the flicking of the loose end

The Parents
by Kelly Cherry
 
We bring our babies, blue-eyed babies, brown eyed babies, we have come to watch the parade, the marching bands.  Young women step high, batons fly, flash against the sky like lightning rods.  Oh, spare the child, for next come the floats.  See Mickey Duck!  See Donald Mouse!  Snow White rides in her pumpkin carriage, faster, faster, speeding toward marriage with the prince who will give her babies, blue-eyed babies, brown-eyed babies, like our own babies, who are-- lost.  Lost at the parade!  Where are our babies, our babies?  We are looking for them everywhere, frantically, everyone helping and shouting:  Find the babies!-- when suddenly we see them.  No wonder no one could find them.  They have grown three feet taller, sprouted whiskers or breasts, swapped spun sugar for Sony Walkmen.  We kiss them and hug them, but we are secretly frightened by their remarkable new size.  They tell us not to worry.  They will take care of us.  And sure enough, later, we let them drive us home, because their eyes are sharper, their hands steadier, and they know they way, which we forget more and more often.  They stroke our hair and tell us to be calm.  On Saturday, our babies help us choose the best coffin.  They are embarrassed when we insist on taking it home to try it out, but they give in because they don’t want to upset us.  After they leave for the cinema, we climb into the coffin and pull the lid over us.  The salesman had said one wouldn’t be big enough, then said one would not be sanitary.  We laughed:  Age has shrunk us.  We are small enough to fit in here quite comfortably.  It is dark as a movie house, the kind in which we used to neck in the back row.  Now, of course, nothing is playing.  The film has completely unwound, and the only sound is the flicking of the loose end, around and around.
 

Disturbing

 

(clicking imbiggens)

Midland

Midland in Nacogdoches, 27 April 2024
 

Maps

(clicking imbiggens)

I like maps that are not literal.

Flowers

 

 

(clicking imbiggens)

The top picture shows a yellow "weed" that is every bit as pretty as the flowers we paid for.

The big green plants in the bottom picture are sunflowers, ringed with four-o'clocks coming up underneath.  If you look closely, you'll see a birdfeeder in the middle of it all.

The sunflowers are planted for us by the birds, a fair exchange for the seeds they eat.

When I was a little boy I collected seeds from my grandfather's garden and planted them (with Mom's help) at my own home.  Several moves and more than fifty years later, these four-o'clocks are the latest generation of his flowers.

I still miss you, Grampy.

Wafted Away

 

(clicking imbiggens)

My dad worked for a paper mill in the 60s, and they had a slogan painted on the wall:  "The Solution to Pollution is Dilution!"

People really believed that.

(But not my dad.)

Zippy the Pinhead is on the web HERE.

"Factors and Considerations"

The email I received below is just hilariously inept. "Various factors and considerations?"  I cut-and-pasted it below, in its entirety.  There's not a cliche she missed-- it's a case-study in obfuscation:

From:  Karla Cooper <Karla.Cooper@uthet.com>

Dear Silver Elite Member,

We hope this message finds you well. We are reaching out today with some important news regarding our Silver Elite Program.

After careful consideration and evaluation, we have made the decision to conclude our Silver Elite Program effective May 31. This decision was not made lightly, and we want to assure you that it was based on various factors and considerations.

We want to express our sincere gratitude for your participation and support of the Silver Elite Program. Your engagement and loyalty have been invaluable to us, and we truly appreciate the opportunity to have served you through this program.

While the Silver Elite Program is coming to an end, please be assured that our commitment to providing excellent service and support to all our patients remains unwavering. We are here to assist you with any questions or concerns you may have during this transition period and beyond.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out. We are here to help in any way we can.

Once again, thank you for your participation in the Silver Elite Program and for being a valued patient. We look forward to continuing to serve you in the future.

Best regards,

Karla Cooper
Marketing Manager
www.uthealtheasttexas.com

Interesting but Unworkable

Excerpted from Broadsides from the other orders: a book of bugs by Sue Hubbell, ©1993:

I once entered into a world without categories and found it interesting but unworkable. Along with two other people, I took mescaline, and for the hours that the drug acted on our brains everything we saw appeared the same, equal, lacking classification. Perceptive held, but figure and ground did not; all elements were significant. Selectivity of perception had been lost; thought was impossible. We went for a walk in the woods, and when we sat down on some pine needles it was as if we had discovered pinecones for the first time. The light brought out colors we had never noticed; the shadow revealed their surfaces in a way we had never seen. We sat there sopping up pineconeishness but also sopping up pine needles, our hands, the pine's boughs, the texture of the earth, the blood pulsing in our temples, the warmth and pleasure of our companionship, all equal and all equally scattered because we were unable to focus on any element. There were no elements, in fact, only aspects of a whole. We were immersed in a warm oatmeal of perception. It was enlightening in several respects, but not much could be done with it.

And that old man is me…

I'm sittin on the back porch, kickin' my legs back,
Rockin' in my rocking chair, and sittin' there
On the little back porch is about to fall apart
So I think I might repair it
Just as I'm thinkin' about repairin' it,
Some little friends come along
With some two-string, one-string, no-string guitars
And they all plug em all in to the back porch
And they sit around playin' all their favorite songs
They's kickin' back feelin' real good,
Real fine, real full of the wine
And everything's fine, everything's beautiful,
Everything's great, I just feel so good…

Full lyrics HERE.

 

It Would Look Like

"For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone.  The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes.  To someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction."  ~Cynthia Occelli

()[]{}<>

 

vive la différence

 

Mona and I each bought a set of measuring cups.

I picked functional ones made of stainless steel, with the volume stamped on the handle.

Mona picked a set that is equally functional, but is multicolored and a lot prettier.

Taxa

 Excerpted from Broadsides from the other orders:  a book of bugs by Sue Hubbell, ©1993:  

These names that we use for orders-- Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, Diptera, and all the others-- do not stand for anything in the real world…  The order names are sorting words, or taxa, that we humans use to group a dizzying array of individual bugs that otherwise we would find too many and too confusing to think about.  Because of the way we have evolved, we have sorting kinds of brains and feel more comfortable if we we put what we see in the world into various piles and categories so that we can get a handle on them.  But this says more about us and our brains that it does about the world outside our heads, and we shouldn't mix up these categories-- the taxa-- with reality.

And in that room…

 The poems below are excerpted from Poems From the Sanskrit translated by John Brough, ©1968.

My copy is yellowed and the pages are brittle.  I'm sure the pages are on the verge of falling out, and when that happens I'll have to put a rubber band around it.  It's long out of print, so I can't just buy a new one.

It's formatted very strangely, so it's not always clear who the poet is being translated.  They've all been gone for several centuries, so I suppose it's not crucial.  I did my best to credit them, just the same.

26
No, but look here now, this is just absurd,
The way our famous poets talk of girls
As weak and winsome.  Weak?  Is this a word
To use of those who, with a shake of curls
And with the triumph of a modest glance,
Can lead the very gods a merry dance?
     ~Bhartyhari

54
Those whom the gods would keep
In safety, they protect,
Not as a shepherd guards his sheep,
But by the gift of a wise intellect.

Nor do the gods appear
In warrior's armour clad
To strike down with sword or spear.
Those whom they would destroy, they
                                              first make mad.
     ~Bhartyhari

79
Although I conquer all the earth,
Yet for me there is only one city.
In that city there is for me only one house;
And in that house, one room only;
And in that room, a bed.
And one woman sleeps there,
The shining joy and jewel of all my kingdom.
     ~Śūdraka

87
Dearest, if you will love me true,
What use are joys of heaven to me?
But if you will not love me true,
What use are joys of heaven to me?
     ~Śūdraka

114
My best respect to Poverty,
The master who has set me free:
For I can look at all the world,
and no-one looks at me.
     ~Harşa

This, not That

 Excerpted from Broadsides from the other orders:  a book of bugs by Sue Hubbell, ©1993:  

My first husband is an electrical engineer, and it was he who made me suspect that I was not going to be comfortable in these times, although he certainly had no intention of making me think so that day back in 1957, when he was explaining to me the difference between analog (the comparative, the sweep of a clock's hand, figure and ground, this but maybe partly that, too) and digital (yes or no; one, two; off, on; this, not that).  After he had done so he said, "And the future is digital," and I realized with one of those flashes of understanding that come now and again that I was going to be analog in a digital world.

And that reminded me of this: