Goodnight, Dave

DAVID HOLMES ISENHART
Born October 22, 1930
Died December 29, 2007

LEGENDS AND HEROES

There are a hundred paths
through the world that are
easier than loving. But
who wants easier?
-Mary Oliver


Wasn't it good, though? Wasn't it good,
all of us there together, awash
in Mr. Richard's California light, awash
in color from your bold hand, wild
as the Day the Yankees Lost the Pennant?

Alive, and racing Kije's Troika through
a white shower of strings and little bells
toward a sky and an ocean as blue
as a Carolina day?

Now you are a prayer, or what a prayer
should be, knowing you may have
closed your eyes, but this is no dream.
It comforts us. The God you met waits.
God--a figure like the sun, a face
of copper, of gold, with the merciful grace
of the little girl in red stockings who also waits
to take your hand. It comforts us

that whatever it Was,
Is.

*

WI: EARTH

Meanwhile, a little closer to home...

This is Mars and Orion over Monument Valley, recorded just last week. To the left are the two buttes called the "mittens." Just to the right of them, are the three stars of Orion's belt, and his sword. Betelgeuse is the red star near the center, and finally, find the bright star Rigel above the third butte, called Merrick.

I heard a Swedish proverb: Fear less, hope more; sit less, walk more; talk less, say more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; hate less, love more; and all good things are yours.

If I had one thought to give my children-- a legacy, of sorts-- it would be this, and it should be graven with an iron pen on rock forever: make every day count. Just that. Make every day count. The race is not always to the swift.

May all good things be yours!


(Photo credit and copyright: Wally Pacholka) Click it!
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Silent Night...

...Holy Night...All is Calm, All is Bright....

(Please Click it!)
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JOY

Angels we have heard on high
Sweetly singing o'er the plains,
And the mountains in reply
Echoing their joyous strains.

Gloria in excelsis Deo.
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Last Words.

But, hey. This is my last word on the subject, I promise!

When Lawrence O'Donnell, in his little fit of anti-Mormon rhetoric said that the Mormon Church was "racist" and "ridiculous," he also said that it is "based on the work of a lying, fraudulent criminal named Joseph Smith" he was treading on ground that got Don Imus fired. Maybe O'Donnell should be fired for his lack of on-air civility. Had he lived in a less forgiving culture, say, Islamic, and said that about the Prophet Mohammed, they would undoubtedly put out a bounty on his head. Here in America, while we tend to take a dim view of name-calling and slander, such statements are usually overlooked. We don't behead folks for their views here in the land of free speech. But I saw the broadcast. You could almost see the spit flying from his enraged lips.

I was shocked. Sort of. We Mormons are, historically and intellectually, pretty resilient. So, just for the record, let me offer another view. Joseph Smith was a farm boy from upstate New York. Yale literary scholar Harold Bloom, who has written many, many books, has written one called The American Religion, in which he writes of Joseph Smith: "I can only attribute to his genius or daemons his uncanny recovery of elements in ancient Jewish theurgy that had ceased to be available either to Judaism or to Christianity, and that had survived only in esoteric traditions unlikely to have touched Smith directly." Joseph had a third-grade education. His mother described him as a "relatively quiet" boy. When he was 14, reading in the Epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, which says: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him, he then went out into the woods behind his house, knelt in prayer, and said he had a vision, in which two "Personages" appeared before him; one pointing to the other said, This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him.

Ministers of the day told him his "vision" was of the devil, and that he was "deluded," but he knew what he had experienced. "I had actually seen a light," he wrote, "and in the midst of that light I saw two Personages, and they did in reality speak to me; and though I was hated and persecuted for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true; and while they were persecuting me, reviling me, and speaking all manner of evil against me falsely for so saying, I was led to say in my heart: Why persecute me for telling the truth? I have actually seen a vision, and who am I that I can withstand God, or why does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen? For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it...."

And I, and thirteen-million-plus other people believe him. He assured us that God continues to speak to people, that he is alive and well, and that he had not said everything he had to say thousands of years ago and has nothing left to say: "For unto him that receiveth I will give more."

Joseph Smith taught that the glory of God is intelligence, and that Man is, that he might have Joy. He taught us that "Families are Forever." He taught that whatever principle of intelligence man attains in this life will rise with him in the resurrection. And that we are to seek wisdom and to "study and learn and become acquainted with all good books, and with languages, tongues and people." He taught us that we are not alone in the universe.
"And God said, Here is wisdom, and it remaineth in me...And worlds without number have I created...But only an account of this earth give I unto you, For behold, there are many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power. And there are many that now stand, and innumerable are they unto man; but all things are numbered unto me, for they are mine, and I know them." And, "Every spirit of man was innocent from the beginning." And animals have souls. Well, there's more. But you get the idea.

As for the the "racist" thing: we believe that God has not only spoken to the Jews who wrote his teachings in the Bible, and to the people who wrote them in the Book of Mormon, but "Know ye not that there are more nations than one?...and because that I have spoken one word ye need not suppose that I cannot speak another, for my work is not yet finished...for I command all men, both in the east and in the west, and in the north and in the south, and in the islands of the sea, that they shall write the words which I speak unto them." (And I say, yes! there is Truth and Beauty in the words of Black Elk, and the Buddha, and in the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad -Gita, and the Koran.)

A Book of Mormon prophet says, "Ye shall not esteem one flesh above another," and "one man shall not think himself above another." And because every single one of us is a literal child of God, we are all brothers and sisters, and are loved equally.

So, Brother O'Donnell, I forgive you for saying that we are ignorant and gullible, misguided and ridiculous racists.

God bless.

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We all know Mormons are evil...NOT!

So, Lawrence O'Donnell, a panelist on "The Mclaughlin Group" is lamenting on TV that Mitt Romney Did not "Take the opportunity to distance himself from the evils of his religion," calling us "racist" and "ridiculous." So O'Donnell is a nasty bigoted little man.

But I am disappointed in Mike Huckabee, who, after saying "I would never try, ever, to pick out some point of your faith and make an issue of it," did just that, and then blamed his statement on the New York Times reporter Zev Chafets. Apparently after describing himself as the "only Republican candidate with a degree in theology," Mike was asked by Zev if he considered Mormonism a cult or a religion, and his answer was, "I think it's a religion. I really don't know much about it," and then surprised Chafets with a question of his own. Chafets says Mike asked "in an innocent voice, 'Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?'"

Well, Mike, that was about as slick a maneuver as any other remark designed to inflame anti-Mormon prejudice against Mitt. I thought you were better than that, Mike. I even thought you were kinda cute. Now you're starting to scare me....

To quote from a letter to the editor in today's paper: "What does scare me is that the same folks who hold major sway in presidential nominations in Iowa are the same folks who believe [God] created the universe 7,000 years ago, 9,000 years after human beings domesticated dogs."

So, I am still in Obama's camp (even though he was raised Muslim, and simply declares himself to be a "Christian" of no particular brand). Another letter to the editor says: "As the American public stumbles over itself trying to figure out who the 'real' Christians are, who was 'raised' Muslim and who is more beholden to whose God, the presidential candidates likely feel a sense of relief. They don't have to worry about explaining their stances on real issues of real importance."

I say, "Amen" to that.

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Mitt's Speech

Like Mitt Romney, I am a Mormon. I won't be voting for Mitt. Unlike most of the people in Utah, I am Democrat, and I'll probably vote for Obama. Nevertheless, it ticks me off that Mitt should need to defend his faith as a candidate for President of the United States of America, that he has to somehow prove to other Americans that he is a Christian. Or, that he is as Christian as other Christians. Like Mitt, "I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it." It defines who I am (a child of God), informs me where I came from and gives my life purpose.

In today's Deseret News, Lee Benson writes that "Weirdness, not religion, is the real issue." He says Romney's "problem is this: 160 years since they drove us out of Nauvoo, people still think Mormons aren't normal.

"They think we're weird.

"This is perplexing to us who are actual Mormons, and not just because it bugs us that our beliefs, rites and rituals attract a great deal of ridicule when other religions can have their chants, creeds and ceremonies and no one seems to look twice.

"Nope. We don't like it because we know we are every bit as normal as they are."

And as moral, and as intelligent. We are a lot like everyone else--we don't have horns, as people once believed, we are born, we marry, we love our children, we teach them to be honest, to tell the truth, to love each other, we try to be good role models, we laugh at jokes, we go to the movies, we eat at McDonald's, play with our dogs, pay our bills, dress up on Halloween, blow out birthday candles, grow old, and die. Like everyone else, some of us "get it right" and some us us "screw it up." We give, we take. We are a lot like you. Our similarities are much, much greater than our differences. In our hearts, we know this. And we hope you do, too.

One UK newspaper reporter wrote that Mormonism is a "pop-art cartoon" of mainstream Protestantism. I hope, when the first Jew, or the first Buddhist, or the first Muslim, or the first Atheist runs for President, that he/she will be chosen because they are good, and decent, and honest, and smart. I hope people will not think they are "too weird" because they are "less mainstream."

Orson Scott Card (also a Mormon) wrote in today's paper: "...when it comes to choosing a president, does a person's opinion about the nature of God make any difference at all? What makes a difference is the candidate's character. Does he actually live by the rules he professes to believe in? Does he keep his word? Character is the only issue that matters, in my opinion. A person who professes correct opinions but has no honor won't be much good as a president, while a person of honor can believe what he wants about God and still be a president we can trust."

So, did Mitt persuade the evangelicals? I doubt it. Lee Benson wrote, "He might have been better off just wearing a badge that said "Vote For Me. I'm Normal" and leaving it at that. Anyway, he gave it a shot.
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WI: The Promise

This began as a poem I wrote for my husband on Valentine's Day quite a few years ago. My brother, who is a composer, needed lyrics for a Mother's Day piece he was writing. So I did a little revising of the original, and this is the result. I wish you could hear the music that accompanies the words--like a lullaby, like being rocked in a boat (or a cradle, or a rocking chair), in a beautiful haunting minor key:

Because I did not know
'til now the depths of me,
and heights I never saw, until
the traces of my childhood lost
bore witness how my mother gave to me
the world in infant hands...
a star, a ship, a tree.

Now I lift my hand
and call upon her name.
"Mother, it is I. Your gift
so dearly held, was not given in vain!"
Because I know this now,
I give you back the world you gave to me:
the sky, and seas, unbound and limitless,

and never small again.

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Photo: My mother and my brother, circa 1933
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Deck the Halls

Snowman

More Shameless Hornblowing

**Click it, unless you have a magnifying glass**
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CHRYSALIS

A bit of blowing my own horn, so to speak....

What a Difference a Day Makes!

It rained ice today.

I stood out in the cold and wet for a long time, letting the water freeze on my face, waving my arms and blowing out clouds of warm fog.

Then, inside, I sat at the window for a long time, watching the wind blow waves of sleet across the road. It was a super storm, loud and flashy, the kind that lays ice on telephone wires and turns tree limbs to crystal. The boys sat on my lap, all of us warm and quiet together, until it was too dark to see.

Something happened then. A high, better than any drug-induced high, a feeling that almost burst my mind apart. I can't find a name for it, that feeling of intense awareness and content. What a joy it is to be alive!...

...We made paper snowflakes and hung them in the window.


From CHRYSALIS, an excerpt.
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What I Saw Out the Window Today

The view from the front yard, and from the back yard. The moon looks so small you might mistake it for a star. The wind is warm and blowing in a storm from the northwest. It's supposed to SNOW today! See how the color of the sky changes in a very few minutes as the sun begins to rise. Now the entire sky is white, waiting for the snow to fall....

Update: It's 25 degrees and snowing HARD!
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WI: A Letter

I know a woman lovely in her bones
--Theodore Roethke

Dear Omniscient Whomever,

I know a man unlovely in his bones,
by any human measures, of ill health,

and filled with parasites, with body parts
as rotted as the pistons of an old

Plymouth, still, sweet in his pure and tender
soul, who would be raised from his sickbed by

angels, sharp-edged but in no great hurry,
spinning on their graceful harpy wings like

falling-down galaxies. He raises his
obscene middle finger toward the coat-rack

in the corner, in the half-light, spinning.
I know how it is, how space flight is a

risky business. I wonder why in a
universe where angels dance with ions

in a hundred visions and revisions,
Prufrock-like, why is this final, deadly

apparition not an angel? Would not
an angel, any angel, even an

unlovely one be better than this per-
verse revolving coat-rack in the corner?

With Love,
Pepek

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AS #22, 23, 24, 25, & 26

Robbie Villafranca used to sleep with a gun under his pillow.

There was a letter that informed him he had sinned beyond redemption.

The only way he could be saved was by blood atonement, it said.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know about the "outing."

He euphemistically called them the "engineers of the human soul."

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HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

I am glad for many things, many things, many things, I am glad for many things that are mine today!

Thank you, Thank you, my heart sings, my heart sings, my heart sings. Thank you for the many things that are mine today!


--Primary Children's Songbook

...Men are, that they might have joy;
--2 Nephi 2:25

joy is the simplest form of gratitude.
--Karl Barth

(These last two quotes, put together, are my AS #22.)

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AS #21

Rhiesling, he da apple of our eye, da cat's PJ's; he da Man, yeah!
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WI: DREAMS

Okay. FIrst there were things, small children's things-- poems, or spelling words-- on wide blue-lined paper. The paper became dirty snow, where two young men, dressed as 17th century peasants, caps, blousy shirts, dark, rough pants-- were sleeping. They appeared to have been drugged, or poisoned. I thought they were French or Italian, but from another century. A modern Chinese soldier in a brown army uniform had dropped them off from his vehicle, and now wondered if he should kill them, or let them live. He sometimes let them live. But not this time. He took an ax he carried and neatly and gently (as easy as cutting through butter) sliced through the belly of each man. At first there was no sign of their wounds, but then bright red blood began to gush. The two men sat up, seeming unaware that they were bleeding to death. Then one of them began to sing a nursery song, very softly, in English. Their deaths seemed to me to be very humane and painless. I thought how if it was me, I would rather die outstretched, face upward, so the very last thing to fill my eyes would be the sight of the blue sky, and I would die filled up with blue, and that would be good. Then it all went back to the words on the wide, blue-lined paper, words some little child had written-- was writing-- even as I woke up.

So. Figure that one out, Islanders.... I've heard it said that in dreams, you are every character, as well as every object, etc. I am the dying peasants, the Chinese soldier, the ax, the child, the paper. A poem:


ignis fatuus


in the illustrated
conceptions
that happen each night as
the curtain
behind my eyes rises
fugitive people move
catbirds of life changing
skins under my closed eyelids
under my quiescent hair
on the pillow

skimming inscrutable
geographies of
words like flat stones
across the grey-
green water of mind
that sprays like sea

or resident birds
that babble across an
overflowing of bells

I sleep
in ciphers
that no one explains
mutable, exploding
at the pinions
self-propelling

and vulnerable to light
as vampires



(A question: Do you dream in color? I do!)

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NaBloPoMo 2

Of all his music papa played Mexicali Rose the very best.
Now the saxophone lies on a high shelf in the dark of the closet.
The last notes are departed, the reed split, the keys are stuck in old times.
Yet, I sometimes hear those slurred notes in the wind, in the wide cave of night.
Someday he'll take it up again, and then every earthly thing will change.
And all my dreams will be aroused to his slow music, a long lost voice.

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Image: www.mexicali-rose.com

AS # 18

Thank you for Chimey and Cake, for their good-night kisses and morning hugs.
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AS #16 and #17

I'm thankful for waterfalls, columns of woodsmoke, and two little Swedes!

I'm thankful for Bookworm and Starfish: mahogany eyes and shy smiles.

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AS #13, #14, #15: Catch-Up

There, high in the tree hangs a paper-wasp nest like an over-ripe fruit.

Beside the wasp's nest, some birds have built a nest of their own: strange neighbors.

Something about those two windblown nests reminds me of lions and lambs.

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Quote of the Day

"The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy."

--Flaubert

(Thanks, slick!)
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Kingsley Amis

Sir Kingsley Amis (he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1990) was the author of 2 dozen novels and 6 volumes of poetry. He wrote the first two James Bond novels: The Bond Dossier, and The Book of Bond, or Every Man His Own 007. I had no idea! It's been rumored that he wrote part of Ian Fleming's last book, The Man With The Golden Gun. Amis wrote under the pseudonym Robert Markham. I didn't know this, either! Flemings wife disliked Amis, calling him a "left-wing opportunist." The copyright owners of Fleming's Bond books had the brilliant idea that other writers would continue with Bond, all writing under the same pseudonym. It never happened.

Poor health convinced Amis to give up smiking, but he carried on with his reputation as a "boozer" of scotch and gin. He once said, "If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing." He died in 1995, at the age of 73, from a fall.

Here's another Kingsley Amis poem:

SOMETHING NASTY IN THE BOOKSHOP

Between the Gardening and the Cookery
Comes the brief Poetry shelf;
By the Nonesuch Donne, a thin anthology
Offers itself.

Critical, and with nothing else to do,
I scan the Contents page,
Relieved to find the names are mostly new;
No one my age.

Like all strangers, they divide by sex:
Landscape Near Parma
Interests a man, so does The Double Vortex,
So does Rilke and Buddha.

"I travel, you see," "I think" and "I can read"
These titles seem to say;
But I Remember You, Love is My Creed,
Poem for J.,

The ladies' choice, discountenance my patter
For several seconds;
From somewhere in this (as in any) matter
A moral beckons.

Should poets bicycle-pump the human heart
Or squash it flat?
Man's love is of man's life a thing apart;
Girls aren't like that.

We men have got love well weighed up; our stuff
Can get by without it.
Women don't seem to think that's good enough;
They write about it.

And the awful way their poems lay them open
Just doesn't strike them.
Women are really much nicer than men:
No wonder we like them.

Deciding this, we can forget those times
We stay up half the night
Chock-full of love, crammed with bright thoughts, names, rhymes,
And couldn't write.

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WI: Friendship

THE LAST WAR


The first country to die was normal in the evening,
Ate a good but plain dinner, chatted with some friends
Over a glass, and went to bed soon after ten;
And in the morning was found disfigured and dead:
That was a lucky one.

At breakfast the others heard about it, and kept
Their eyes on their plates. Who was guilty? No one knew,
But by lunch-time three more would never eat again.
The rest appealed for frankness, quietly cocked their guns,
Declared "This can't go on."

They were right. Only the strongest turned up for tea:
The old ones with the big estates hadn't survived
The slobbering blindfold violence of the afternoon.
One killer or many? Was it a gang, or all-against-all?
Somebody must have known.

Each of them sat there watching the others, until
Night came and found them anxious to get it over.
Then the lights went out. A few might have lived, even then;
Innocent, they thought (at first) it still mattered what
You had or hadn't done.

They were wrong. One had been lenient with his servants;
Another ran an island brothel, but rarely left it.
The third owned a museum, the fourth a remarkable gun;
The name of the fifth was quite unknown, but in the end
What was the difference? None.

Homicide, pacifist, crusader, cynic, gentile, jew
Staggered about moaning, shooting into the dark.
Next day, to tidy up as usual, the sun came in
When they and their ammunition were all used up,
And found himself alone.

Upset, he looked them over, to separate, if he could
The assassins from the victims, but every face
Had taken on the flat anonymity of pain;
And soon they'll all smell alike, he thought, and felt sick,
And went to bed at noon.


--Kingsley Amis (b. 1922)

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AS #12

A little goes a long way, but a lot will go a whole lot farther.

Duh.
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AS #11

My dear Ceridwen, a jar of pennies will work as well as bear bells.
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Veteran's Day

\
Some things are worth dying for. Some things are not. Some things are worth killing other human beings, some things cannot ever be worth that. Maybe it's a subjective matter, deciding what a life is worth, and what is worth a life. World War 1 was supposed to be the War to End All Wars. It didn't work out that way.

When the Armistice agreement between the Allied forces and the German Army was signed at 5 am on the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, in a boxcar in the middle of a French forest, some unremembered official thought it would be a good idea to wait until eleven am for the agreement to take effect. He thought 11-11-11 had an esthetic ring to it, something for the history books. As a result, during those six hours, another 2,738 men died. For nothing. 320 of those were American soldiers. The carnage went on until the final minute. For nothing.

Today there are still "wars, and rumors of wars." Young men and women are still dying in foreign countries for whatever reasons. Only they and their families can decide if the reasons are worth their lives. I abhor what is happening now in the Middle East. People on both sides are dying for my freedom to drive an SUV. (I realize this is a simplistic view of a complex ideal). Nevertheless.

I salute the men and women who have chosen to serve their country, to interrupt their lives and make sacrifices for their ideals, whatever their reasons. Would to God this would be the War to End All Wars.

These are the warriors in my life: my uncle, who served in Iran during WWII, my husband, who served in the Navy, on Guam; my brother, who served in the Army, in Germany and France; and my cousin, who served in Korea. God bless, guys!


(PS I do not own an SUV. I drive a Hyundai.)

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AS #10

O my gosh, it's Saturday, and I have not written my sentence yet!
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AS #9

To Whom It May Concern: I may not be best, but I can power up!
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Shameless!

Chiefbiscuit, of As It Happens, has awarded me a Shameless Lions roar. I'm (I would say flattered by this, but I notice that in my thesaurus this is followed by flatulence, and flaunt) genuinely delighted! I'm to list 3 things I think are essential to good writing, and pass this award on to 5 others I believe demonstrate these qualities. They, in turn, are to pass the Lion's roar on to 5 others.

So. My first thing I would say is necessary for good writing is relevance. Our primary concern ought to be with experience--with real life. Whether it is beautiful or painful, noble or ignoble, strange or common, good writing should offer us life. Second would be imagination. The images that give words their incandescence. And, last, focus, which my little red thesaurus defines as core, heart, nucleus, sharpness.

I am passing this Lion's roar, in no particular order, to:

pam, at Mind Trips
wendy, at Quiet About A Lot Of Things
Rethabile, at poeafrika
pris, at Songs To A Midnight Sky
Melissa, at Poet With a Day Job

...with all my respect and admiration!

(To find out more about the Shameless Lion's Writing Circle, visit Chiefbiscuits blog for a link.)

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AS #8

Dear Chiefbiscuit:

If New Zealand is Down Under, then is the USA Up Over?

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AS #7

My friend from down under, Chiefbiscuit, says that the matching chapter and verse in the BOOK OF PROVERBS of the date you were born is often meaningful in your life. So, being born on the 15th day of the month, I looked up Chapter 15, verse 15, which says: All the days of the afflicted are evil: but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast. So, I am going to use this for my AS #7 (even if it is one syllable short and starts with a conjunction--is "but" a conjunction? I forget).

But he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.

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AS #6

This for bullies: Joseph is being mean to me, but I can spell cats!

WI: Unforgettable

I have lots of "unforgettable" things in my life. Lately I forget a lot of things: doctor's appointments, returning phone calls, where I've put my car keys, and leaving WalMart--where I've put my car! But most of the important, really important, things are unforgettable: The blue of my dad's eyes, the freckles on my mother's face, the sound of their voices, the day my husband proposed to me, the birth of each of our five boys...when the boys were little, at bedtime we had a litany of songs. This is one I sang to them for years and years. It's a poem of William Jay Smith's, and we had a recording of it on an album by Carly Simon called "The Lobster Quadrille." The cover was red. It is "unforgettable."

A PAVANE FOR THE NURSERY

Now touch the air softly,
Step gently. One, two...
I'll love you till roses
Are robin's-egg blue;
I'll love you till gravel
Is eaten for bread,
And lemons are orange,
And lavender's red.

Now touch the air softly,
Swing gently the broom.
I'll love you till windows
Are all of a room;
And the table is laid.
And the table is bare.
And the ceiling reposes
On bottomless air.

I'll love you till Night
Rips the stars from his coat,
And the moon rows away
In a glass-bottomed boat;
And Orion steps down
Like a diver below,
And Earth is ablaze,
And the Ocean aglow.

So touch the air softly,
And swing the broom high.
We'll dust the gray mountains,
And sweep the blue sky;
And I'll love you as long
As the furrow the plow,
And However is Ever,
And Ever is now.


(Even as I type this, the melody still runs through my head. I would be interested to know if any of my boys still remember it, too?)

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AS #5

You wild child, today I will sell you to the old deaf gypsy lady!

(And I will, too, if she comes by and makes me an offer!)

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Committed To Air

AT NINTH & VAN WINKLE


Who would understand
The satisfaction of
That day the gull
Tipped south
Steered by a north wind away
From whatever was fixed

Light and lacking focus but
Committed to air

Who would understand
The truth of it
But someone arbitrarily reborn
In a stranger's nest

Who would understand
The exhilaration of feathers
Above all the graffiti
Of civilization
Like a soul glimpsed
Leaving the body done


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AS #4

Just because I love the sound of it: Malasado, Malasado!

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Friends

Did you know this is National Friendship Week*? Three cheers to all of you, my cyberfriends: Hip-hip, Hurrah! Hip-hip, Hurrah! Hip-hip, Hurrah!



*Actually, nobody really seems to know if there is a special week for this, or what month we should celebrate it, or which week of that month...but, what the hay! I say this is as good a time as any. So CELEBRATE!

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AS #3

Grace spent the night with friends, eating balut and drinking Coca Cola.
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AS #2

Cristina, rising at five to sweep my yard, says: "I will be de one."

My American Sentence #1

In Philippines, on All Saints Day, we eat fried bananas in graveyards.

(My daughter-in-law just told me this!)

The Day After...

"Having it all doesn't necessarily mean having it all at once." --Stephanie Luethkehans


Try telling THAT to a kid with a pound and a half of Kit Kats, Hershey Bars, Snickers, and Milky Ways on the day after Halloween!
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