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Sunday, June 24, 2012

Maybe next year

Today, it will hit 37.7777C, 100F in Missouri, after weeks of 90+F with scant moisture. The land is dry, flowers are wilting, the trees are dropping their leaves as the  wind begins to  pick up, blowing  the soil and moisture of the fauna. The  sunshine scorching the blackberries. The air filled with te aroma of the berries cooking on the limb, only missing the pastry for a cobbler or tart.  While pond shrinks a foot lower, the shoreline mud cracked and brittle like the shell of an egg. Soon the fish may boil. The midday siesta is appropriate. Cattle settle below the branches of a solitary tree. Crowding. crouching together squeezing into the shade. The blades of lawn fade, green to yellow to beige to brown wilting to straw, their edges curl, rolling to center. The birds and bugs are silent, resting a la nest. The closeness of the sun beating down, warming, heating, percolating the Central Plains. July will be hotter, August too. The early crop of salad greens, peas, tomato and tomato plants grew well with watering, perfect specimens for the deer, racoon and other wildlife starving from the drought emboldened by hunger lurking closer and closer to civilization. The flowers too, disappear, the plants look as though they were crewcuts, each stem chewed to the same height. leaving some to keep the plants all growing for a nibble tomorrow. The garden planted to share with wildlife is this year their platter alone, only the onion and garlic will they not eat, leaving something for us.
 Somebody ate the beets, maybe tomorrow we'll see if we can find some potatoes. The pleasure of the summer of fresh vegeatables a maybe for next year. This year is simply the memory of the effort put forth to feed us all, and they all went to the table first.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

one night

I do some of my best writing at night. When the lights are out and the eyes are closed. Some of the best writing, done without paper. It is the middle of the night, that is when the brain awakens and the body crashes, when they are at odds with each other. Ah! The bones at rest while the mind travels the hills and valleys of time, past present and future all jumbled together dancing around the corners of the night trying to make sense. When the stillness has its chance to breathe, when the darkness weighs, blanketing the pallet in the softness that caresses the tree and hugs the nest. Ah! the mind unencumbered by its earthly coil winding every way, into the valleys and hills of thought, making sense and nonsense of images and words manipulating each into the tapestry of the day, real and unreal melded together. And then the mind turns the image asunder as it approaches slumber, and the thoughts fold together into the darkness of night.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Tennis again

  And again the pigs are grunting, and the game loses it's aura, as the champions struggle to roar like lions sounding only, like stuffed pigs.

  Is it, are they, the sign of the times, professionally unprofessional. Leaders?

If they are the best of the bunch, what does it look like at the bottom of the pile.

Will Nadal ever get pants that fit, or will doctors fix what is wrong behindhim.

Will maria hear herself.

Will the joker ever become a good sport.

If they are a reflection of us, we are in trouble.

CRISIS

   Life has a way of testing strength, and will. It has a way to interfere with the usual. It disrupts normal, the life routine, it is as uncontrollable as the weather.  The test, it is the ultimate evaluation. Whether an individual prepares for a crisis is not the measure, it is whether or not the individual can withstand the pressures of the annomallies. Can one withstand the difference in the routine that disrupts the daily flow as well as the emotional strain of distress, such as, a dramatic family disruption as caused by a profound illness juggling the emotional distress along with altering routines of life. If an individual that has been in the same routine and environment is  transported into a new residence, as in the case of someone moved to assisted living or nursing care, has the problem reestablishing habits for self care, reestablishing the route the brain must take to function. Persons are comfortable with routines they have honed for years, the place where the brain has links to stored things as when needed. It is simple to find the broom, that has been in the same closet for years. Or the brush that has always been on the shelf next to the comb that was bought on vacation years ago, and then  the mind wanders to the holiday enjoyed those many years past. But now, the brush on the new shelf has no connection to the vacation long past, the mind has to reroute a link, rewire the site back into the memories. This, is not always possible, and the individual who functioned so well, who was so efficient, can no longer establish the link and therefore cannot make the connection with what to do with the brush, and has totally forgotten the holiday so long ago and so fondly revisited. The time is past, erased, no, disappeared in the furrows of the wiring of the mind and can no longer be recollected. And suddenly the spry senior has aged, withered into the shell of wrinkles and dry skin. The flicker of youth, it's glimmer of energy with the spark struck by the discoveries spent, the flames expired. And the little old person sits waiting for the mind to make a connection to the past, that has, and is stored, the lost years, missing, unremembered, the time spent, withered away like the minutes wasted. The body less agile, the strength waning, the abilities draining, gravity hanging, and the stories that warmed the wintry darkness sit in the closed book of the mind, while the old one waits, for the match to strike the spark of the past that has been carried carefully all these years, the treasured thoughts of yesterday. Together they sit, volumes gathering dust on the shelves of today, in a place with no warmth, no history,  no link, no roots. Nothing there but the whisper of the breath slowly slipping into the cloud  that drifts by. And the days pass. The images slowly disappear and the old one gets smaller and smaller as all the memories of yesterday dissolve on the air of today. The less remembered the less able, the less important. the less necessary, the less there is, then there is nomore. And the crisis passes to the next generation, not the same issues, no, new issues, their issues, their crisis of the present, as the past drifts by.