Kansas Day

This photo represents the architecture of energy and industry in Kansas.

It is the picture of our pride and our shame braided together like the river the Kaw once was.

We gashed the prairie to raise wheat.

We fed ourselves and others from the land.

Now we harvest the runoff farmland to produce electricity by the clean force of gravity as the Kaw carries the snow and the rain to the sea.

There's river sand in the concrete;
the steel came by rails that are present but unseen in this picture.

We did all of it.

Now we must do things better with less harm.

The sun is on our side.

Kansas - admitted to the Union as a free state with blood on our hands January 29, 1861
Ad astra per aspera

Duchess Pears

Some pears are nice to look at.

Some pears are nice to eat.

And sometimes, I’m here to tell you,

the first bite is so very sweet.

But I would not objectify pears.

I love them in my heart

and I savor them on my tongue.

And I’m here to tell you,

they satisfy me in my belly.

But I have been known

to do two things at once;

to believe one thing

which contradicts the other.

Their skin,

yellow and freckled,

their flesh,

not white like snow,

nor brown like the earth.

But I am here to tell you,

their juice is like and not like yours.

If I have misled you,

it is because you followed.

My words are only some small thing

yet nothing - compared with a real pear.

I’m here to tell you

there are several still

in a ceramic bowl

on the sill.

I was not I

who named these sweet pears: Duchess.

And not any pear,

but the one I hold in my hand,

the one about to become one with me;

and in between,

so fair, so fine, so real,

and in my mouth,

so pear,

and, yes, I’m here to tell you,

perhaps with a blemish or two.

Young woman walking

As I looked long down the empty gray sidewalk,

my aging eyes could see her gray knit shirt

hugging the sands of her youth

down to her narrowed waist.

Long lines extended down, a mirror of each other,

around her hips and down the outer edges of her jeans.

With grace she walked ahead,

her time not yet fully shaped by the years that will follow

nor wasted away.

Year after year I have passed this place

and she, or a younger sister,

has always strolled along,

youth never fading,

only flesh and blood –

and mine.

The young never look back

and never should they,

for they are our visions,

out there ahead, the sidewalk

not so empty and gray

as their elders say.

A mid-winter gray sky

The sky today was gray,

not dark or particularly dreary,

uneven, bright in patches,

as if the brilliant blue sky of yesterday

was hovering just overhead,

about to come through the gray.

My left big toe ached a little

with each step of my left foot against the sidewalk as I entered South Park -

the bare toe I had managed to kick the back of my right ankle with

decades ago while circling under a high flying softball

at a church picnic.

But I would stop noticing my toe by the time I reached the Court House.

And a little girl sat astride one of the motionless ponies

on the tiny merry-go-round in front of the Antique Mall.

Whether it had been turning before I arrived or not,

I couldn’t say.

But she sat, wearing a fuzzy hooded parka,

the coat so cute, only one as young as she could pull off the style,

her hands locked onto the handles on either side of her pony’s head,

not listening to her mother’s tale of all the things they had yet to do.

And then it began to sprinkle.

And it occurred to me

that it had not occurred to me

that the light gray sky I saw overhead as I left my house

called for anything like an umbrella.

And then it stopped.

And as I crossed at Sixth Street,

half-way home,

a young woman,

with smooth, bare legs

jogged towards me

on this gray day

two days before the eve of the New Year.

Her pretty cheeks were flushed,

the kind of girl I wouldn’t have dreamed of asking out

even when I was less than half my age.

Yet when she passed me,

my youth but a memory,

she looked over at me and smiled.

That’s the kind of gray the sky was today.

Another footfall

When you pass through the air

your body leaves invisible eddies behind.

Of course you don’t see them.

But you can very nearly see them trailing

behind the bodies of others

if you settle.

If you slow your heart rate way down,

slow your breathing

nearly to a pause,

the people who walk by will seem

to be suspended for moments in time –

even very small movements will appear

startlingly clear.

A foot falls, lifting,

a swing forward

that lasts longer than

you could have imagined,

and then again.

It comes to you at a stroke

that each step is one of a kind.

Follow the foot upwards,

see the gait, the pacing.

You will never believe me

even if I tell you everything.

Arms swing, hands at the ends.

Of course I will finally tire of telling you this,

but then another one strides,

one strolls.

Some time ago I sat down;

I lowered my body

to the pavement.

I sat myself down

in the November sun;

my breath slowed to a pause;

I settled.

And now, finally, after many people

have passed me by

the sun has continued in its course,

and now I am at rest in the shadow

of the building across the street.

My turn has come to

show the world

what this body

can do.

I rise.

A foot falls, lifts,

swings for a long, lingering,

moment,

then another.

Have yourself a seat,

you will never see

anything quite like it;

if not me,

another will walk by

in good time.

If you settle,

really settle,

you might see the dust

swirling in the wake

of my falling foot.