old chair with its welcome light. Waiting, anticipating. Plenty of time for that. Never any hurry around here. The chair was a muddy plaid, brown with gold and black worked in. Its misshapen and grimy arms hidden by white towels; its seat padded with a waterproof pad; its back had a lap rug—a small soft blanket, in a jarring green and pink plaid—draped over it. Waiting patiently—the story of this fatly-padded chair’s life.

For now, its only duty was to cheer the sun into the window’s frame. But as it dreamed in its corner, it recalled a life of service, dutifully rendered, that felt both sad and satisfying in retrospect. He had started his life as a Father’s Day gift, to an old man by his brood of children. An expensive chair, clean and bright, softly, lushly padded, and he could lie back and raise a foot-rest to comfort his new, aging owner. The old man had loved him. And they’d spent many long days and nights together, staring out the window at the activity of the street; watching re-run after re-run on the television that sat below the window; presiding over gatherings of the family; or just quietly dozing in the warm afternoons.

The recliner had come to believe the two of them would spend the future in the same way….unchanging day flowing into unchanging day. But the old man could not be re-covered, nor have the mechanism that moved his parts refurbished. He became forgetful, not eating, seldom leaving the chair, even for the bed at night. The old one was damaged in some way beyond repair, and the gaggle of children agonized over how to keep him safe. Finally, reluctantly, both he and the bewildered chair were carried away to a new place.

Here, there was still a television, but on a dresser scant feet away. The floors were hard, no carpet, and the walls and ceiling were closer. A small bed sat close by in the same room---no bedroom separate from the living room. Many more people came and went. While the children still appeared at odd intervals, the other people were strangers; and they seemed to be there only to do things to the old man and make demands of him. The chair’s functions remained the same, but life around him changed dramatically. And he acquired his additional covers: the pad, the towels--occasionally a bed pillow.

They still sat together before the TV and stared out the window---for long hours, just as before. But the old man grew steadily less able to walk to the chair on his own, and eventually the chair watched him cease to function, lying on the narrow bed, surrounded by the strangers and the children, everyone tearful and sad. For days after losing his old friend, the chair sat alone in a dark storage closet at the end of a hallway. Then, once more he was allowed to serve his purpose. He was brought to a different, but similar small room and discovered he now stayed with another old man who was delighted to see him. His arms were petted and patted, his head cushion jounced and snuggled. The first in a long series of new friends.

He had been in this large building, with its multiple long hallways for years, growing ever less lovely—his framework more creaky, his padding and upholstery lumpy and splotched, proving his dedicated service. Spills and accidents, medications and foods, had stained his surface—and his vibrant colors had faded to a dull, lifeless monotony. But his life had been filled with people, with lives that cycled to an end like his first owner’s. He seldom lacked for love. And, in his turn, he loved the parade of people through the corridors and rooms. He was satisfied—needed and well-used.

This day, just as the sun blessed him with its gaze, he dreamed of his last owner. She had been one of the less appealing of his friends. Cantankerous and unpleasant, loudly complaining, resistant to all the demands upon her—but she never flagging in her dedication to Her Chair. Some visitors were grandly invited to sit with him. Others were hastily usurped in their intention to sit there, as she scurried to claim the recliner before they could reach it. Not lingering, as some others had, in a fog of inert misery, she’d gone suddenly from him, in the night.

As he waited patiently for his next assignment, he said a private, belated good-bye to another old friend, wondering when his turn to cease to function would come….when he would be carried out of the building to find his rest. And he wondered if all his old friends would be in the place at the end of that final exit. Where did they all go? What was there? Another room, for sure, maybe this time with an enormous window where the sun always shone. He thought there might be lots of old people, and other chairs, like him glad to have been loved and patted. For now, he dreamed of the past, and looked forward to his future owner, and felt the sun warming his old, battered frame.

Think It'll Rain?

Why on earth do we live all together?
We clump up like we’re birds of a feather.
We love our dear brother?
We need one another?
We want neighbors—to discuss the weather.

Stray Thoughts

My mother, after she had lost her own mother, shared with me a single revelation that I have passed on to my own progeny. She said her mother had told her that you never, ever get over losing your mother…and she now understood that completely. You can have more children if you are unlucky enough to lose one. You can get another spouse. And sometimes, you finish life claiming more than one father. But your mother is uniquely and exclusively the “only.”

As I found out, she was correct. But I will go her one further, and say that my grandmother left the largest hole in my life---not subtracting anything from my mother’s position, simply expanding it to include her mother. When I long for one more glimpse or caress or smile, it is more often the memory of my grandmother that spurs the yearning.

My mother’s truism is likely more universally constant. Probably mine is more personally, than generally, applicable. Who our grandparents are, to us, can vary widely according to how many we have, where they live….they can be emotionally close, or impossibly distant. But if there is a tunnel, a light at the end of it, a welcoming presence waiting for me, it will be my grandmother.

Comforts Of Home

Back to the doomed scribe, Scherzad---and all will be made clear, re: Dragons and their nature. Just hang in there with me.

Scherzad--surprised to find himself alive and intact when he awoke--looked around, expecting to need to dodge baby dragons. Instead, he found himself the sole occupant of an enormous, dome-shaped cavern. From his left and slightly behind him, he felt a cold, steady breeze. He was grateful for the fresh air, because the detritus he found himself couched in was far too fragrant for comfort. He noted a stack of bones against a far distant wall. At another spot, he saw something gleaming in the low light of a fire, burning in a pit to his right---a very large fire. What a dragon would need with a bonfire he couldn’t comprehend.

Though he listened intently, he heard nothing but the fire’s crackle and some scuttling in the litter surrounding him. He was careful not to examine the trash, or look for the source of the small noises. He was still very shaky and had no desire to add to what his imagination insisted on inflicting upon him. He was sure he’d awakened in the dragon’s lair, and more information than that was superfluous.

Scherzad climbed unsteadily up the mound of garbage and stood to look toward the ventilation source. A tunnel led down and curved quickly beyond his sight. Picking his way toward it, he stumbled over a smooth, pale-colored rock and landed on his shoulder---looking straight into the empty eye-sockets of the “rock.” The rest of his descent from the mound was so swift he hardly touched foot to surface. Momentum carried him the rest of the way into the tunnel mouth. He checked his flight only at the curve he had observed from above---and then only to peer around it with his heart crowding his jaws. What he saw lured him almost as swiftly onward. Just a small stretch of tunnel, beyond the curve, and---blessed vision---daylight, partially clouded skies and freedom, beckoned from the tunnel mouth.

Once at the opening, however, his doom resettled on him and he collapsed in tears. The huge tunnel exited on nothing. Sheer cliffs descended below him into mist. A waterfall plunged into its own spray, through glimpses of flickering rainbow. The cliff was so precipitous he could not even make out the source of the waterfall, but it was far below and to the side of his perch. Straight out from the cave, he could see rolling hills, but he was up so high they appeared to be on the other side of the world. At least he knew where he had to be—the only place high enough in the kingdom to accommodate his prison aerie was Mount Oriade. The End Of Beyond. No one but goat-herds would be on this wilderness outpost, and they would never venture this high up the mountainside. He could scream for help until he was hoarse, but only the ravens and eagles would hear him.

When the worst of the despair had drained from him with the tears, he again rose and returned to the cavern. He was shivering in the mountain air, and the fire could help that affliction. Perhaps, with careful inspection, he could find another way out, or a weapon, or—he suddenly remembered as his stomach growled at him—his pack with his provisions. Strange to be worrying about food when he expected to eventually become dinner. But his climb, before his capture, had used up all his reserves and he was starved.

He found his things, neatly laid out below the mound. The fire burned behind stacked rocks, a distance away. His walking stick had been trapped along with his arm, by the dragon’s snatching claws, and was propped against the pack, which had been ripped down the side. However, it seemed as if everything was still there. He sat down to a meal of dried meat and fruit, discovering even his water bag had survived the abduction. The fire felt very good after his exposure at the tunnel mouth, and soon, despite his fear that at any moment the monster would come home, he drifted off to sleep, his head pillowed on the remains of his pack.

Shhh, we’ll return after his nap.

Awake!

The sun is a wonderful thing.
Its dawn wakes the birds up to sing,
Enlivens our day,
Drives night gloom away:
Original--ultimate--bling.

Scherzad The Scribe

Okay, with a little research into the lifestyle and tendencies of Dragons, I have figured it all out:

Once upon a time, there was a poor village scribe who had gone into the mountains to escape his daily toil. He worked hard for the village head man. He wrote letters for him, to the king and to the heads of other villages. He recorded births and deaths for him. He was called upon occasionally by the headman’s daughter to write love letters and poems to her suitors—and then called upon to read them, and reply, by the suitors themselves. He had been ordered by the headman to keep a daily account of the doings of the village, and to inflate the importance of his employer in these accounts. But, secretly, his real love and pursuit was writing stories—a pointless pursuit, for sure, since no one but he could read. Nevertheless, he persevered.

This retreat to the heights was intended to expand his imagination, to heal his soul, withered by years of trite details and drippy sonnets. He had packed rations for a week--taking besides, only his walking stick and cloak. Now he found himself, exhausted and elated, standing on a shelf far above his river-valley town, able to see beyond the kingdom, to the very ends of the earth it seemed. Scherzad, he said to himself (for that was the name his unfeeling parents had bestowed upon their defenseless child), you will return to that mean little town a great writer. This trip was your best idea ever. It will expand your literary horizons to match what your eyes behold from this mountainside.

And with that soaring thought, a dark shape swooped in from the left and the poor scribe was snatched from the rock shelf and carried off into the setting sun. When the struggling, terrified man could think rationally again, he found himself in the grasp of a scaly foot, big enough to pin his whole body. One arm was trapped in the talon cage, but his other, and his legs, remained free to dangle alarmingly far above the valley---which was rapidly disappearing into the distance behind him. Looking up he finally made out his captor, and he heart stopped beating long enough to make his chest hurt. No, that was the tip of one of the talons, piercing his skin, just above his breastbone. Above him, enormous wings stirred a gale into his eyes, as the long, scaly neck twisted to allow a head to peer back at him. A head with nascent horns, a long snout and---as he watched, horrified---a long, red, rope of a tongue, forked at the tip, that whipped back to taste his sweaty face. A Dragon! I’m doomed. My life, my literary aspirations! To end this way is just simply not fair!

Dragons don’t do “fair”, though. He was being borne off to some crevice of horror, probably to become a tidbit for dragon whelps. The cold, rushing wind of the leathery wings, the dizzying height, the sight of the monster above him—the shock built to its screaming climax and he fainted. Limp prey flopping in his claws, the dragon swiftly flew back to his nest.

I know--the story doesn't explain anything. Bear with me; I'm getting there.

Bring It On

Okay, I’ve behaved myself long enough. Kept my head down, published things unlikely to irritate the dragon. Walked on dragon eggs. Worried about dragon feelings and rights. Enough! One can only be someone else for short periods of time. Time’s up!

For some reason I have not been kicked off the blog. And I admit, that one really has the brain cells whirling. Am I too insignificant for him to get angry about me stealing this space? Maybe, like I thought at the beginning, he set this thing up and then lost interest in it? Is he all fire and bluster, with no real substance? Have I stumbled upon one of the great impostors---Oz with smoke and scales? Or maybe, most unlikely of all, he actually is reading this and enjoying it? I just cannot fathom why he would deign to slap at me, threaten into the future, but allow my posting to continue. Makes me nervous. But that too is something I can only sustain for brief periods. I find myself willing to go back to the normally defiant me and take my chances. Tempted to provoke, just to get the suspense over with.

So from now on, folks, I am just going to pretend this unpleasant incident never happened. I write. It’s something I have to do, like breathing. And, with this wonderfully available space just begging me to fill it, I must get back to writing whatever falls off my fingers. Can’t be Nervous-Nellying around here forever. Look for more, daily, irregularly---the Real Me. And if you detect a smudge of carbon, a whiff of burning hair, on some future visit---and no entry---take off your hat, bow your head for a moment, and turn your favorite post into graffiti on the nearest irritating building---a memorial..

Go?

Now, when we travel long distances to unfamiliar places, in a private vehicle, we contact TripleA and get our route laid out for us, complete with attractions and accommodations, with potential hazards reported, options listed. Or we drag out the maps and mark them with red lines, or watch our finger plan the drive. Or we simply turn on our GPS and program it to direct us there. Only the most adventurous, or the most seasoned, simply plant their pants on the car seat and drive. Even doing that, heading a compass direction and taking whatever presents itself as going our way, we are guided by a highway system, instructed by roadside signs. As a very last, desperate resort, we could always ask someone at the gas station, at the motel desk, or on the street corner.

What was it like to travel before we had all the modern aids? How would it feel to know only which direction you thought you wanted to go? No signs, maps, inns, not even a paved road. No street-corner helpers, because no streets. No gas stations, not even planned feed stations for the horses, mules, or oxen. Would you, today, drive up to someone’s house, knock on the door, and ask for directions, for shelter, for a meal? If I were contemplating those actions, I’d be, at the same time, laying odds on not being shot, or detained by the police, nervously stammering embarrassing explanations. And, in the past, even more of the houses you could hope to spot had guns. And they weren’t inclined to wait for police to handle itinerant strangers.

I can only imagine packing enough food and liquids to carry me through the trip. No munching on chips and crackers from the convenience store. No chilled soda pop or iced tea to cool me down. No hot coffee to perk me up, while stretching my legs And when I’m tired of traveling at the end of the day, no convenient, air-conditioned booth to wait in while someone cooks me a meal. No maid to take care of the bed when I arise in the morning. No quick car wash to remove the layers of mud accumulated in the day’s storm. Not even a soothing shower to remove my personal grime and fatigue.

Would we, today’s coddled child, even want to travel if you took away our conveniences? Would we have the nerve to do it? No, you keep the Good Old Days. I’m spoiled rotten, and I like it that way.

Extreme Sport

Just to live is adventure enough;
Keeping on day-by-day can be rough.
You cannot give in,
If you hope to win;
To get through it you have to be tough.

Contrition---Lots Of It

OOPS! A thousand apologies, Your Scaliness. No harm, no foul???

I fear I have gone too far and offended my powerful, recondite, understandably preoccupied, generous, forgiving host. Quite unintentionally of course. I would never insult one so mighty. There was an error in the publishing (must speak sternly to Google about that) that made my comments on your wonderful site and impressive, flaming breath seem to be harsher than they were intended. And that wonderful, sinuous tail...I just can't tell you how awesome it is.

I am deeply indebted to Your Wingedness for the forbearance you've shown. (Ummm.....Is it possible you've enjoyed something I wrote? No, no, I presume too much. Sorry.) And I will certainly keep in mind that you are out there watching me. Believe me, I'll have that in mind. Oh, yes. Couldn't forget that. No sir.

Listen, all you readers... Please, should my posts suddenly cease, contact my family and let them know that I have...uh, tell them that I...that is, notify them of my unusual silence? Not going to happen, of course. I have every confidence that that Wonderful Dragon Fellow means me no harm. Should he ever have need of this site for his own purposes, I would be easily deleted. (Ooo, that does not sound good!) I mean, of course, I would be happy to take all my maunderings out of his way. Leave the site as clean as I found it. Never darken his pages again.

Oh, gee, I think I'm babbling. 'Scuse me folks. Got to get out of here and have a private melt-down. Back when I stop shaking and puling.

Thank you, thank you, Kind Sir--um, Kind Serpent?--for not punishing me for my temerity. I am forever in your debt. If you want credit for that measly little limerick, it's all yours, of course. Everything I've written, anything you want to claim, yours, all yours. My muse is the K-Dragon. My inspiration flows from his majestic hide and talons. Nothing I write would ever be seen by the masses without his magnanimous sponsorship.

I'm outta here. Mommy!

Disturbed from my lair

Well, well, well. What have we here?

Someone has sneaked into my blog and has been working valiantly to fill it up. And now this person is upset because a post has erroneously been credited to me. Fascinating!

My first thought was to hunt this person down and...well I didn't get that far. I've decided to leave all of this alone and see what happens in the future. Be warned and be wary...you are being watched. And one parting piece of advice before I return to my coffee laden cave, Do Not make disparaging remarks about my tail.

I Cry Foul

I may not be brilliant but I claim
Every post herein that bears my name.
That Kevin dragon,
His tail a-saggin’,
Can’t steal my credits or my fame!

I find this addendum post necessary to right a terrible wrong---to me!---my most-hated category of wrongs. If stealing this blog space is going be successful at all, I can't allow the sublime creations of my fertile mind to be attributed to a site-neglecting, sulphur-breathed lizard. PAT is NOT a pen-name. NOR is it a dragon middle-name. It's MY name, MY posts, MY everything! Well.....it's his blog. (And thank you, Anonymous, for liking it and commenting. Bet you won't do that again.)

The Old Man Is Snoring

It’s raining. It’s pouring, with no let-up. It’s teeming, the authors would say. Why “teeming?” Why that particular word, used mainly for rain and insects and crowded sidewalks? I think it is an attempt to quickly convey the feeling of the “aliveness” of heavy rains.

The skies are overcast. There is a pressure from them that seems to flatten us into the earth. Even the air---before the rain owns it---is thick, harder to push your way through. On a normal day we’re entirely unaware that air has substance. Let a storm threaten and we realize its weight. It becomes tangible, something we can almost hold in our hands. The day scrapes at our emotions like an invisible, lurking predator. And we begin to act like prey. We look up at the sky more often. We scurry more rapidly through our outdoor tasks. I suspect scientists would be able to measure an increase in pulse and blood pressure, as we begin to respond to some inner urge to prepare. No conscious thought of what we’re preparing for, just the unconscious urge to be more alert, and hurry.

Then, with a clap of thunder---or a pause in time, sound and motion suspended for a fraction of a second---the rains come. And if it’s a hard rain, it teems. It repels us, propels us into shelter. And we all do the the same thing: We stand there as if hypnotized---for a moment, or for minutes, we simply stare. We take in the speed of the transformation. We watch the rain falling through the air, watch it hitting the ground, and draw the scent of it into our noses.

Gone is the pressure, the lurking threat, the need to prepare. Now we wait. Wait for permission to take back our day for our own desires. But right now, while the rain washes away the oppression with the dust, and races downhill as if keeping an appointment with the ocean---right now we peer out at it, and are as rapt in watching as the youngest child. It Is Alive! Pour water from a bucket and dead water flows out to fall dead at our feet. Rain does not fall; it runs and dances and whirls. It slants in like a base-runner evading the ball. It throws itself at windows, and feels for a gap to gain entrance. It tap dances on the leaves, setting up a multitude of counter beats to perform to. It joins the collected puddle of its fellow parachutists, but not quietly. It slams into them, knocking some back into the air. It plops in with a sort of glee. It tries to make belly-flop sprays that will reach the edge of the puddle.

Rain is alive. We know that on some level. And while it’s coming down, we watch like animals in our cages, while this free creature cavorts, celebrates, and claims its dominion---while it teems through the air, through the streets, along the gutters, and over the rooftops.

Perspective

Since our sun is just one lonely star
In a universe stretching afar,
Then our tiny earth--
To us beyond worth--
A mere bauble in this huge bazaar.

Westward Once More

Maude and Dave, like so many others in those disastrous years, lost nearly everything: home, land, and livelihood. Their most precious possessions, each other, had to be saved. Hoping to do that, they moved further west, into Colorado---and found themselves striving to put down new roots in the killing environment called the Great Depression.

Maude worked at anything that would put food on the table; the boys did the same. Their little girl was still too young to help except in the home. It was hard. Nights were an exhausted collapse rather than peaceful sleep. Dave found his life had to follow whatever work was available, wherever it was. Fortunately, WPA needed his skills: Bridges, buildings, roads, scattered far and wide--still standing, many of them--preserve his sweat and, likely, traces of his skin.

They recovered, just as their country did. After years of moving to whatever they could afford, they managed to buy a comfortable house--in a town this time. They successfully raised five children, who married and found their own places in life. All had gone through many occupations, of course, but by the time I was listening to Maude’s story, she claimed two firefighters--one of them also an electrician; two auto mechanics--jointly owning their garage, one also farming; and a daughter who worked for the government. All lived in that same town, and Maude contentedly, unashamedly spoke of them with pride.

Maude became very important to me. Her matter-of-fact, calm existence drew me to her house constantly. This story was related, piecemeal through the years, while shelling peas, snapping beans, rocking on the front porch---we shared whatever occupied her hands, while she shared her memories. I knew Dave too, for part of that time. His heart had attacked him repeatedly, and finally he lost the battle, but not before he put a serious dent in the availability of fish in the surrounding lakes. Maude went on, family ensuring she was never too alone, for a few more years, before she too succumbed to the very disease that had claimed her father. But she left a large legacy, an engrossing story--and helped shape my life in a way she probably never knew.

Star Wars

If the planets of Venus and Mars
Never meet on their path through the stars,
How can anyone think
Man and woman will link,
Without conflicting orbits and wars?

Maude the Settler--Oklahoma

Whatever dreams and toughness and past hardships made a trip to unsettled land in the West look promising, the lucky travelers finally did arrive. By that time, anything must have looked preferable to living in a wagon.

But the problem would have been that nothing was there. Maude told me they had land, homestead-granted, added to by some purchased by her. And the fact that she did have some money allowed them to buy wood for building. But imagine finding yourself on an empty stretch of prairie, children to care for, food to be provided, and a whole house needing built. I don’t know what time of year they arrived, but I can guess the pressure was enormous---to get shelter, to get some occupation started that would provide income.

I cannot imagine, however hard I try, living through that first year. People must have been crafted from something hardier---and more stubbornly determined than we are. But they did it. Dave built the house himself; they got cattle, they worked, and they prospered. Time passed, and their neighbors seemed to be profiting more from farming, than from ranching. So they switched directions and plowed.

In the meantime a sister to Maude moved into a homestead down the road---way down the road. No next-door neighbors there, without a long walk or ride to the door. But that probably seemed an arrangement made in heaven. Finally, family, familiar faces, love and sharing beyond the front door.

Friends were made that lasted a lifetime. Schooling was started. Winters were survived, and summers did not bake them out of existence. But that didn’t mean times weren’t hard. Maude had a girl-child, and money was tight enough that she said she had to take work in town to eke by. That baby went to work with her, playing in the switchboard office while she worked. By then the boys were old enough to be a big help at home, and even take jobs on their own to add to the family’s subsistence.

Setbacks were a daily part of life. Maude’s father, ailing, came to live with them, and died within months. They all made the trek back, in winter, to see him buried in Missouri. Hauling a body for days, frozen in the wagon---what a thought! Her sister’s husband died, and the widow returned to Missouri to live out her days. Those days were remarkably short, as the same disease claimed her, soon after her return to civilization. Maude might have been terrifically lonely by now, but their own circumstances, pertaining to their ranch/farm, had been deteriorating steadily. She had little time for moaning and pining. Nor did she seem to me the type to spend her days on herself, only on solving the problems, meeting the needs.

Then the final blow. The first year of planting---cattle sold off, depending on the harvest---turned out to be the last year. They’d had to borrow to convert to farming. And the dust bowl attacked at just the wrong time. (As if there could ever have been a right time.) That first, frightening, dark cloud marching toward them foretold their doom. The winds howled, the dirt covered everything, and moved on---carrying the heads of the nearly matured wheat with them. There was no harvest; there would be no paying back the loan. The property, in danger, was finally sold from under them. Their despair must have been complete. But life doesn’t end with catastrophe like the ending of a novel. The best part---and the worst part---is that you go on living and have to figure out how to do it.

Do-Overs

A single man inherits the earth.
But this way, folks, there’ll be no birth!
He gets him a mate—
Understands too late,
How much more blessed silence was worth.

Involutarily Honest

I said that I've "been lifting plates."
I meant to say "been lifting weights."
But since my third chin
Is outing my sin,
This Freudian Slip really grates.

Me Too

They tell me let sleeping dogs lie,
But as much, as hard, as I try,
My dog hears my step;
He’s up full of pep;
He’s not losing his piece of pie.

Lunacy

“Shh! Keep your head down, for Pete’s Sake---and whisper! You want all of them coming after us?

“See? Over there by that evergreen bush? Look hard, it’s sort of hiding behind it and the tree next to it. It’s big, big as a small horse---and it doesn’t look happy. What’s something that big doing in town?

“And across the yard, there, on that maple, that two foot long, rodent-sort-of thing, with that fat club of a tail, headed up the tree---probably getting ready to pounce on whoever passes under it. You see how big it is? And that tail is as long as the body again.

“And right there on the side of the house, all colors and wings---it’s the size of a man’s whole body! How’d you like that thing swooping down on your head? There’s another of those clinging to the back of the house, too.

“There, on the patio, that thing’s big enough to ride on. And as if it wasn’t frightening enough, look at that triangle sticking out of the...shell, back, whatever that is. Ride on it and it’d split you to your chin the long way. And under the tree behind it, in the deep shadow, you can just see the bulging eyes---green slimy thing! And above the flowers at the back edge of the patio, there’s three of them...what-ever-they-are, with tails sharp enough to cut you to shreds, flipping those enormous wings and bobbing around..

“Now look, there, left of that thing going up the tree, see that dwarf holding a shovel? I think he probably is the mastermind here, probably tells all those monsters who they should go after next. I bet these people get zero mail. Wouldn’t catch me opening this gate to go in there without a shotgun---no a grenade launcher---no I’d want a tank. If you move around this wall, either direction, you can see more of them. Must be something hiding in every flower bed, bush, and tree on the property. Someone should call the police on these people. At the least, it can’t be legal to have all those animals all over. Those long-legged, bird-looking things, the whole herd of them are heading toward the patio---and pink! Who ever saw pink birds in this world?

“What are you laughing about, you idiot! This isn’t funny. Those things are mutants, well some of them, and it isn’t safe even being in this neighborhood. What if they get outside the wall! You’ll laugh out the other side of your mouth if they invade your next barbecue!”

“Lawn ornaments!! Are you nuts? Nothing ornamental about those things. They look deformed and vicious!”

“Plaster? Resin! Not real?”

“You think? Just to decorate? What fool would spend good money on statues---then stand them all over the place out in the weather?”

“Okay smarty, you stand up first. If you’re still alive two minutes from now, I might believe it. Hey, where are you going? Wait for me!”

Fair Weather

People think they have so many friends.
They are popular, but that depends,
On how high they fly,
On what they can buy,
Or the luster their company lends.