Flyover

A friend and I had been walking along the river when we came to where the levee trail meets the Kaw River Bridge and paused to look back at the river. Several dozen geese must have been startled up into flight from where they had been resting on the river behind the Bowersock hydroelectric power plant. Not knowing that we were there, the geese flew sharp around the corner of the building, directly towards the space between the bridge and the levee where my friend and I were standing. 

With no time to change their course, the geese flew towards us in some disarray, fast and close, just over our heads, wings beating hard against the air. We – and several geese - were nearly eye to eye for just a few seconds. And then, just as quickly, the geese had dodged past us and had banked back towards the river over on the other side of the bridge. There they came back together from their moments of individual frantic flight and formed up into their characteristic ‘V’ formations. The geese flew steadfastly away, heading north.

My friend and I crossed the bridge, heading home.

Winter walking women

 

I was walking down Mass Street

when just ahead of me I saw

a woman in a plum nylon coat.

She was snugly wrapped

from her hood to her thighs.

Below she wore black tights and ankle

high black boots.

I never saw her face.

She turned into The Arizona Trading Company

and I turned into a potted plant.

I was walking down Mass Street

when just ahead of me I saw

a woman in a tan nylon coat.

She was snugly wrapped

from her hood to her thighs

Below she wore skinny jeans and calf

hide brown boots.

I never saw her face.

She turned into Goldmakers

and I turned into a potted plant.

I was walking down Mass Street

when just ahead of me I saw

a woman in an evergreen nylon coat.

She was snugly wrapped

from her hood to her thighs.

Below she wore faded jeans and

ordinary black shoes.

I never saw her face.

She turned into Wonder Fair

and I turned into a potted plant.

I was walking down Mass Street

when just ahead of me I saw

a woman in a navy nylon coat.

She was snugly wrapped

from her hood to her thighs

Below she wore patterned leggings and

Converse high tops.

I never saw her face.

She turned into Rudy’s

and I turned into a potted plant.

The Spanish English student

Prose - The poem without the line breaks

What if I wrote one line of words bending and looping across the page, until the line finally 

crossed a ‘t’?

Her eyes were darting across the room and then my eyes just happened to cross the line of her looking – and perhaps it was no more than that.

My eyes have become old and sky blue and hers were young dark pools of liquid earth. A million years have shaped both our lives and our words, neurons leaping over synaptic clefts in less than the blink of an eye. I only happened to glance over as she happened to glance across within the same moment of time and at a point in space - and then in a blink we also both looked so very quickly away. The crossing of eyesight lines had merely sparked some primordial recognition.

And then we caught each other’s eyes again. She smiled. I suppose that I must have smiled, too. But I could only see her face. Who knows just what she saw in mine?

It all happened in finitude. In time – in space - on a Sunday afternoon in my dining room. I happened to be, in that very hour, forty years her elder, if a day. And still it was as if we played tag or maybe hide and seek with our eyes.

What magic was it calling out the sight lines of our gazes across ten or twelve feet of thin air? I must have spread my fingers and peeked through them once or twice before I finished counting up to one hundred. And later, when I said a few words over her shoulder, she caught the corner of my eye as she turned her head.

And then we all were playing Jenga at the dining room table with solid maple blocks, building a tower to toppling. And again, I watched her eyes as she pulled on a block and then she looked into mine when the block came free. I must have laughed when I realized that she was looking at me looking at her looking at me.

It was really nothing more than that. I was old enough to be her very distant uncle. She had been born across a wide ocean. And only for a single afternoon, with our eyes playfully glancing, would our worlds come within a million miles of colliding.

It was not as if we were weaving the fabric of the universe, one warp and one weft – and then a million threads of some color. Let’s say that it was rose, or mauve or maybe a dusky pink. I recall that that was just about the color of the sweatshirt she was wearing.

And I remember a phone stuck into one back pocket of her jeans - but now that I think of it, it might have been another young woman. There were a dozen or so of us, together, sharing food. And talking back and forth in various accents of English. There was a cake with a little cardamom and bright colored sugar sprinkles. And then she and I just happened onto a million year old little game, one played with only our eyes.

And then the game was over, the sun lowering in the sky, warm for November. And then she walked away forever. She waved one hand out of courtesy. And perhaps for some of the feelings I had yet to recall, I must have raised my hand too.

And then with a look, one last look forever, she looked into my eyes. And then we both disappeared into each other’s memories. I have not quite forgotten the look of her eyes just yet. But I will.

Poem - Line breaks as punctuation

What if I wrote one line of words

bending and looping across the page,

until the line finally crossed a ‘t’?

Her eyes were darting across the room

and then my eyes just happened to cross the sight line of her looking –

and perhaps it was no more than that.

My eyes have become old and sky blue

and hers were young dark pools of liquid earth.

A million years have shaped both our lives

and our words,

neurons leaping over synaptic clefts

in less than the blink of an eye.

I only happened to glance over

as she happened to glance across

within the same moment of time

and at a point in space -

and then in a blink we also both looked

so very quickly away.

The crossing of eyesight lines

merely had sparked some primordial recognition.

And then we caught each other’s eyes again.

She smiled.

I suppose that I must have smiled, too.

But I could only see her face.

Who knows just what she saw in mine?

It all happened in finitude.

In time –

in space -

on a Sunday afternoon

in my dining room.

I happened to be, in that very hour,

forty years her elder,

if a day.

And still it was as if we played tag

or maybe hide and seek with our eyes.

What magic was it calling out the lines of our gazes

across ten or twelve feet of thin air?

I must have spread my fingers and peeked through them once or twice

before I finished counting up to one hundred.

And later, when I said a few words over her shoulder

and she caught the corner of my eye as she turned her head.

And then we all were playing Jenga

at the dining room table

with solid maple blocks,

building a tower to toppling.

And again, I watched her eyes as

she pulled on a block

and then she looked into mine when the block came free.

I must have laughed

when I realized that she was looking at me

looking at her looking at me.

It was really nothing more than that.

I was old enough to be her very distant uncle.

She had been born across a wide ocean.

And only for a single afternoon

with our eyes playfully glancing would

our worlds come within a million miles

of colliding.

It was not as if we were weaving the fabric of the universe,

one warp and one weft –

and then a million threads of some color.

Let’s say that it was rose, or mauve

or maybe a dusky pink.

I recall that that was just about the color of the sweatshirt she was wearing.

And I remember a phone stuck into one back pocket of her jeans -

but now that I think of it, it might have been another young woman.

There were a dozen or so of us, together, sharing food.

And talking back and forth in various accents of English.

There was a cake with a little cardamom

and bright colored sugar sprinkles.

And then she and I just happened onto a million year old little game,

one played with only our eyes.

And then the game was over,

the sun lowering in the sky,

warm for November.

And then she walked away forever.

She waved one hand out of courtesy.

And perhaps for some of the feelings I had yet to recall,

I must have raised my hand too.

And then with a look, one last look forever,

she looked into my eyes.

And then we both disappeared into each other’s memories.

I have not quite forgotten the look of her eyes just yet.

But I will.

Like candles

It wasn’t even close to my birthday.

Yet the tips of the bare branches on the treetops

were burning like candles.

Then, as the earth turned beneath my feet,

without even a single breath,

those flames were extinguished.

I walked on along the street

towards where the moon would be rising,

the air biting my nose,

the sounds of my footsteps in my ears.

The sky was so deep and so clear

as far out as my eyes could see.

I walked on into the night

towards where Orion the Hunter would be rising 

to take his lonely place in the sky,

turning as the earth turned

through the long, cold winter.

At dusk, not even a short hour ago,

I had watched a hawk

flying near the tops of the tree branches.

At least the hawk

only killed for survival.

And yet, as I walked,

tonight all was calm

and the moon was so bright

and I wondered as I watched

why all of this was still somehow not enough.

‘So this is Christmas,’ Lennon sang

ages and ages ago -

and again and again on my digital device.

But his words remained only a lyric:

War was not over.

I bowed my head.

And then, at last, I turned towards home.

I, at least, would be warm,

sitting down with my wife for my supper soon.

Comfort and not always joy.

And still tomorrow I will be glad to see the sun rising

and to be breathing in the wind,

watching the bare branches reaching ever upwards.

But in the darkness of the night

I asked the glittering stars up above so high,

Why do we humans extinguish

the beauty that we did not create?

An unhinged account of insomnia and uncertainty

YouTube link: And unhinged account of insomnia and uncertainy

~5 1/2 min. Produced, written, and spoken by Yours Truly

Just birds

I left the coffee shop by the back door in the middle of the afternoon. The winter sun was already low in the sky. As I turned up the alley, I was thinking about the barista who would very soon be moving on to another job.

And then I saw a hawk swoop down in front of me. I’m only guessing that it might have been a young Red-tailed hawk. It was quite small. The hawk dropped rapidly from a wire and glided low ahead of me through the artificial canyon of brick buildings on either side of the rough asphalt and dark puddles of the alley. Then the hawk glided on past 9^th street and into the alleyway on the far side, swooping suddenly back up and alighting on one of the many wires that crisscross the alley.

I walked along the alley at my own pace. I eventually approached the place where the hawk was resting, swiveling its head as it looked around. Perhaps it was looking for mice down among the garbage bins. Whatever else the hawk might have been doing, it was being a hawk. I peered up at the hawk. I saw white and gray speckled feathers on its back. A grayish tail, I thought. Then the hawk apparently decided that I was too close and it swooped down again, gliding low with hardly a wing beat through the alley , and then, eventually swooping back up, this time coming to rest on top of a telephone pole.

As I walked forward again, I saw a man with two young children walking towards me. As they got closer, I realized that I knew the kids from chess club at New York  Elementary School. I called out to them and point towards the hawk. The young boy spotted the hawk right away, but his sister couldn’t see it. I explained just which telephone pole the hawk was sitting on and then she saw it, too. They looked at the hawk for just a few moments, and then, with their father, they went in through the back door of one of the shops. It was just a hawk, after all.

I walked on towards the hawk, looking around from its perch. I got my device camera out of my pocket to try to take a photo. But again, I got too close and the hawk flew down ahead of me, this time landing in the branches of a tree behind Wheatfields bakery. And then, once more, as I approached, the hawk flew off, this time up and over the building. I walked around the building, looking for the hawk, but I couldn’t see it anywhere.

I thought again about Abbi, the barista I had just left at Aimee’s. She had been closing up for the afternoon. I wished she could have seen the hawk. I wished she could have been standing next to me as I pointed ahead to where the hawk was resting, looking around, being a beautiful, breathtaking hawk, flying with amazing grace through the grimy alleyways of Downtown Lawrence. But Oliver had seen it. And Isabella.

But still, it was just a hawk.

I dropped a few things off at the public library and headed for the river. There were pigeons resting on the cable over the dam. Then they took off and were flying around and around  as pigeons will, their wings all catching the lowering sun at the same time as they all turned together. And there were seagulls circling over the river as well, dipping down to the surface of the river from time to time. Fishing. Being seagulls.

There were maybe seven or ten Canada geese swimming just below Bowersock North, the hydroelectric plant. They swam off as I slid down a rough gravel path toward the water’s edge. The swimming geese caught a swift current that ran between two limestone islands and sped away. I saw a Great Blue heron just standing on the edge of one of the low islands of limestone boulders across from where I stood. Herons can just stand where they stand for longer than I can watch. Sometimes I will walk away down the levee trail and then the heron is still standing where I left it when I come back. A heron being a heron.

I climbed back up the levee and walked downstream for a short way. Many more geese were resting below the levee along the edge of the river, but I decided against clambering down the limestone boulders to get closer to them.

I turned back up the levee.

As I crossed the Kaw River Bridge, I could see two bald eagles ahead of me, sitting in the tree where eagles often perch in winter, just beyond the outwash of Bowersock South. And I saw a woman I knew approaching me on the bridge. She waved, and then, when we got close to each other, we stopped to talk a little about the birds. She pointed to bird sitting on a rock in the middle of the river. It might have been a heron, but I couldn’t tell from that distance.

They were just birds, after all.

We parted and I walked around to the promenade of what used to be the Riverfront Mall to get a better look at the eagles. When I got there, I saw two young women with cameras walking towards me. Just I had gotten too close to the eagles in that area the day before, they, too, had apparently gotten to the point where the eagles resting in the tree had then flown off downstream.

I hung back as they walked on towards another eagle resting in a tree farther down the promenade. They crept closer. One woman focusing the long lens of her camera. The other taking pictures with her device camera. The eagle looked to me like a juvenile. When the young eagle had flown away, I went up to the young women and told them about the eagles I had seen the morning before. I, along with some friends, had seen as many as 13 eagles at one time just off the bridge by Bowersock South. I explained how it was a favorite spot for eagles to fish when the river was frozen up above the dam. Amazingly, it was almost twice as many eagles as I had ever seen at one time before. The previous day I had seen eagles watching from the trees. And eagles swooping down to the surface of the water, talons extended. And eagles just circling around over the river, wings outstretched. Sometimes an eagle had flown astonishingly close to where we stood on the bridge. Very large, powerful, graceful, magnificent birds. And when we, too, had also gotten too close to the eagles as we had walked around to the promenade for a closer look, the eagles had all gradually flown off farther downstream. But we had gotten our closer look at some of the eagles.

I told my story to the young women on the promenade. They were glad for the information and I hoped they would see numbers of eagles for themselves some morning from the bridge as I had. The juvenile eagle and a mature bald eagle flew by, at some distance away, over the river a couple of times as I looked out from the promenade.

I finally turned to head for home along the railroad tracks, eventually connecting to the Burroughs Creek Trail. To my eyes, the tangled grasses and the small frozen meandering creek was quite beautiful. But it was just a wide drainage area, I suppose. The sun had already set just behind the horizon of bare winter branches as I neared home.

It was just a sunset. But I wished Abbi could have seen it the way it looked to me. In those moments, I saw before me an urban wetland in the shadows of dusk, and out ahead of me, wisps of clouds catching the colors of the sun in a darkening blue sky.

And I wished she had seen the hawk.

Cold - but not too cold

It wasn’t the coldest day ever, but it was close. I wore my usual winter wardrobe – two layers below and five above. And then I threw on my puffy down-filled coat, knit hat, scarf and mittens, and I stepped out into about fifteen degrees of cold. The arctic air was still headed for zero or below. As I walked, a north wind bit at my exposed nose and cheeks. I balled my thumb and fingers inside my mittens for extra protection. I walked more briskly than usual. By the time I reached the river, I was just holding my own, somewhere between not too cold and too cold. Tiny icicles were forming on my mustache from the exhalation of my breath.

Pigeons huddled together on the cable over the dam. Only a few gulls were circling over the open water flowing from the base of the Bowersock Hydroelectric Plant. I’d gone far enough for the day. I turned and headed for home. At least I would be walking with wind.

And then, after a few more blocks, I turned a corner. Half a block ahead of me, I saw what appeared to be a woman standing in the street. She was as well-bundled as I was. She wore a bright blue stocking cap with a pom-pom on top and it looked like she was focusing the lens of a camera on an empty bench over on the side of the street.

Then, out of the brown winter background, I saw a second woman wearing a long, quilted brown coat. And in the next moment, she had shed her coat, letting it fall down around her ankles. She stood there, wearing only a very pretty party dress. It was a dark red wine color, the full skirt with frilly lace beneath it flounced around her bare legs. The fabric of the skirt gathered at her narrow waist, and then the satiny cloth stopped quite short below a quite low neckline. The line was like the V-formation of geese flying south for the winter. Beginning at a point between her breasts, two lines of the edge of the wine-colored fabric extended sinuously  out and up to points well below her bare shoulders. From another perspective, the woman exposed much of her tender skin to the hard cold.

If like Joan of Arc, she had called out to me to follow her, I believe that I would have stripped off my puffy coat and my five layers and braved the elements with her. Instead, she stepped lightly over to the bench and sat down, her back straight, knees to one side, her hands in her lap holding the billowing skirt around her thighs. She showed not the slightest sign that she might be cold. Indeed, she faced the woman with the camera as if it were already spring. After a few clicks of the camera, the woman with the south-flying neckline stood up, slipped her coat back on, and then the two women walked over to a car parked in the lot across the street.

And so then I turned and walked up the slight incline of a street heading south. And then, to my further surprise, I heard honking. No, it wasn’t Joan of Arc. As I looked up, I saw a flock of geese flying towards me. They flew lower than usual, just above the bare branches of the tree tops. And the geese flew towards me in a V-line just like the neckline of the woman in the wine-colored dress. The angle of the V, the slight curve of each leg of flying geese out to the sides. It was exactly the same. Fractal. And then the geese banked towards the river and were gone.

Of course, I took it all as a sign from the universe. Or maybe just a wink and a nod. With the universe, you just never know when or where you will see beauty.