What do you say to an eight year old girl?

What do you say to an eight year old girl?

You’re swinging alone on the swings at

New York Elementary School.

Not too high, just slightly back and forth,

slightly up and down.

You have an old man’s stomach.

Kids are running around.

Balls are being kicked,

bounced.

A boy dodges this way.

Another slides on the ground feet first.

A girl’s shoe laces cross over and skip.

They’re making up most of the rules

as they go.

And then you see a girl running towards you.

Her coat is unzipped, 

flapping.

Her hair is flying.

She’s a blur.

And then she’s sitting in the empty swing 

next to you.

She tells you, go higher.

Go higher, she tells you.

You look for words.

You try to tell her,

It doesn’t quite make my stomach lurch,

It doesn’t quite make my stomach queasy,

but it does quite make my stomach uneasy.

She laughs at ‘uneasy.’

Quite.

Then she kicks her feet and swings.

Higher and higher she swings.

Her coat flaps.

Her hair flies.

She’s a blur.

And then you pull on the chains.

Higher you go.

You can’t bend your knees,

the ground beneath your feet is too close.

But you pull on the chains and go higher –

still higher you go.

What do you say to an eight year old girl?

You say woo.

Woooooo.

Woooooo.

Woooooo.

The secret of happiness?

I was walking through South Park on Sunday afternoon. The sun was shining. The temperature was so close to what you would expect near the end of April that you would have to say that it was perfect. It wasn’t windy – to speak of.

But the Roosevelt Fountain wasn’t working as it should. It wasn’t burbling. Maybe it was clogged with leaves or something. And so a middling pool of water had formed around its base. Maybe at its deepest it was three inches deep.

But two little kids were enjoying life as they found it – wading and splashing in the pool. One little girl looked up at me as I approached and smiled at me. “You have to take your shoes off," she said.

I didn’t stop to explain to her that happiness is not as simple as that. Something is clogging up my brain these days and the normal fountain of my mind isn’t burbling the way that it should. I just walked on.

But when you have your health, and you can manage to ignore the climate changing cars spewing their exhaust on Massachusetts St., and you can overlook the selfish folks and their greedy interests in high places, and you can try to forget about the sad cardboard signs along the sidewalk ahead of you that indicate that life is passing some people by, all that may be left for you is to simply enjoy life where you are. And sometimes you will just have to take your shoes off.

It’s not as if we grown ups have much more power than that little girl to make the whole world all right again. We should do what we can do. But then perhaps it’s time for us to pretend that we’re youthful again. We might just feel the feeling of the fullness of water around our toes. We might feel the happiness we can feel in the moment.

And maybe next week, we could venture off the sidewalk and try walking on the green grass in our bare feet. Who knows? It might not be very much happiness, but that little girl probably knows something we’ve forgotten.

You have to take your shoes off.

Signs

Old sky trails dispersing,

vapor lines on a crossing path.

Gulls flying underneath

on the other side of the dark glass.

One arrow of humanity flew north

and the other flew into the rising sun,

but the reflections seemed nearly as true

as vanishingly thin air.

If this means anything,

how would I know it?

Why would I be looking

for signs of anything other

than happenstance?

Overall, the sky was sky blue

and Rudy’s Pizzeria wouldn’t be open for hours.

I walked on –

carrying the dreaming

of countless generations to the river

and the river carrying the unending secrets

from the very beginning of time

to the deep blue sea.

The universe gave me a Valentine

The universe gave me a Valentine. Okay, it was the fourth of March and it was just a smashed, heart-shaped bit of metal glinting in the early morning sunlight when I crossed 15th street near Central Middle School. 

Still, I bent and picked it up. Countless car tires had mashed the surface of what almost looked like a lid for something sweet into a crinkled and haphazard pattern. Isn’t that just like the universe, I thought. And there were pockmarks and scratches where stones had poked and scratched into the surface of the metal. And the shine had been taken off of it somewhat. But I could see a pink and purple elephant sitting in the middle of it all and the message was quite clear: “I’ve got trunkfuls of love for you.” And I like double chunk chocolate chip cookies. I do! I do like double chunk chocolate chip cookies!

I had always known that the universe cared. Well, actually I had sometimes doubted it a little bit. There have been hard times, dark days in which my heart was mangled nearly beyond all recognition. But here I am. And over my right shoulder the sun was rising into blue skies as I walked across the trampled grass of the football field towards the Kaw River.

Better late, my dear heart. Better late than never.

Thanks, bert

March wind

I won’t be able to capture the wind in pictures or in words. It’s best if you see and hear it for yourself. Of course, you cannot see the wind at all, but on a day like today, it expresses itself on the two-dimensional canvas of the river. It plays with the reflections of the sky and the far bank. Ripples ripple. And again and again, the wind dives, swooping towards the surface of the water from high up in the scudding clouds, scattering edges of light and water. And then it disperses. Or so it would appear. Where does the wind go after these flurries? All you see is the dancing and swirling, and then the river is flowing on downstream as if nothing has happened.

I watched the wind working its magic on the surface of the river. It’s an appearance. The full substance is beyond my human grasp.

I had walked less than two miles through an East Lawrence alleyway. When I reached the river, I scrambled down the near bank past broken chunks of concrete, bundles of rusted wire half buried in the soil, an old car door. The remains of last year’s leaves filled in some gaps. And there was plenty of just ordinary trash.

I was careful descending. The bank was steep and the footing was not always clear. I tried to keep a hand hold where I could. Then I sat near the river.

I have waited to tell you that when I approached the river bank, a great blue heron had flown from near the spot where I would sit and had flown low across the river to somewhere near the far bank. There were gulls circling upsteam. It might have been a bald eagle soaring above the trees. I saw where the majestic bird rested on the bare branches of the trees on the far bank downsteam.

I hadn’t known that it would be the wind that I had come for. I watched and listened. And while I wish that I could say that we had a conversation, it wasn’t that. The wind was speaking and I was trying hear. The wind was painting a water mandala and then instantly blowing it all away. What did it mean?

It may all be appearances, I suppose. But for me to be there for such an appearance for a few moments is the kind of gift that am often given. It is part of why I walk. Walking is the pace that let’s me catch of glimpse of the appearances around me. I am, after all, a being, walking in time. A ripple rippling. If I am paying attention, I can feel the wind caress my face.

There was a moment when the wind opened up just enough space in the drifting white-grayness that the blue sky beyond slipped through into my eyes.

And then I stood, turned, and scrambled up the bank, mostly on all fours.

When I reached the top of the near bank, I headed off into the wind. She was blowing from the south on this windy morning. I would hang streamers from a long cane pole and clean up some of last year’s growth in the garden. It’s March, coming in like a lioness.

If you stay until the end

If you stay until the end,

it will look something like this:

three young women standing,

waiting, poised in the moment

with the drawer all counted

and the tip jar divided,

the floor swept and mopped,

the trash taken out,

hands and feet are finally idling;

their eyes looking into the future,

an evening so much nearer than I had imagined.

If there’s a shadow at the door,

it is likely only a man in a gray beard

waiting for the last note of the last song

to be rung and the door finally opened

and shut one more time.

And then there will sound one last ringing bell,

really only a middling tinkling,

the door closing with a dull thunk.

I’m not really superstitious,

I have interrupted the music playing

countless heedless careless times before,

but as I passed by the church at the corner,

it seemed only fleeting minutes before

that I had just seen two little girls in pink jackets

rolling in the green grass like fallen leaves

blowing in the wind.

And then so quickly before my very eyes

the girls became young women

making coffee drinks and small talk

and breaking eggs for omelets

and hearts to go and then wiping

the counters with a damp rag.

And again in the blink of an eye,

the young woman I married

became nearly as old as the shadow

that I am becoming by the door.

So let ‘Yes’ sing the refrain one last time

‘ln and around the lake,

mountains come down and they stand there.’

So let the words become metaphors

and the metaphors become music.

Let the syrup bottles line up in rows

and the white plates stack up one on top of the other

and the pilot lights whisper:

‘Twenty-four before my love and I’ll be there with you.’

And so I stood there with my hand on the door,

waiting, watching, listening

for the end yet to come.

And now I must confess, I don’t really believe in reincarnation, either,

but if nonsense is more hopeful than common sense,

I might dilly-dally with my toes tapping a little inside my well-worn shoes

and pretend.

And then I might just remember what I always forget,

that the end is not the always the end, at least not yet.

There might still be three steps between me and the abyss

And tomorrow the iced tea might be once more as cold as ice

and the smiles and laughter reborn for one more tune -

and maybe the next. Who needs the lyrics when there’s dancing to do?

‘Yadadada da da da,

Yadadada da da da.’

I waited for the final chord

and stepped out and around the door.

Where do ideas come from?

This 4 minute spoken YouTube suggests one answer to the question: Where do ideas come from? Mystery remains embedded within experience. Thank you for listening.

Link to the story: Where do ideas come from?