Tempestuous Sky

I’ve been a bad blogger but a good gardener thus far this month. My surgically altered and mending hands have created a veggie garden for my daughter Milo and I to share. They’ve rejuvenated drip lines and sprinklers. They’ve tended all the dahlias and roses painstakingly, and they’ve repotted, transplanted, pruned, and fertilized everything. They've made one gopher R.I.P. They’ve pulled millions of weeds.

I apologize to all my blog friends for neglect. I’ve poured all my energy into the soil and the plants. Six weeks ago the doctor diagnosed a severe vitamin D deficiency and I’ve sought the sun for help. A new anti-depressant, cheap and non-toxic, has solved my insomnia problem, thank God, but it has a grogginess side effect. It’s a time of transition, and I’m happy about an evolution.



One of the transitions involves the world-famous Poetry Bus. It has trundled off to the Bus Yard in the Sky. Its poet riders have formed the worldwide Poetry Jam in retaliation, jamming on Mondays, with our new blog site linking us all. You’re welcome to join in.


This week’s theme is Thunder and Lightning. In a nice synchronicity, my bit of California is enjoying a tad of that this week. However, the muse has gone mum with all the gardening, I guess. So I’ve pulled a stormy piece from the archives to offer as my riff. But first, here’s a little relevant artifact from my family history, invented, perhaps, by my father:

Thunder roared and lightning flashed!
A tree fell down, and a frog got smashed!

And now for some real tempestuous weather. Today is my 19th wedding anniversary, and let it be known that the narrator of this piece is NOT moi.

Invasion

The wind stirs in the leaves of the trees—
sounds like a stream chuckling down a stony shoal
sounds like surf supping at the shore
sounds like kindness if I can conjure that stream, that shore

In truth, menace rises beyond the window
violence edging over the horizon
and stalking this way. I have silenced the radio
and shuttered the television, and now I lie

my eyes closed on the sofa under the window
I have drawn the shade so I am not tempted
to see, may rather remain in my reverie
of the wind susurrant in the sycamores, murmuring

its love for me, and not your red rage roiling
down the road to burst into this house with all the glee
of an invasion, and not your shoddy rape
of what little mercy lives in me, your beloved wife.

Tonight's anniversary supper ended in chocolate decadence cake with lime sauce (for Joe) and creme broule (for me). I now lumber happily off to don elasticized pajamas and ponder wedded bliss...

Photo credits: unattributed work found via Google

What I Saw When I Closed My Brain (Revisited)

What you are about to read goes over the edge of reality.

[If you've already visited to read the poem, skip to the end of it if you're curious about its animal symbolism and today's additions.]

It's a vision I had during a meditative hour on Saturday. I offer it as my Poetry Bus ticket, which this week was to be something in excess. It's excessively long and excessively full of creatures. You'll find more excessive work on the Science Girl's blog.

What I Saw When I Closed My Brain & Opened My Eyes

Beneath the oak tree a century of decomposing leaves
softer than a mattress and malleable, sweet scented
with a sheet of new grass, cradles me as I lie down
above a swift-flowing stream rich from winter rains.
A snag of sodden limbs and twigs rises in midstream
like a shattered tree regretting its dissolution.
Three bickering crows alight on the far bank,
screeching their malcontent and striking one another
in a cacophony of bitterness that belongs elsewhere.
I reach with searching fingers for a stone but hear
Watch, and here he comes, my resurrected Christ
crunching through the mat of leaves in long white robes.
I bade him come but thought he wouldn’t, yet here he is,
dressed for someone else’s dream. No white robes,
I say and look away at the terrible crows, gone
quiet now, and I see in the sunlight the shining
green among tar-black feathers as they sedately sip
at the water’s edge. In worn blue jeans he reclines
beside me, shoulders broad in a tight T-shirt,
sandaled feet in the brown leaf mulch. His hand
touches my shoulder like the tentative nose of horse.
Watch, he says. I look again at the mournful snag
and I see there where the stream parts a rainbow trout
surfing the current, and just behind it, a smaller trout,
their colors glinting in the light. Upstream bushes
rustle and a brown bear lumbers into the water,
slogs unerringly for the snag and reaches a paw
for the trout as if it knew the trout were there.
With a small undulation, the first trout meets the paw
and the paw encloses the trout, and I see the two,
the bear and trout, agree to feed and to be fed.
The crows lift off and a white owl settles
in the place they left, fixing his yellow eyes
on me. We stare at one another like old partners
suddenly met in an unexpected place. Beside me
a lynx has crouched to watch the owl. A cougar
slinks down the bank upstream and dips its head
to lap the water, resting on a rock. I don’t know
what my Christ is thinking. The owl says something
in a soundless voice and waits with me, the lynx,
my blue-jeaned Lord, for whatever happens next.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Meanings & Symbolism

I was interested in all the animals who appear in this meditative dream, and so I looked a little into Celtic and Native American animal symbolism.
Among six animals there are:
12 references to insight and intuition
2 bearers of power and courage
2 guardians
1 guide
1 messenger
and a crow times 3

The facilitator of my meditation group uses no descriptive words, only such verbs as "breathe," "observe," "listen," and "be." She's a psychoanalyst and she tells us that the process of observing will allow the unconscious to speak. I asked what this meditation might be saying to me, and she just laughed. That’s what you have to figure out, she said. So here’s what I think:

What I Saw When I Closed My Brain & Opened My Eyes

Beneath the oak tree a century of decomposing leaves
softer than a mattress and malleable, sweet scented
with a sheet of new grass, cradles me as I lie down
above a swift-flowing stream rich from winter rains.

[The surroundings are serene, but a bad attitude affects my interpretation of the view in the lines that follow:]
A snag of sodden limbs and twigs rises in midstream
like a shattered tree regretting its dissolution.
Three bickering crows alight on the far bank,
screeching their malcontent and striking one another
in a cacophony of bitterness that belongs elsewhere.

[I see brokenness and regret, dissonance and discontent, but how true is my vision? The crow, despite my annoyance, represents a mass of good things, such as metamorphosis, clarity of vision, bearer of light and understanding, keeper of mysteries and wisdom. I don’t see any of that until my spiritual guide appears, wearing the wrong clothes.]

I reach with searching fingers for a stone but hear
Watch, and here he comes, my resurrected Christ
crunching through the mat of leaves in long white robes.
I bade him come but thought he wouldn’t, yet here he is,
dressed for someone else’s dream. No white robes,
I say and look away at the terrible crows, gone
quiet now, and I see in the sunlight the shining
green among tar-black feathers as they sedately sip
at the water’s edge. In worn blue jeans he reclines
beside me, shoulders broad in a tight T-shirt,
sandaled feet in the brown leaf mulch. His hand
touches my shoulder like the tentative nose of horse.

[This is a wonderful interaction to me. Like many of us, my belief system was instilled when I was small with simple picture books and complicated nuances. The 12-Step program is emphatic that we must come to a personal understanding of God, in whom we can entrust our lives and hopes. This scene tells me that process is at work in my life and my God is perfectly happy to “change his clothes.” His appearance in the scene changes everything for me.]

Watch, he says. I look again at the mournful snag
and I see there where the stream parts a rainbow trout
surfing the current, and there behind it, a smaller trout,
their colors glinting in the light. Upstream bushes
rustle and a brown bear lumbers into the water,
slogs unerringly for the snag and reaches a paw
for the larger trout as if it knew the trout were there.
With a small undulation, the trout meets the paw
and the paw encloses the trout, and I see the two,
the bear and trout, agree to feed and to be fed.

[The bear is a powerful guardian, with great courage and strength and a deep connection to the Creator. He also represents intuition and introspection, which is interesting to me. He looks inward with understanding and thoughtfulness, but at the same time he looks outward to protect and guard with his strength and courage. He represents healing, death and rebirth. The fish, an ancient symbol of Jesus Christ, sacrifices itself in a nourishing relationship with the bear. The snag stops being a mournful broken tree and becomes a shelter for the trout.]

The crows lift off and a white owl settles
in the place they left, fixing his yellow eyes
on me. We stare at one another like old partners
suddenly met in an unexpected place.

[The white owl has lots of jobs in animal symbolism. He’s a messenger that brings enlightenment, wisdom, or spirituality. Sometimes he foretells death. In this dream, it seems like we used to work together but our relationship ended. Now he has something to tell me but I can’t hear it, and so he waits with me ~ which strikes me as a kind thing to do, but maybe not.]

Beside me
a lynx has crouched to watch the owl. A cougar
slinks down the bank upstream and dips its head
to lap stream water, resting on a rock.

[The lynx joins me, taking a protective stance. When he appeared in my meditation I asked if he was a bobcat or a lynx since I didn’t know the difference between the two. He specified that he was a lynx, which I later learned is wonderful. In animal lore the lynx is both a guide and a guardian, equipped with keen vision and foretelling, and he’s the keeper of all secrets and mysteries. The cougar brings balance between strength, leadership, wisdom, and freedom, and is a sign of coming into your own power. I could use some of that.]

I don’t know
what my Christ is thinking. The owl says something
in a soundless voice and waits with me, the lynx,
my blue-jeaned Lord, for whatever happens next.

[In this meditation an awful lot of characters know things, except for me. But I learn something important ~ my perception of “life” is transformed when I bid my Higher Power to be with me. And all the possibilities symbolized by the animals who visit seem to be available somehow when my view changes from negative to positive. I don’t know how, but maybe I’ll learn more during “whatever happens next.”]

Have a great week, my friends. I’m going to try to meditate more without the facilitator, just to see if something happens next.

Delirium

I spent the day with macro lenses on my eyes. With my camera, I stood among the low branches of the dwarf Gala apple tree outside my sunroom as bees lumbered around me. Then I meandered around the yard, finding happy bees everywhere. I finished on my knees, pinching the last and smallest weeds between my fingers among the dahlia shoots, having an imaginary conversation about trust with our oldest granddaughter. With your Tata and me, I told her, you are innocent unless you prove yourself otherwise.

She’s going to be 18 next month and she’s delirious with possibilities associated with legal adulthood. Her parents are strict. She has never been on an unchaperoned date even though she’s about to graduated from high school, and she wants to leave home to be the mistress of her own fate. I love her very much and I want her to live with us if she believes she must leave the fold. She’s a beautiful young woman, smart and motivated to be a teacher, worthy of trust. Her grandfather, my beloved, tells me we can’t intervene. I told the weeds that we will.

Spring is like this girl, ripening. The topic for this week’s Poetry Bus is Spring, ordains NanU, guest driver and science writer. My fellow passengers are linked here.

Beests

Who bee the beests upon the blossoms that bee upon the apple tree?
See thou what I mean? There, upon the leaves?
They bee everywhere, upon the tree, the bush, the lavender—
Busy little beests, with bulging thighs of pollen,
Harbingers of Spring.
Oh, sweet bee, where is thy sting,
Drunk amid the blossoms
Burgeoning on the tree?

The Honeymoon Is Over

The bandages came off my right hand last week. Without them, the wrist had full range of motion and my palm was exposed.

My hand realized something traumatic happened in its carpal tunnel. Why does it now hurt so much? I asked my surgeon. The honeymoon is over, he said. Now the real work begins.

I’ll have to strengthen it, but my hand is beautifully, thoroughly alive! I put it to work, writing like a madwoman to meet my magazine deadlines yesterday.

Now I get to leap onto the Eejit’s Poetry Bus, on tour today under the wild command of the Bug’s Eye View. All poems, Dana ordained, will begin with the same five words. All of us miraculously have different voices. Mine addresses Alzheimer’s.

The End of Our Life
As I Knew It

I am a crooked line in your mind
I end in a pathetic dribble
near the inlet of your spine
I dangle on the tangles
that insensibly wind
in the miles of your brain
and there I pine.

The Strange Story of a Goddess’s Daughter

Meet the archerfish. This wonderful creature watches the world above the surface and shoots down insects with jets of water spit from its remarkable mouth. The archerfish (genus Toxotes) is a physics and ballistics expert, able to hit an overhead target up to six feet away.

I happen to be an archery expert myself. At the age of 33, I won a crossbow-shooting contest in the Swiss Alps while under the influence of a large amount of slivovitz. I’m not kidding you. I have some kind of animal-horn blower thing to prove it. It’s true the competition consisted of a bunch of American journalists on a European press tour, but still. I was three sheets to the wind and a dead-eye shot.

I met the archerfish because I had to write a poem about one. The famous weekly Poetry Bus, invented by an Irish poet who calls himself the Totalfeckineejit, which he isn’t, is busy touring the animal kingdom this week.

This animal thing is the brainchild of Titus the Dog, a fine poet out of Scotland who is not a dog but a human named JoAnne McKay. She’s making a poetry booklet about animals to raise funds for humans who have arthritis. My dearly beloved beagle Riley has been crippled by arthritis. Someday maybe we’ll do a poetry booklet about humans to raise funds for animals who have arthritis.

So. On to the archerfish. This fish has very sharp eyes very close together by its snout, which allows the fish to hang about right at the surface of the water and look upward, without creating any telltale disturbance of the water’s surface. There, it slyly watches the overhead vegetation for the movement of insects.

It has a tongue-and-groove kind of mouth that can form a narrow tube and spit a forceful jet of water, but first, the fish somehow calculates complex physics problems that I know nothing about, regarding the refraction of light through water and the curvature of the jet of water as it is pulled down by gravity. Then the archerfish changes its firing angle to compensate, and whammo! The insect, struck by the water jet, is knocked into the pond, where it disappears into the fish’s mouth.

How am I to tell you all this bizarre engineering stuff in a poem? I decided I wouldn’t. So I turned the fish into the daughter of one of history’s greatest archers. You’ll find the rest of the animals roaming at Titus’s place.

The Archerfish Tale

I saw your daughter today, Artemis,
hunting with your bow and arrow
in a mangrove swamp. You would be proud
of Toxotes, if you had seen her stalk
her prey with your own cunning,
disturbing not even a ripple of air
as she moved. Your daughter is fierce
and graceful as you once were,
Artemis, when you served this earth ~
Goddess of the hunt, of wild creatures
and forest lands, She Who Brings Light
to the night, Slayer of men, Avenger
of maidens. Your daughter Toxotes
is the huntress now, the Bringer of Death,
She Whose Aim Is True. She honors you,
daughter of Zeus, daughter of Titans,
Mistress of the Moon. Take pleasure,
Artemis, in your child, the Archer
unsurpassed in all the kingdom. Tell
your friend Orion, your brother Apollo,
that the skill of Toxotes is supreme.
Her arrows of water, shot from the strange
bow of her muscular mouth, unerringly
find their mark. I watched her, Goddess,
as she bent laws of physics and gravity
to her will, as she conquered light itself
bending at the boundary of water and air.
She has your shrewd eyes.
Smile, Artemis, in your retreat
on the moon’s dark side.
In your daughter, you live on.

**************

A Fantasy

Mata Hari

I have wanted to be five-foot-eight ever since fifth grade, when the teachers made me join the third and fourth graders in a rousing rendition of “I’m a Little Teapot” for the school’s spring musical. It was traumatizing to be forced to sing and dance with the younger kids such a terrible song:

I’m a little teapot, short and stout
This is my handle, this is my spout
When I get all steamed up, hear me shout
Then tip! me over and pour me out!

I never grew past five-foot-one. In my mind’s eye I was thereafter always short and stout, even when I went through an anorexic stage. Mrs. Gulbro, the culprit who traumatized me, was on my Fourth Step resentment list 25 years later when I joined AA. She might still be there, another 21 years later.

I’m giving you this backstory to flesh out the poem I’ve written for the Poetry Bus this week. When Muse Swings, our guest Bus driver, presented three prompt choices, the emotionally wrecked 10-year-old me automatically zeroed in on prompt #3, which was this vintage photo:

The Exotic Dancer

Look at this skin, pale as cream
and wish yourself entangled
in my long legs, wrapped in my arms.
Feel my lips murmur against
your neck as my strong fingers
trace the muscles straining
in your back. Marvel at the pearls
of my spine. Lay your head upon
the jewels of my bosom and hear
the thrumming of my heart
under the fine arc of my ribs
just before your plump wife asks
are you finished yet, dear?

~~~~

For a Busload of interesting work, visit Muse Swings’ blog.

Astrophysics and Romance

It’s over. Thank the good Lord, the sun, the earth, and astrophysics. Good riddance to winter. Welcome to the vernal equinox.

I am finished mourning and protesting. You don’t want to know what happened last week to shut me up. But three women ~ young, middle-aged, and elder ~ snapped me out of it.

On this first day of spring, we have no sun in the sky here, in the woodlands and green hills of pastoral California, just lovely rain. We get our water from an aquifer beneath us. It takes good rains to replenish what people and vineyards use, but we have dry years. We’re gluttons for rain.

Every spring when I was growing up, my father, who was raised by these people:

would tell me, “Spring is sprung, the grass is ris. I wonder where the flowers is.” I looked up the verse this week and learned my dad had created his own version of a poem by the poet Anonymous that was popular in the 1950s.

Out of respect for our blog friend Monkey Man, who invented the Sunday 160 (a profound message in 160 characters), I present here a version that fits his pentameters.

Spring is sprung, the grass is ris.
I wonder where the birdies is.
The poets say in Spring
The bird is on the wing,
But ain’t that absurd?
The wing is on the bird.

I’ll kill a bird with two stones today and include a poem ticket for the Totalfeckineejit’s Poetry Bus. Our guest driver, Uiscebot (how do you pronounce that?), instructs us to abide by his pentameters: write in some new place, no rhyming, and less than 40 lines. The strange travelogue is here: http://theblogsthejob.blogspot.com/

Thanks to an early-morning weather report in the newspaper, I went all the way up to the jet stream for a visit. It was either that or tell you about my new experience with guided meditation. Be glad I chose the weather.

The Weather Man

He said the jet stream is a tubular ribbon
of wind blowing 100 miles per hour
maybe five or six miles over my head,
and I wondered, is that why I hear
that buzzing in my ear when I think
of the black mustache under your nose?

He said a cold front is a wave of energy
sweeping away from the core of the storm,
and I felt a white-hot wave of energy
sweep away from my core as your
black mustache smiled there,
and this I remembered as he said cold
and core and sweep and storm.

He said the jet stream flows like a giant
wave undulating from west to east
for thousands of miles, and I marveled
that my head could contain it all,
the knowledge of your mustache
and your nose like an eagle’s beak,
his speech a buzzing in my ear
and the jet stream of life circling
over my head and under my toes.

Painting by my friend Denise Schryver

I Protest!

I’m tired of trying to be good. Living respectfully and peacefully in the midst of turmoil is WORK.

For many days now I’ve snatched only two or three hours of sleep each night. Story deadlines, income tax paperwork, and stupid physical pain make sleep elusive. Lack of it makes me irritable, and I sneer at my previous post: Peace on earth, pah! Give me peace in my own bed, and then we’ll talk.

These days I find myself cynically hysterical. Ever heard of “restless leg syndrome,” in which some mysterious force compels your legs to move constantly at night? You can’t sleep because your lower body attempts to propel you around the equator when you lie down in bed.

Just exactly when my overwrought mind suffers from a severe case of “restless brain syndrome,” my trusty legs decided to join the game. They chose to dance along with my carpal-tunnel hands, puny lungs, and disintegrating spine, all new companions since my mother died last August.

Screw Pollyanna today. Coupled with another death, a dire medical diagnosis and a fractured family, this added crap irritates the hell out of me. Enough already! I feel like my Lordly Professor has handed me way too much homework.

I write poetry now only on weekends so I can enjoy the world tour on TFE’s Poetry Bus, always a source of pleasure. This week, the Irish Watercats demand a short protest poem in a strict rhythmic form. (Rebel link) I am thrilled to comply! This is how I chose to vent:

Corporations draft our laws,
Line their pockets in the cause
Of greater wealth, richer men.
Gluttons rule the planet, then.

I’m a political cynic who wishes America would remember democracy for the common people and the theories of the men who designed a government dedicated to equality. I don’t often espouse my beliefs, but this week I got fired up about a revolutionary idea: Strip corporate America of its political power. Lobbyists paid by wealthy special interest groups draft much of our legislation, which of course benefits those interests, while The People sweat to make ends meet. Don’t get me started. I’ll return to my usual optimistic self another day.

(Update on the following morning, a quiet kick-back Sunday)

Got hours of beautiful sleep. Still irritable and cynical, but not hysterical. Note to self: Temporary grumbling allowed ... but never forget how blessed thou art.

More Craziness Than You’ve Dreamed Of

Insanity takes many forms, and I've seen some of them in my life, but the type of insanity that most affects me these days is this kind: doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

More about this later. Right now, I have to offer you a poem. I’m taking a break from insanity to ride the World’s Greatest Poetry Bus. In honor of what Bus Driver Poet Peter Goulding claims is “one of the most important dates in the Roman Catholic calendar ~ Pancake Tuesday, named after the venerable St. Pancake,” I have done as Peter commanded and composed a ditty to the pancake. Peter also demanded that we write in the persona of a poet of our choice. I chose Joyce Kilmer and to satirize his famous poem “Trees.” If you’re inclined to read somewhat ridiculous poetry, we Bus riders will be linked here.

First, Kilmer's version. He was a brave soldier who lost his life in WWI.

Trees
By Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
~~~~~
Now my version:

I Think That I Shall Never See

A poem lovely as a pancake
Giving me a hearty handshake.
Against my hungry mouth is prest,
With butter flowing from its breast,
An angel’s golden halo round,
A saucer of the sweetest brown.
It makes me lift my hands to pray
But no, my fork is in the way.
I shall in homage always wear
A nest of pancakes in my hair.
Upon their bosom I have lain
While maple syrup falls like rain.
Poems are made by fools like me
But pancakes come from pancake trees.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now back to the topic of insanity. In the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, you’ll frequently hear, “If you like what you’re getting, keep doing what you’re doing. If you don’t like what you’re getting, change what you’re doing.”

My injustice meter has been shrilling its alarm for quite a while. A heartbreaking development in my family since my mother died last summer has finally exploded like an alien in a scene from “Men in Black.” Purple alien blood goo drips from the walls.

Twisted events have twisted me and interfered with my serenity. I wiped some of the purple alien blood goo off my glasses today and found these lines in a book I love: “I can find no serenity until I accept that [disturbing] person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake.”

Today’s realization is that I need to withdraw from the battlefield. I had wanted to right a wrong, but I was wrong. It’s time to recognize that I’ve become insane as I defined it in that paragraph up there.

It takes a lot of swallowing to give up. My faith that good will come of this is weak. My husband, who has gobs of faith that God will accomplish his plan for the situation we face, has asked me to stop trying. So I’ve decided I’ll lean on my faithful husband and let God do whatever he wants to do. I guess that shows the degree of my pride, because it implies that God needed my help. From now on, it’s hands off. Excuse me while I go wash off the rest of the purple alien blood goo.

Why Are These Chairs in the Snow?

On the heels of my post about contentment (below) came hard news, coupled with a game of tag with pneumonia again. Hardship doesn't change my point of view. Storms can rage above the soil, but the soil rests unchanged.

After days spent in bed, I checked in with the world renowned Poetry Bus and found the Love Bug's photo prompts for Monday's bus tour, coincidental with Valentine's Day. The eclectic band of poets around the world will do wonders with the prompts. We're linked here. I offer this dirge, constructed out of sadness and sickness.

Why Are These Chairs in the Snow?

The roof caved in
the first dereliction
I thought it better built than that
its mathematical strength collapsed
beneath the first frost

Then someone came and took the glass
in the dead of night
good windows they were
but not paid for
a double pain that

The door was next
solid oak and fireproof
not proof against the vagaries of wind
the neighbor heard it howl
as the hinges tore

That wall went
with the next big snow
unsurprising with the gaping hole
of the fleeing door
and purloined windows

Two more collapsed
in the following thaw
warping wood ripped out nails
poorly placed
poorly pounded

The north wall stood
a mass of ice
until our mattocks tore it down
to fuel the fires
in our separate homes

All that’s left
of your inheritance
are the chairs where your parents sat
and planned your legacy
claimed by squirrels

I Hope Nobody Saw Me

My favorite January job is pruning the 13 rose bushes in the front landscape of my house. Most of them are wicked little shits, excuse my French, so it’s challenging to work among them without getting torn up. This year I used long-handled loppers. Ha! Nary a thorn ripped my flesh.

What I love about pruning roses is the process of considering where to make the cuts. I have to work with the architecture of each rose and the network of branches it created in its growing season. However the shrub grew, I discipline it back into a vase shape, open in the center like a cupped hand. I get rid of stems I don’t like and cut the rest at a particular place to force growth outward, away from the center. It’s an art form for me, working with the rose to create something pleasing.

I did the roses in batches this past week, a few at a time, because I was paranoid about making my ridiculously unhappy spine even unhappier. Maybe the event I’m going to describe for you (in a minute) happened because of that, because I felt at the mercy of a thing not of my choosing,

NanU, the Science Girl, drives the Eejit’s Poetry Bus around the world this week, and her prompt threw me for a loop: She said, write about something you like that other people don’t like. Or you’re afraid they don’t like it. Or you think they think you’re strange for liking it.

Ultimately, I wrote about something I did one afternoon, after the roses. I chortled as I did it, like a little maniac, and I did hope that no one saw what I was doing. It will be interesting to see what other Bus riders do with that prompt. We’re all linked here.

Free the leaves and they will bless you

in the dead of winter’s landscape
the brown thatch
of the lilac bush
sleeps beneath its brother the sycamore
the pair of them
stripped to the bone
frozen in the act of grabbing the sky

trapped in the cage of the lilac bush
sycamore leaves
curl fisted hands
thwarted in their pilgrimage from tree
to ground, from
steeple to grave
denied the sanctuary of soil

one moment on one ordinary day
you pass by them
going somewhere
as blindly as you have passed before
intent on some
forgettable chore
when you hear it and then you hear it

in the silence you recognize the sound
~the resignation
of anguish~
and it calls to you as a comrade would
you stop to look
you see the leaves
furled and wretched in the lilac’s web

instinctively you free one brown leaf
and watch it
settle into place
among its clan, then possessed by some
strange jubilance
you shake the shrub
hard, free all the leaves, laughing like God

Don’t Haul Me to the Dump Yet

The Totalfeckineejit's world-famous Poetry Bus trundles around the continents today as if the Master himself had the controls. Why, yes indeedie, he does!

He, Master of the World's Greatest Blog, Master of the World's Darkest Verse, has set forth a challenge most odd. "Git down wit' yore bad self and tell us who ya be." (I'm paraphrasing)

So if you don't like sentimental hogwash, hie thee over to the Eejit's blog where several brilliant anti-arty-farty types can be tracked down.

Don’t Haul Me to the Dump Yet

I am a breath in a garbage can
restrained
by the lid
hovering over the debris half-filling the can
half-filling the can! Optimism floats
in the molecules of breath, my elemental life
contained
in a paper sack
from a fast-food joint, twisted closed
and disposed of here
hovering over the debris half-filling the can.
Here is the map of my scars
wadded up but still it charts
the web of
red-veined
highways, crosswise roadways that led me
to this half-full garbage can.
Here desiccated flowers prove
my journey passed through gardens
and thus not all was lost
but much
remained
nor is it garbage, the debris
half-filling the can.
Girdles have retired here, napping
with tie-dyed shirts and platform shoes
dried red teardrops on Waterford crystal
the first night alone in my first house
Here Thoreau still beats his drum
Neruda murmurs love songs in coffee-
stained
books.
I breathe. I float.
I gain

more filling.

A Strange Way to Make Peace

It's the Last Bus before Christmas. That has a sad sound to it, but never mind. At the wheel of the Totalfeckineejit's greatest invention, the Poetry Bus is the poet and recent medical-crisis survivor The Weaver of Grass. She told us fellow poets to make something out the word STAR. As there are many kinds of stars. this should get interesting. Follow this link.

Always an obedient chickita, I wrote a poem and stuck the word STAR in it. It was fun to write because I decided not to have me the poet/narrator appear in the poem to confess any personal emotions, and furthermore, you couldn't appear in the poem either. It was to be an observation poem without an observer, but it still needed to have an emotive impact on the reader. Does it hit the mark?

The other enjoyable part of this poem is its repetitive references to the principles of fractal geometry, which I taught myself in about two hours this past week. (Ha.) There's some interesting stuff on the Web about fractals, which are beautiful geometric shapes formed by infinite replications of similar units. PBS has a great program about fractals here. They're all around us and in us: branching trees, our lungs, watersheds and river systems. I hope the poem works for you.


A Midnight Course in Fractal Geometry


Sleepless again....a repetition of many nights
Windows in the pentagonal glass room reflect
endless patterns of white Christmas lights
Cheerful chaos erupts
from ordinary roofs and shrubs
Curves and angles and loop de loops
swing in a wind with a storm in its arms
A rope of blue transforms the invisible
fence....Now waves on a blue sea
undulate again and again and again
In the looking glass
infinite points of light
form infinite replicas of stars
repeating themselves until they vanish
into the midnight place....Men know how
to wrest order from chaos
They can turn these patterns into formulas
explaining why the shapes make sense
but they can’t say why
the stars make peace
on a December night

The Recipe Calls for Rainbows, Elephants, and Pineapples

My silence this past week stems from a couple of writing assignments that captured my attention (liking the story is always a nice bonus when you’re being told what to write about). The longest assignment was a dramatic story about the difficult rescue of a 38-year-old wife and mother who was severely injured in a remote wilderness area. A series of little miracles saved her life and her ability to walk, and she radiated gratitude.

My house is now decorated with Christmas lights and red velvet bows. Tomorrow is my youngest daughter’s 25th birthday and we’re headed for some kind of adventure, and possibly getting our Christmas tree, a lifelong tradition on her birthday. I’m still not feeling very well, but it has been a great week.

And now TFE’s Poetry Bus is chugging around the world, with Titus the Dog driving. Titus is a wonderful poet, but I’m not sure about having a hound at the wheel. If the unusual prompts are an indication, it’s going to be a wild Monday. Our choices were to write a poem to place in an “Essence Vessel” (it’s indescribable; you’ll have to go look at Titus’s post here), or to write a poem after watching a performance artist at work. I’m eager to see what the Bus riders will do (they are all linked here). Buffaloed at first, I decided to respond to the performance artist, with this:

If I were the Creator

I would spin stars on my index fingers
balance a plate of pineapples on my head
and march around the continental shelves
shin-deep in sea water.

I would drape myself in a cape of clouds
harness the jet stream to a herd of elephants
for a gallop around the glowing blue globe
with a flock of ravens.

I would swing a rainbow like a hockey stick
smack all atomic elements into the Milky Way
to be gobbled up by the black hole there
and jettisoned away.

I would resurrect my invention of manna
stir it with oxygen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide
and mantle the earth with a nourishing soup
so no one would starve.

I would station angels on mountaintops
so the air would resound with song
and heavy hearts float like soap bubbles
glittering in the sun.

If I were the Creator laughter would reign
and the moon’s music would lift the night
like a velour blanket tucking all in
for the sleep of a child.

Where is the Creator? Indeed, has he left?
Without him the world is wholly bereft.
Maybe he’ll hear this mad dream of mine
and respond with a sign.
I hope he is kind.

The illo of continental shelves is courtesy marinebio.org

Let Me Tell You a Crooked Tale

I have to make a rhyming poem. That’s as easy and as painless as making my legs six inches longer. Some people I know can dash these things off at work while using Skil saws and scalpels. I put on sackcloth and ashes, lit my white-sage bundle, did a smoke cleansing of the office, and read “Jabberwocky.” Twas brillig but no juice.

Poetikat, the rhymer of all time, is making me do this. She’s in charge of the Poetry Bus, and our leader Hisself the Eejit lets her get away with it.

A rhyme by itself is painful enough,
but the dastardly Kat makes it even more tough:
Use the name of a pub! she wickedly chortles.
Turn the words in the name into kitties or mortals!
Do it all on your head and then in the buff!

The Crooked Kilt

A pub up on High Street called the Crooked Kilt
sported the finest accoutrements man ever built
Like bidets in the “Lasses”
and self-filling glasses
and self-cleaning floors when thy cookies were spilt.

No?
How about this:

I Kilt Him

I had a crooked spouse
who was truly a louse
about buying me flowers on my birthday.
So I tied him in lashes
and cooked him to ashes
then scattered him gaily on Earth Day.

No, again? Well, then, here is my best shot:

A Crooked Plot

A solitary man lived down the lane
and they called him Crooked Joe.
His affliction was strange but he didn’t complain
about his hard row to hoe.

At daybreak a person could find him
far out in the field on his tractor,
In shades so the sun didn’t blind him,
headed west since the sun was a factor

in the pain that tormented his head.
So west he would plow until about noon
when the sun was straight up overhead,
then east he would turn and head for the moon.

No one knew why but the sight of the sun
drove poor old Joe unbearably wild.
He’d howl and run with his britches undone;
insanity he showed as a child.

Luckily for Joe his fields were thin
but their length was incredibly long
and where his land ends, the Kilts’ begins
and Eliza discerned what was wrong.

So Eliza Kilt watched out for Joe
and she opened their gate for his plow
when he ran out of westward to go,
hoping he’d finally marry her now

and this be the summer his heart awoke.
One day she hailed Joe with bewitching glee,
and by Jove, he stopped the tractor and spoke,
then he did something she didn’t foresee:

He leaped from his seat and grabbed her waist!
“Eliza, my dear, you must marry me now!
I’m tired of waiting, and we have to make haste
so you can open your gate for my plow!”

She scrambled aboard with undo speed
without pausing to ask the man why.
They sped to the church, then home with their need
while the sun laughed high in the sky.

Argument with God

I’ve decided to tackle God, as the Poetry Bus drives around the world picking up passengers this week, steered by Dana at Bug’s Eye View.

The Bug has offered three good prompts for us. The first is based on Isaiah 1, verse 18, in which God says, “Come. Sit down. Let's argue this out.” Dana wants us to tell about the argument we would have with God. The second one involves “The Hunt for Red October” and Sam Neill’s dream of living in Montana. The third prompt deals with the leafless trees of winter. I present a two-fer this week because I have strong feelings about the first and third prompts (sorry, Sam, you're a nice guy, but ... ).

I imagined that I could put God on trial for allowing the deaths of my father, mother, and older brother’s first wife, my dear friend. What came wasn’t a poem. It was a one-sided courtroom dialog between the plaintiff’s attorney and God, whom we can’t hear, who sits in the witness stand.

God on Trial

The plaintiff calls God Almighty to the witness stand.
Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you … God? ––
Please state your full name for the record. ––
Is Jahveh your first name, or your last name? Adonai, Lord, Elohim, I Am … Which of these is your legal last name? How, sir, shall the court address you? ––
Mr. Jehovah, the complaint filed against you by the plaintiff, Chris A., alleges you acted with reckless disregard and in fact caused the premature deaths of her father, Merle W., killed by cancer of the brain at age 53, and her sister-in-law, Jere W., killed by pancreatic cancer at age 46. In addition she alleges you exercised the same reckless disregard in the affliction of Alzheimer’s dementia upon her mother, Frances W., resulting in her death by same. How do you respond to these allegations? ––
You maintain then, Mr. Jehovah, that “reckless disregard” does not apply, because in your omniscience, not even a sparrow falls to the ground without your knowledge. So is it fair to say that you were aware of their impending deaths but still chose to let them die? ––
In what way, in your view, were their premature and tragic deaths a benefit either to themselves or to the plaintiff? ––
All right, then, we will stipulate that the deaths of Jere W. and Merle W. were not premature, because you in fact planned that their lives would conclude in the manner and at the time they did. We return, however, to the question: Would you care to explain in what way were their deaths, the manner of them, and the timing of them, a benefit either to themselves or to their loved ones? ––
If it is always a benefit to believers when they die and, as you say, go to heaven to live in perpetual joy with you, why then do you not simply let all believers die and go straight to heaven? ––
I beg your pardon, Mr. Jehovah. Question withdrawn. Let us rephrase the issue: Did you, with foreknowledge and intent, deprive the plaintiff of the love and companionship of her family members? ––
With respect, Mr. Jehovah, a simple “yes” or “no” is sufficient. ––
Your honor, would you please instruct the witness to respond directly with a yes or no answer to the question: Did you, or did you not, with foreknowledge and intent, deprive the plaintiff of the love and companionship of her family members? ––
Mr. Jehovah, would you please explain for the edification of the jury what you mean by executive privilege and diplomatic immunity?

As you can see, I didn’t get very far in putting God on trial. Maybe I need to change attorneys … Anyway, here’s a poem about leafless trees, sort of, and God too, since I’m still a little ticked off about his claiming executive privilege in my last outing with him. The funny thing is, I like God a lot and thank him pretty often for being very, very good to me. I guess I’ve had to wrestle with him a bit, and that’s what these two items today are about.

Eye in the Sky

All milk and smoke, the winter sky arcs overhead
rimmed by bare branches of trees

Lie down beneath it
like a hard brown chrysalis
on the dry ground

and look up
Stare at the pearly white eyeball staring back at you
with its branching network of nerves
through which the vision of yourself travels
to the unfathomable resting mind behind the eye

Marvel that you ever bother to cry out
to the God who turns this eye on his creation
and feel the chill of it all
in the tiny chrysalis that is you

(Photo from Wikipedia Commons, God bless 'em.)

The Poet as Superhero

This was my view today.

The Poetry Bus is enchanted this week, with my request that riders write about some aspect of their lives. On a wild hair, I tweeted Walt Whitman, dead poet famous for self-observation, and asked him to ride with us. He’s the superhero of poets who write about their lives on earth, the epic poet who heals the sick and conducts the universe too.
First he wanted to read all 1,347 lines of “Song of Myself.” No no no. Just a soupçon, hold it down.
So here he is, the veritable Superman of Self:

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you ....
I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-washed babe .... and am not contained between my hat and boots.”

Nice, Walt. That’s enough out of you.

Walt would be totally jazzed by the idea of American astronauts tweeting hither and yon and playing “Name That Land Mass” from space now that they have internet access. (Hey, how far exactly into space does the Web go?)

Thinking about stuff like this was what kept me from writing the poem I wanted to write today: “A Day in the Life of an Unknown Poet.” I know it sounds riveting but I just couldn’t do it. I can’t tell you how many times my mind buzzed off like a little blown-up balloon released from a kid’s fingers. Pffftttttt.

Look! The California Coastal Commission told L.A. that no one, not even that great sprawling asshole of a city, has the right to close access to California beaches even at night, like the city has always done. Pffftttttt.

Look at this crap about the global economy, currency valuations, portents of trade wars! Why did this U.S. Fed head announce on the eve of an international conference that Hey! the U.S. is going to fart around with its currency valuation and blow $600 billion into the national economy? Was that wise timing? Pffftttttt.

Oh, cholera in Haiti! and the U.N. peacekeeping crew from Nepal pretty much caught with their pants down. Now, that is real shitty. What a world. Pffftttttt.

Look! A gopher has taken up residence at our rental house next door, dining off apples and hollyhocks, lovely for him, double crap for me, who will now have to spend days hunting him down. Gophers aren’t allowed in my personal space. It’s a fight to the death. Pffftttttt.

Oh, and by the way, check out that madly growing morning-glory vine on the side of the rental house. Holy shit, it’s invading the kitchen!!!! Coming out through the kitchen cupboards and behind the refrigerator like a horror film. Double-double crap! Tendrils of tenacious, malicious morning-glory vine disappearing under the foundation of the house… This looks seriously bad. Pffftttttt.

Now it’s raining, lovely rain, pattering perkily on the glass roof of my office. Just another day in the life of an unknown poet.

Here are the wonderful poets riding the Poetry Bus today, as we tour the world and celebrate ourselves:

Rachel Fox

120 Socks

The Bug

Jeanne Iris

Dave King

Helen

Titus McKay

Carolina Linthead

Emerging Writer

Dianne

Niamh

Peter Goulding

Karen

Swiss

The man himself: TFE

NanU

The Watercats

Kat

MuseSwings

Dick Jones

And here is my Poetry Bus ticket, based on something that happened earlier this month: unzipping a box given to me by my mom, and unearthing almost 50 years of photographs.


Chronology

The woman—
who refuses her gray hair with a blond rinse
—is not aged.

In her lives the young girl laughing in 1963,
before Jackie, John’s wife, and that bloody pink suit.
In her is the teen with solemn eyes. Alive and well in her
is the young woman in black robes and mortarboard,
smiling wide with a degree of joy she earned herself.
In her, the bride with wide hopes.
In her, the wide mother with child.

A parade of photographs marches around the bed,
playing the hymn of her middle-aged life. This gift
from her mother, zipped in a box, captures the roots
that ground her today in the earth of herself.

The passage of time has smoothed her rough edges,
leaving behind tracks of the years in her eyes.
You are a crone now, says her masseuse, kneading
the network of aches that lives in her shoulders.
You are the wisewoman who has found the answers
she sought. Lord knows where the diploma is.
That marriage is over, but the hopes remain.

The woman—
who has grown strong and weathered many storms
—still dances.
She hears the music of the seasons
and she raises her arms high above her golden head.

Alive and Glad of It

Hello, Poetry Bus Riders. Please click on this doorway to the Enchanted Bus.

Me at the dawn of my life (on the right) with big head and older brother.

My birthday looms on Friday. November 19 has always been a favored day, a day of celebration for me, when I expect nice things to happen. I like the fact that I’m alive on this planet.

I am better now than when I was 15. I’m better now than when I was 36. I’m just better now than I was, because I am becoming that which I could be. One of my mottos has been Friedrich Nietzsche’s statement, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

This is me when my secret life included sexual abuse. Can you see it on my face? Remember what Nietzsche said? I surpassed it.

And this is me clowning with my mother on college graduation day, having earned my BA. They gave me a great gift, my parents. I was the first in three generations to graduate from college.

This week I provide the prompt for the world-famous Poetry Bus, created by the world’s most famous blogger, Totalfeckineejit. For bus tickets this week, I have decided to require…

Poems that address your existence on this earth. Good, bad, or indifferent, tell us something, anything, about your life here.

Come back Saturday or Sunday to tell me if you want to ride the Bus I drive this week. I’ll do the linkies starting then.

No Guts, No Glory

After five hours of sleep, I was talking to my beagle in bed this morning.

Why do I bend over so much? I asked him. I’m always bending over, pulling weeds, looking at stuff, showing the world my broadest aspect.
I know this because the family is always taking photos of me doing this. I pay them not to publish them.
Is it my nature, my physique, trauma suffered in Mrs. Philbrick’s second-grade class? I asked the dog. The dog didn’t know.
And why do I always bend over with my butt to the world? I’ve tried facing the world, but then some kind of gravitational force swivels that big beam right back where it was.
My dog was useless as an analyst. Remind me not to pay his bill.

Writing assignments were wrapped at 2:30 this morning. On steroids this week, I was a hummingbird on crack. Everything was terribly interesting, especially details, like constructing a sentence. I rewrote sentences like a maniac!
Put the clause here, no, put the predicate there, wait, it saves three words if I put the subject this other way …. Where’s that note I made? Hey, check out the world economic summit and learn about currency manipulation. Look at that! Some lady in London clears out her late sister’s house, takes an old vase out of a closet, and some guy in Asia buys it for $83 million! What a world!

So I sweat blood to earn my 15 cents per word. Kept hammering at it, struggling with it, missed my deadline, didn’t give up. I want to do good work. I want to touch people. I want to be proud of myself.

I’m a recovering alcoholic and I finally got my hands on Life’s Little Instruction Book, that book of secrets that tells me how to navigate my way through my messy world. AA’s 12-step program, mixing spirituality, realism, and laughter, has completely transformed my attitude and my abilities.

It hasn’t stopped me from turning my butt to the world, though. Maybe tomorrow.

Speaking of butts, it’s time to wave my ticket to ride the world’s greatest Poetry Bus, touring the planet now. The poet Karen of Keeping Secrets is driving, and she wants us to talk about turning points. I could talk about turning my butt around, but I won’t. Enjoy the tour, starting here.


The Assault of the Lungs


The Lungs were not my neighbors or members
of my social milieu. They played no role in the world
of my memories, of deserts, woods, oceans, or Alps
or child molestation or the death of my father.
They taught me no courses, paid me no wages,
did not attend my weddings or my lover’s quarrels,
sent no cards at Christmas or bills in July. They never
set foot in my home, never asked for a handout or a
donation, never played a role in anyone’s jokes. It was odd
how they burst into my life like an FBI raid, throwing me
to the floor and cuffing my hands.

I felt as you would naturally feel, finding yourself
prone on the floor under the barrel of a gun
pressed into your back, when you had simply restocked
the toilet tissue in the bath and expected no harm.
What? and what? your astonished mind asks
in spite of college degrees, an intriguing career
and regularly reading The Smithsonian. What?
Then someone bends over your ear and whispers.
Maybe they wear a pantyhose mask. Maybe their hair
is coiffed and their suit cost a fortune. What do you know
with your nose in the carpet? They whisper your name.
They accuse you of crimes, and all of the crimes
are ordinary acts, the sum of events in your daily routine.

You stare at the threads of the carpet and wonder
what the hell? in dull disbelief, gasping for breath
amid dog hair and dust because vacuuming fell so far
down the list. The accusation goes on like a litany
of sins: against who? Against you? The poor in the
world? The whispery voice says you’re paying
“for this” and they haven’t decided if you’ll live
or you’ll die. “Who are you?” you croak and at last
they announce they’re the Lungs and you’ve known them
all of your life. You’ve screwed them all of your life.

They left, unaccountably, slamming the door, with me
on the carpet. I felt as you naturally would, breathless
with fear, powerless too. Where was my cell phone?
Do I call the police? They hurt me, those Lungs. I cried
like a baby, a rictus of wailing plastered on my face.
An ambulance then, if I could get my hands free.
Thank God for husbands who pop in the door all hearty
and hale, trailing their tools, but able at last to adjust
to surprise at finding their wives laid out on the floor.
To the hospital we flew from the assault by the Lungs.
I’m home now, and frightened, breathing in dread
the Lungs will appear and exact their revenge.
They’ve scarred me for life but left me alive. What
do I do now? I wonder, and watch the front door.

Pardon Me While I Scream

This is what happens to people like Ed.

We had a good rain last night for the first time since last spring. All is wet and happy this morning. From my glass office I watch my neighbors decorate their homes for Halloween as the broken clouds overhead play tag with the possibility of more rain.

When my daughter was young, I loved walking the neighborhoods with her. Then we moved here, to a housing tract on the edge of a tiny rural town, and we learned that every family in the countryside drives here for trick-or-treating. Said daughter didn’t want Mom to tag along anymore. I have been stuck for the past 12 years answering the insistent doorbell to hordes of ghouls and the occasional cute ballerina. It drives my dogs batty. And for some reason, it drives me batty too. My husband likes it, so he’s the greeter while I hang with the dogs in the bedroom and eat my own Halloween candy.

To ride the Totalfeckineegit’s internationally-famous Poetry Bus this week, we must deliver something ghoulish. I would like to deliver the hundreds of greedy children who will descend on us Halloween night. I would like to frighten them away from my house. But all I can do is howl. So I shall howl, and you may investigate other howlers on the Poetry Bus at devious Liz’s place.

Ed, You Talk Too Much

“Women of 20 are as mature as a man of 40,” Ed declares
perched on the edge of my couch in his gray running suit.
His hands play imaginary piano on his knees. The right leg
twitches. “But I wonder,” he says, “when she says, ‘Ed,
you're just not mature enough’—What does that mean?”
I stare at him, feeling the pen like a sword in my hand.
“I don't want to talk about that,” I say, taking a long puff
off the fake cigarette I have made from a shortened straw,
a bit of tissue for drag and a bright red painted tip.

When I ignore him, Ed crosses the patio and stares out
the barred open windows at Santa Barbara, then leaps
on the stationary bike for a furious ride. Schizophrenic,
he has spent the better part of the afternoon wailing
in his room, two doors down from mine. He returns
to my couch and stares at me, as I puff on my straw
cigarette and write about him. A girl wanders in
to start a load of laundry, tears puffing up her face
like they have mine, a soul sister of the broken mind.
Not a word is spoken. Ed watches her and I watch Ed,
and when she leaves, he smiles. “Alex is sure cute,
isn’t she?” he asks. “I wonder how old she is. Do you
think she’s 20?” The drugs have kicked in, and I feel
the cool, sweet Santa Barbara air, a hint of salt from
the sea to the west. I rest my puffy eyes on cypress
trees beyond the window, a procession of palms
running through them, and I admire the red flowers
on some exotic shrub I don't know, a rich blood red
amid the green. Ed’s mindless chatter splits the peace
of this place like a buzz saw tearing at the bushes,
and my pen becomes a sword in my hand lashing
at his mouth, writing my hatred on his face. Red
flowers bloom in his eyes when he understands
finally that silence is everything, silence is better
than contact with humanity, even his, even mine.