Goddess of light

I walked with steady steps in bright sunlight, the low sun at my back could not radiate through the bundling that zipped up to my chin. My stocking cap and woolen mittens were not fashion accessories and even unbundled I wouldn’t grace the cover of a glossy fitness magazine.

But definitions are often too narrow. I didn’t think myself unfit for yet other unleading roles – so many of them unthinkingly neglected by harried people, narrowed by yet other people’s harnessed minds.

And still the frozen concrete sidewalk easily held my own weight. My load was not especially wide. And if I were to unbundle my mind, it wouldn’t just be my body that I was taking along for a meander.

Truly, the bending Kaw River is a sight. But towards and along the way, there are sights uncountable. Even the weather changes from day to day. And even the day changes from dark to light. And as if that weren’t enough, sometimes the unexpected passes you by at a run.

Near the back of my mind I heard footsteps pounding – though not too heavily – coming closer and closer behind me. Then a young girl jogged past my left shoulder and ran on out towards my memory. I pondered. She was surely more a girl than a woman, one so very young relative to my own age. The low, warming winter sun tinted her light brown hair warmer, waving in waves at me as her own much lighter form receded. Lithe, she was. The sidewalk not giving even a millimeter at each footfall. I could see by the tan tails of the long woolen coat flying out at her knees that in spite of the cold she must not have bothered to button up.

Yet what drew my attention as I mesmerized in the moment was her back pack. Likely, she had been merely running along leaving Central Middle School, which I had passed a few short minutes earlier, her books and homework carried on her back. Yet that backpack so sparkled. So many uncountable sparkles kindled in my eyes. Sequins and spangles and so very many other circles of glittery plastic all stitched onto every available tough nyloned space.

But how could there have been sparkles at all without running girls and setting suns? And surely no blazing sun actually entered my mind. Those flashes were but reflections from an exceedingly distant burning - photons passing through uncountable miles of empty space, finally bouncing back and finding my pupils, then lodging in retinas and then further handing off some message to the organics and nerves well within, only ultimately sparkling light a cross pitch black synaptic clefts.

And then I thought for a split-second – then several erratic longer ones - as each bounding step took her farther and farther away from me. I wanted with all of my beating heart to run after her. I wanted to hear from her lips about the spangles. I wanted to see if her eyes were blue or brown – or perhaps colored some color name as yet undefined.

But then she would hear me coming, heavy steps and heaving breaths. She would turn and see a heavily bundled man – an abominable bumbling nyloned sidewalk stranger bearing down – the well-hidden human deep beneath my brown down coat. Or more simply, she would turn to see a large man, many times her young age, face red and straining. How could she possibly see in her own unexpected imagination, an overgrown boy who only wished to know if her backpack had come that just way with the spangles, or whether she had stitched the sparkles on herself with the fingers of a goddess.

I walked on.

Reality hugger

From this side of the Kaw River, the tree trunks on the other side extend up into the air and also down into the water, the surface hardly impedes their passage. A thick and rough line of a bank of green and drying grasses marks a boundary.

Why should one reality be more real than the other?

I could walk across the bridge, step closer and put my hands on the trunks growing up into the air. That would be something. But the trunks that were apparently growing down into that other reality will have vanished from my earlier vantage point from across the river. Are they gone, or what if I simply lack the ability to penetrate the surface of what I have always called a reflected reality. If I stick my arm into the water, it will only get wet.

This reality where I stand now seems so much more tangible. The rock I sit back down on is a hard seat. There are sounds waving into my ears, birds that I imagine but cannot see. Waves on the river, smoothed by strong current. White foam on chocolate water, swirling, reflecting a world that I, myself, am immersed in.

Some days, sometimes at small moments of time at a time, I wonder about the surfaces that divide realities. This world up here has seed heads of grasses along my path. A ladybug minding her business. Bindweed, with its miniature morning glory white flowers, twines.

My hands – the whorls on my outstretched fingertips - feel. The breeze slips passed my cheek. Maybe it will rain from the clouds, fuzzy gray, overhead, and I will get wet.

I could swim across the river from here. And get wet. Maybe this river is too wide for me.

Is everything like that – life and death?

This world seems real enough. I can quench my thirst with ice water. I can bite into a sandwich.

But what if you look into my eyes, past the surface into an inner other world. What do you see? Am I your illusion? Are you my reflection?

I can hug my arms around your body. That is something.

Connecticut St. Walk

YouTube slideshow with commentary - Mostly houses and porches - and the remains of the day - along Connecticut Street. ~ 4 min

Hard mercy

I was walking up the alleyway, as I usually do. A squirrel in the prime of his life, lay dead in the packed snow before me. I nudged it to the edge with my shoe, on to a frozen patch of grass, so that the squirrel would not get flattened. But the squirrel was already dead.

I walked on.

Then soon again, I was walking on a bright and warm day – for the still of winter. As I approached the spot in the alleyway, I saw a tall man in a brown leather jacket, gaunt in face and scarred. A squirrel struggled along the alley’s edge, legs scrabbling in the dead leaves.

“He doesn’t look good,” I said.

“I’m going to put him out of his misery,” the man replied. “My son shot him with his BB gun.”

He flicked the blade of a switchblade knife he held in one outstretched hand and he bent towards the squirrel.

I walked on.

Housework

I was simply hanging out the clothes

on a long strung clothes line,

pinning undershirts and winter long johns

with clothes pins in the still cold,

sun lighted air.

There was no rhyme nor reason,

yet I looked up into a sky blue sky,

wisps of inconsequential ice crystals

trailing along negligible winds.

And I thought of you.

There could be no earthly connection,

except the one in my mind.

And the random chance of our first meeting

might never have happened,

and then we looked into eyes

so unmistakably ordinary,

except for whatever happened in our minds.

And did you see the waning moon rising

through bare branches that revealed almost everything

and nothing last night after our guests had gone?

And so early to bed

and late to rise

and awake sometime in the middle

of a night that might never have happened,

except there were plates and bowls stacked,

glasses nearly clinking together by the sink.

There must have been soup and forgettable talk

and leftover apricot bars on the counter.

And as I turned, I saw that you

had forgotten the clementines I had left out for your lunch.

My mind has been filled with sky blue sky,

and love possibly exists in dirty dish water.

Even the plugged-in fire in the fireplace last night,

burned flames only in our imagination.

**

Bonus: Of course, it isn't strictly true, but you can dance, anyway:

Moon Approaching South Park

I like to think of myself as a philosopher-poet. I think, therefore I write. On my good days, I think that I am just a poet.

I am beginning to believe that poetry is nonsensical – that is that it cannot quite be defined in sensical or other more or less rational cognitive terms. Which means that if I get poetry into my writing, I may not quite know how it actually got there. I do aim to write poetry, however, because aiming seems to improve my chances of hitting something. And it is poetry that I aim for because I enjoy poetry when I read or hear poetry, even if my logic seems a little circular. But if I try to write a grocery list, for example, it just seems more prosaic than poetic. And still, seeking poetry is no guarantee of finding poetry. Or so I have found.

In this collection of poems and word sketches I have thought about meaning and about words and about the meaning of words. I have thought that maybe if I try to think more nonsensically, I might manage to find some other sort of sense in places where I wasn’t quite looking. Poetry might be sweet or savory if I could even just catch it out of the corner of my eye. Maybe it lingers or lurks in the empty spaces between the words.

Let’s face it, folks. Some days I’m just a would-be poet. And even my thinking doesn’t always amount to much. And yet, poetry exists. And me. Or I? It all makes me wonder, sometimes.

You can order ‘Moon Approaching South Park’ at Amazon.com. Some copies are available for $10 cash at Aimee’s coffee shop or directly from me if you live near by. I will willingly barter with you if you have something to offer that I want, but please don’t try to offer me live chickens or goats. It would turn out to be a bad deal for the animals. Does anyone want to do windows for a book, perhaps? I’m just asking.

Some of the poems and word sketches have been published before, but most appear for the first time in this collection. I thank you for your attention to my work. I do think that there is some poetry in my words. And some nonsense. If you think that you can tell the difference, please let me know by carrier pigeon or with a note in a bottle. Email or picture postcards might be a last resort.

Here is the last and possibly the shortest poem from ‘Moon Approaching South Park’:

Sensical, anon.

Poor old Bert,

he has let his mind go

free and easy as pie

and pumpernickel.

But, she exclaimed,

it has no rhyme

and reason is severely

lacking.

And then a further

argument of what

poetry should be

ensued.

or cut bait

If you intend to fish for poetry,

you should get up pretty early

and stay out quite late.

A nap anytime almost never hurts.

Patience is important:

a walk can be too fast,

though it is rarely –

almost never – too slow.

But poetry streaks

at the speed of light

and yet it lurks just as well

in the stone cold stillness.

Once a poem slipped through

my dripping fingers

because I had left

my paper and pen at home

and there were unpatched holes

in my net.

I’ve probably jinxed myself

by saying too much,

but it’s not a matter of superstition.

And luck isn’t merely

a matter of luck,

but it’s hard to know in advance

which effort will be worth the time.

The question is something to think about

when you have nothing better to do.

You could – I suppose – say that about poetry.

often itself a kind of question,

but that would likely be a waste of words.

Poetry might be a will o’ the wisp;

it might be granite.

Poetry might be pink socks;

it might be galoshes.

But who wears galoshes

these days?

I’ll say this –

though it goes without saying -

that poetry is not about the words,

but it is entirely about the words.

If there is a melody or a tune,

it must be in your head –

or maybe an errant tuba

or something.

Maybe it’s the crescendo

or diminuendo in the cracks

on the concrete sidewalk.

Flip a coin

and watch it roll

into the storm drain

that flows to the river.

Poetry waits.

You can fish –

or cut bait.