they drank
from the same cup
broke
and ate
of the same bread
and so be it.

bedtime reply to son's question

physicists have the answer
and artists do too
lovers know all
as do the bird watchers
and the priests
and the hairdressers

it can be mapped out in equations
and with a cello
it can be painted, or a hopscotch,
or a long distance run
mothers and fathers have held an infant son
or daughter

you know it too
i'm proud of you
your permit can be found
in the cereal box in the pantry
or under the mouse
at your school computer
now i'm very very tired
let me sleep, go to sleep
i love you

full moon greets
Jupiter at dusk
rabbits and whales
bathe in pax et lux

(images taken 1-11-12 on the road in Mississippi heading east toward Alabama)

For years, I've casually looked for bears along the swampy or forested roads of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, but without any luck. I've seen bears years back at Crater Lake National Park in Oregon, and that's it. But I know bears have lived in this area. I see license plates that say: save the Louisiana black bear. And I remember reading years ago Faulkner's intense novella, 'The Bear' (which I believe is set in Mississippi).

Over the past six years, I've driven at least six times across the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. I look not only for bears, but for the armadillos, raccoons, and possums that were here not many years back. It's not that I miss the roadkill, but that I wonder what wildlife is still here.

Around 1990, I went on a trip to New Mexico. Before leaving, I had a vivid dream of a bear joyfully standing on his hands in a shallow stream. Some consider the bear sacred. I paid close attention to Navajo carvings, paintings, and weavings during my travel. The simplicity and vivid energy of bear images gave me great pleasure.

photo taken January 10, 2012 at a rest stop between Waco and Tyler, Texas.


heads tucked beneath their wings
ducks are sleeping in the pond -
they bob like decoys
in the light of midday

--

even the reflection
of broken grasses
tell a story;
the trees that died
no longer thirsty

--

a blindfold covers her eyes;
one by one
strangers approach
in the sleep before dawn

but wait
who is that?
wait

she springs through the fog like a fawn
as he sprints away;
she knows him

When I was a kid in the 1960s in Lafayette, Louisiana, my sister and I would sometimes accompany our mother to the hairdresser. While we waited for her, we'd go out the back door for awhile and hang out in the quiet parking area which was paved, as was not uncommon at the time, with shells. I'd look inside shells that had not opened, and wonder about the creatures whose gooey smelly remains were inside.

I'm not sure if they were oyster shells, but I do know I looked for pearls inside without success.

Oysters never interested me as foodstuff, but they were popular locally. Everyone knew that oysters were available mainly in the months whose spelling included the letter 'r'. And at Thanksgiving, it was oyster dressing that was served with the turkey.

One of the poems recited by a kid in an elocution contest at Mt. Carmel school in Lafayette in the 1960s was 'The Walrus and the Carpenter' by Lewis Carroll (a poem found in 'Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There' which was a sequel to 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'). It has stood out in my memory. In the poem, a number of oysters join a walrus and a carpenter on a stroll along the beach. It begins:


The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright—
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.


And the story ends with stanza 18:

“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,
“You had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?”
But answer came there none—
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.

A pair of cardinals, and a pair of flickers were visible through our kitchen window early this morning. Two strands of coral-shaded bougainvillea graced our thanksgiving table in the afternoon. Within all the activity of the day, the cooking and meeting and dining with family from distant places, those two calm visual moments anchor the day.

happy thanksgiving!

'Dark as a dungeon, damp as the dew
where the dangers are many and the pleasures are few,
where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
it's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines.'

Merle Travis

(Austin, Texas, moon reflection, 11-30-11)


Videos of Dick Cavett interviewing the renowned actor Richard Burton can be found at YouTube.com. The July, 1980 interview really held my attention this morning. The one portion that stands out most is Richard Burton describing his childhood home in Wales, and describing his father's work as a coal miner.

During the day, after listening to Burton's and Cavett's familiar voices, references I've come across regarding the life of coal miners came to mind. For example, coal mining in Cornwall England in the late 1700s is brought to life in Winston Graham's historical novels, the Poldark series (including references to the Romans mining there centuries earlier).

There was the singer Loretta Lynn's life story in the film 'Coal Miner's Daughter', and the coal mining father of rocket scientist Homer Hickam in the fine movie 'October Sky'.

A standard in my repertoire on the guitar has long been the coal mining song quoted above, 'Dark as a Dungeon.' ('The Bells of Rhymney' is another beautiful, soul-piercing piece of music.)

The only song I remember from the Vancouver Folk Festival circa 1984 was one sung by a sociology professor from England. The lyrics of the song were the words of a little girl who worked in the mines, interviewed in a Parliament investigation long ago, and reported in the London papers. She explains that her back is hunched from bending over, pushing the carts filled with coal through the narrow tunnels, and that large patches of her hair are missing because at times she must push against the cart with her head.

I've never been near a coal mine, never lived in a home where coal was burned for heat, never spoken to a miner. I don't know why these songs and stories have stayed with me. Perhaps it's the genuine pathos and passion that comes through the voices of those who have lived within a coal mining community.

Dick Cavett Interviews Richard Burton - Part 1 (The coal mining segment begins in the last four minutes of this video and continues at the beginning of the next link.)



Dick Cavett Interviews Richard Burton - Part 2

Dear blogger.com,
over nine years ago in May, 2003, I made the first entry in my first blog. Some 4000 posts later, I thank you for offering and maintaining blogspot, such a trustworthy and user-friendly vehicle for creative self-expression and communication. My awareness has expanded in innumerable ways. I've had fun.

sincerely,
linda

the kids in plaid
and saddle-oxfords
filed toward the folding chairs
in the drafty gym

buddies and loners,
musicians and leaders
and melancholy jokers

there was the smell of
floor varnish
and the loud speaker
failed
and the priest talked of feet

he held a giggling boy in the air by his heel
as though newly born
and the nun -
she spoke of shoulders.

(the past was present
and the future
not so very far away)

late in the day
a woman bearing four flowers
came to visit
a very old man
a commander and
a veteran joker

90 roses
she said
arrived for the elders

the room was warm
late afternoon light
filled his room

image taken 3-18-12 in Austin, Texas

The writer had another science fiction story in progress:

Beings from another world discovered the tiny Planet Earth millions of light years (but just a thought) away. The beings didn't quite know how this planet worked, and spent some of their time and energy studying what they thought were Planet Earth operating instructions: sitcoms from the 1950s and the game, Monopoly. They spent lots of time playing Monopoly. (Their favorite token was the little flat iron which they reproduced for good luck on their own planets. Giant irons dangled from parapets and monoliths, the latest in decorative Earth chic.)

Meanwhile, the beings were ready to visit Earth, and put what they had learned to work. They played Monopoly. They bought lots of land, and charged lots of rent. When a player had a whole block of property, he or she built big buildings of plastic and wood, adding more and more buildings as the rent poured in each month. And then, they'd increase the rent.

There were no people on the streets of Monopoly, and so the beings thought the buildings were supposed to be empty. They were only constructed for show, to increase the money-making value of the property so...they could buy more property and build more empty buildings. They added houses and hotels with the hope of winning the game.

Meanwhile, the human beings, swept aside as nonessential, got pretty teed off; the visiting beings had become Masters at Monopoly, and didn't know what they had done wrong.

i think of Bedouins in the desert
when i see leaves in the grass
each leaf a shelter
to nomads in a microscopic world


I hadn't thought much about the role of leaves on the ground until some years back when I read Robert Fulghum's book 'All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten' (or maybe it was in his followup tome, 'It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It'. Neither of my copies is within reach at the moment.) He has a chapter that essentially is about to rake or not to rake. He's rather humorous about leaf disputes among neighbors, and how he went against his own ethical preferences in the matter when he hired a kid who came to the door, rake in hand, looking for work.

Friends mentioned they let the leaves in their yard alone 'to do their own thing'. Leaves are 'gold'. They ask neighbors for the leaves they put out on the curb for disposal, and use them for mulch.

Leaves are gold. They form an insulating blanket, preserving moisture in the dry heat of summer and guarding against freezes in the winter. Leaves remain damp on their undersides long into the day, after the sun has dried the upperside and the grass around them. The shade and moisture permit matter to grow that feeds little mites and things that help keep the soil healthy and rich. When leaves are swept or blown from a yard, trees and shrubs lose protection for their roots. When leaves remain on the ground long enough to decompose, the nutrients nourish the soil, and the crumbly matter helps keep the soil from becoming brick-like.

Leaves aren't meant to be a chore. They fall naturally to support the trees that bore them, and to sustain the larger network of life. Even when we are not particularly intrigued by mites and lichen, we depend on that network for the air we breathe, and the food we eat.

And they can be so visually intriguing (ie, beautiful). (Yes. I confess. I've become a leaf freak.)

A friend has taught me to knit, and I am experiencing creating by hand and two sticks a kind of fabric from string.

And, the Christmas carol The Holly and the Ivy was playing in the grocery store today as I wheeled my cart around the aisles.

Between the music and weaving, I felt connection to European ancestors centuries past. A melody can take us to distant times and places, as though an archetypal template were imbedded in our human brains. We can experience a kind of recognition when we reach an intersection with something with essence, something that is core.

The process of knitting, and hearing the melody, created such intersections.

image taken May 11, 2012 in Austin, Texas

photos taken in Austin Texas
March 15, 2012

the sky's knitting oranges
and ballet slippers
of cloud, wind,
and tree limbs

Perhaps there is a tiny ecosystem on the underside of every leaf.

I appreciate mechanisms like drip hoses, which minimize waste while delivering water to the roots of a plant or tree.

But the last couple of days, I've sprayed water up and down the trunks and leafy branches of trees and shrubs. The leaves seem to quiver with pleasure. The water may renew the silvery gray lichens that birds will nibble on and where tiny insects may find shelter.

Photos taken 9-8-12
Lafayette, Louisiana

The trees were too short,
and the highways too large.
The coffee was cold,
and the eggs runny.
The local folk and birds had left,
and the town was run
by cats and dogs.
Cars and trucks roared past the sign:
WELCOM to Apocalips

(detail of a lithograph entitled: Diphogena Iris, Gould)

John Gould was an ornithologist/naturalist/lithographer of the early 1800s. He - as did other famed naturalists of the time (such as Charles Darwin) - collected specimans of plants and animals from around the world. An article in Wikipedia suggests he had specimans of 320 different species of hummingbird alone and that he exhibited these at the Great Exhibition of 1851. 'The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations' is known as one of the first world's fairs. It took place at Hyde Park in London, England.

I am unable to access information via internet this evening on Diphogena irises.

The authors of several of my favorite books have something in common. They were early 20th century pilots (or in Dinesen's case, passenger) writing about the experience and the machinery of flight. And, they offer stories of life in early 20th century Africa from the perspective of westerners (sometimes sensitive, and sometimes not).

African Stories by Doris Lessing
West with the Wind by Beryl Markham
Out of Africa by Isaak Dinesen
Vol de Nuit (Night Flight) by Antoine de St Exupery
Du Vent, du Sable, et des Etoiles (Wind, Sand, and Stars) by Antoine de St Exupery

I've often thought these books could make a seminar with grist. They are a fine read, and the prose can flow like poetry from the realms of the sky and the great continent of Africa.

Driving to Austin Friday, there was a lengthy delay west of Houston. It was pleasurable, though, to open the car windows and breathe in the fresh air blowing across the fields.

here is a leaf
a school of fish

a constellation of shells
the sail of a great marlin.

an octopus of stars
shimmers within the black night sky

a monkey swings
from galaxy to galaxy

life composed
of dark and light-

the ink
of stardust and water

'the rhythmic fugue of opened and closed windows'

from an article on Edward Hopper
page 60
Smithsonian magazine
July 2007

These pics were taken on October 21, 2012 in Lafayette, Louisiana. And a branch of a small azalea bush was bearing a handful of blushing blooms. For the most part, this fall has been a warm one, a song with surprising little notes.

Someone was writing a piece of science fiction about how kids started the apocalypse.

Very smart kids with computers, a lot of time on their hands, and little parenting. The world outside the house was just another video game. They created various online identities, hacked a handful of businesses, banks and organizations and soon had contracts out, phony businesses milking real businesses with similar names, and unlimited electronic money flowing left and right. Highways and subdivisions were built and they electronically created real and magnificent monopolies.

Once they discovered the huge effects of their actions away from their computer screens - from farming to airports to national parks to military weaponry to schools and universities and especially to animals and trees, they were shocked. 'We didn't mean any harm.'

They wanted to make amends, indeed, perhaps they were the only ones who could slow down their own Machine. But how to get those in power to let them, now brilliant young adults, back in to make reparation?