Thursday, January 31, 2008



Wednesday, January 30, 2008










Fascination with danger benefits us, if danger doesn't strike us dead.

Monday, January 28, 2008





holding...

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Saturday, January 26, 2008









I see. I don't see.





St-Laurent-sur-mer
April, 2007

Friday, January 25, 2008




Life is a sport with mystifying plays, hazards and a colorful cast of characters.

Maybe someone keeps score, maybe not.

So. You’re thinking it’s the last inning…is this a good time to stop playing the game?

Somebody's cheering you on...

Thursday, January 24, 2008




Here's a photo of a Christmas card my folks received this year. On the back, it says:

Hector Giacomelli (French, 1822-1904),
The Bird Perch, adapted from Louis Marin, French Illustrators
New York, Scribner's, 1895.
The Art Institute of Chicago

If you'd like to hear Luciano Pavarotti sing Franz Schubert's Ave Maria, here's a link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uYrmYXsujI&feature=related

Tuesday, January 22, 2008




Morning rush hour traffic was inching the wrong way. No ambulances or signs of something horrific blocking the usual flow. But instead of going south to north, the cars were all pointed north to south. For real.

As though I lived near a river, and one morning, it just decides to flow the other way. Or maybe like I exited the house into a mirrored world. Made boh practice this morning disorienting.

So there were 4 squirrels on the roof. That was interesting. And at the end, when I stood facing the pasture, not quite meditating but maybe preparing to meditate, without a breeze or a squirrel, a shower of brown leaves rained down, gently rocking to the ground before me. That was very pretty.

So. Another chapter of solo-keiko--tatatata! It's a trip, not a destination.

But it was after the keiko the kumite abruptly began...

I just listened to a Warren Zevon song I never heard before: 'I was in the house when the house burned down'. Now he's singing: 'Life will kill you'.

An interview from 2000, Jody Denberg trying with beautiful persistence to get a hold of Warren, and Warren dodging right and left and slooowly falling to.

"Make us be brave, and make us play nice..." Warren sings.

Monday, January 21, 2008





I was sitting in the laundromat today, reading a book as my whites rolled over and over in dryer number 21. A stranger approached me, stood across from my wheeled cart, and over the TV noise asked what I was reading, what it was about.

I’ve been trying to plow through this book since late November: All the Names by Jose Saramago. I’m near the end and just getting to the faster-paced stuff, as I told the stranger.

But his eyes wandered, and he didn’t really want to know about All the Names. So, why'd he ask? What did he want?

He started to talk. He reads books, he told me. He shifted his feet.

I looked in his eyes, and they were interesting, rather milky and blueish. They made me think of cataracts, although I’d overheard him earlier mentioning his age as 35. He seemed at home here, addressing other guys by name over the washers. And he liked to sing to himself, had a very resonant voice.

But now, he was restless, restless. He told me he hadn’t always lived here. That he’d been around, seen some things. He said you tell people around here about Homeland Security, how fast they can trace you from a computer online, and they think you’re talking about something crazy. He said he’d worked in DC designing missiles. The pay was good, but something didn’t feel right and he came back. I spoke. ‘You want your work to be about building, not destroying.’

‘That’s it! That’s it exactly!’

‘Good for you,’ I said.

He reached out and shook my hand hard. And he returned to his laundry, and I to All the Names.

Sunday, January 20, 2008




It’s the internal mold of a bivalve. (Like a mussel or clam-)

Found in NW Hays County, Texas.

It was alive during the Cretaceous period 60 to 145 million years ago (MA).

I’ve done some Google research tonight with no definitive results. What I remember about its name is that it had the root ‘cardia’ in it: protocardia or procardia.

Essentially, a fossil heart. (Yeah, yeah.)

My favorite finds are a crab from the same period, and an ammonite, maybe 7 inches in diameter. The crab was at my feet in the wet-weather creek in the neighborhood, the ammonite half-anchored in the ditch across the street from the house. But they’re packed away somewhere.

Even a haiku I wrote about the fossils of that area is packed away; my current laptop won’t translate my documents from the old computer. Not complaining-just getting motivated to re-unite my baggage this year.

The haiku is also in a paper format somewhere, one of my few published poems. I think the last line goes:

time, the comedian

Saturday, January 19, 2008




You have entered a no trespass zone. I will spit, call you names, knock you over the head, and then run away hard.

(Will you help me with my armour first? You are so very kind.)

Friday, January 18, 2008



It was a simple form of transportation—the inflated tube of a tire. The river in Mississippi was brown and narrow, shaded by trees, with such an unambitious current.

My companion brought a bottle of wine, and some simple cookies he’d made that morning. And we spent the hot day in the water going nowhere on such a very little boat…

Tonight, there’s a cold, gentle rain, and the train whistle’s blowing on and on. The sound travels east to west from a Mississippi summer long ago to Louisiana this winter midnight as I type, and on westward through the night…

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Wednesday, January 16, 2008




Wynken, Blynken, and Nod
(Dutch Lullaby)
by Eugene Field (1850-1895)


Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe--
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.
"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!"
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew.
The little stars were the herring fish
That lived in that beautiful sea--
"Now cast your nets wherever you wish--
Never afeard are we";
So cried the stars to the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam--
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home;
'T was all so pretty a sail it seemed
As if it could not be,
And some folks thought 't was a dream they'd dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea--
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one's trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008



Today’s theme is birth and death.

A whole bunch of birthdays to celebrate today: my dad's, my brother's, a friend in Wyoming's, the beautiful Rev. Martin Luther King's, and my former husband's. (Love and Cheer!)

We celebrated my dad’s birthday in my mother’s room at the nursing home. Now, from the moment of conception, we are all speeding along on the path to death; my mother is just farther along. Her body is clenched up, her hands and feet like crab claws. She is oozing from tears in her fragile skin, deteriorating before our eyes. Her wastes escape her without control. Fortunately, she seems to feel no pain now, and even expresses some sense of humor. My dad spoonfed her vanilla ice cream today. Yesterday, she was neither eating nor drinking.

I've thought I’d rather keep company with newborns than people approaching death. But during these months, I’ve met a number of people, people beautiful in their dying. Something is clearly blooming from the ruins of the shell. Perhaps their souls are less obscured by the trappings of the body.

Just as something is blooming from the painful contortions of a mother in labor, something is blooming in my mother.

Many have expressed this before me: Birth and death; transitions, not endings…

That's not to say there haven't been plenty of bouts of tears regarding the changes in this one body we have known through our lives…

Here’s a link my sister sent me that perhaps connects to this theme:

People in Order

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUHLa1qSy24

Monday, January 14, 2008





I looked in the mirror this week and saw a curly-haired woman 30 years my senior who told me over her coffee about Surrender—and asked for psychological counseling for her dog.

I saw a blog composed by a rock climber 30 years my junior:
http://www.itide.blogspot.com/

I saw a rat, I saw a fly with complex eyes.

I wear the shoe where the rat rested. I polish my glasses, binoculars, mirror and camera lense and stand on my head.

Some weeks we dodge the mirror, some weeks we honor it.


Sunday, January 13, 2008




Come with me
in my little boat
veering thru
the dark of space
Come with me
point up and soar
I’m whispering the quiet song

Shoot effortlessly
thru sea of sky
bright fishes, stars,
fierce light of night
no 50 dollars
will buy a ride
just open to the sky

Come with me
weave in and out
space knows no distance
travel needs no fuel
speed has no meaning
come with me

Come with me
and bypass time
break out of the confines
of these words
we’ll hum some random melody
and go nowhere

Come with me
ride the one-note song
straight path that bends
called mystery
I’m whispering the quiet river
that’s whispering to me

Saturday, January 12, 2008



I was about to put it in the envelope to send, but couldn't let it go, so took out my camera. My photo of the Caspari card does not do this print from the British Royal Horticulture Society justice. On paper, it glows. I love the little bee, the pomegranate, the ladybugs, the cherries, the jewel-like butterflies.

Though, there's the mystery of the blue pear...

Friday, January 11, 2008








Lake Martin

Thursday, January 10, 2008





Brass spider web
graces old wooden clock,
hands stopped at
six forty-one.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008




OK. It’s another fly story. I was washing oranges, and inside one of the bags, upon a puny mottled orange, sat one small house fly.

The last time I experienced a house fly in a house, the person next to me reached over and swatted it. Bam! So, having so recently wrestled with the issue of vermin life and death, the simple solution here seemed to be to close the top of the bag, walk to the front door, and release the fly outside.

Which was a fine plan, but, being me, when the fly didn’t immediately take flight, I had to gently lift the orange and see what was up.

The fly (yes, like the rat) was very beautiful. It had an iridescent blue middle body, and bulbous eyes the color of red wine. So. I held the orange and just sat on the brick steps and watched for a while.

They say flies are dirty, they carry disease, and maybe that’s so. But this fly must have been an exception. First it used its right back leg to unkink its left. Then the two front legs were used to rub its eyes. The fly cleaned its eyes so many times, I have to believe fly eyes have a rather durable surface compared to the wet sensitive surface of human eyes. The fly also used its hind legs to polish over and over both the underside and the topside of the transparent wings. This was a fastidious fly.

At one point, the fly bent its forearms against the orange, and lifted all back four legs into a kind of yoga headstand. I have no idea what the purpose of this was, but it looked like a good stretch.

Did I say clearly enough, this was a beautiful fly, blue and maroon?

Then, so abruptly I might have missed it, hygiene was complete, fly lifted off and out of sight.

I’d probably feel differently had it been 100 flies instead of only one, but why would anyone want to kill something so small, yet so intricately fashioned, so entertaining, swift, acrobatic. And with such complex eyes.

So easy to smash a fly, so hard to build one.

Once, during meditation at the end of a class, I saw in my mind a great fly come right to my face and check me out. Ever since then, I’ve paid more attention to flies, and have yet to be bored.

If only flies could talk…

Tuesday, January 8, 2008




Colorful roosters wandered the streets and sidewalks. Two-and-a-half-foot-long pods of seeds dangled from exotic trees. Ripe and heavy mangoes fell from laden branches. Through a lapse in planning, a tiny yellow plane carried us to Dry Tortugas, a national park with a pleasing, open fort of brick that was used in the 1800s as a prison, a prison situated in a tropical heaven, surrounded by ocean. Magnificent Frigate Birds, living up to their names, floated on wind currents above the waters.

I'd had little interest in this part of the world, yet here we were chasing after species of birds to add to son's life list. My strongest memory of the little-planned, break-neck-paced road trip to the Florida Keys is of the search for the Antillian Nighthawk. Son had done his research, and knew they were often seen at the Key West International Airport. We drove there late in the afternoon, arriving too early for nighthawks. What might have been a tedious hour or two, hanging around a parking lot for a small rambling airport, was rather lovely. Pink and coral bougainvillea bloomed rapturously on the old chain-link fences there, fluttering their pastel petals in the temperate breeze. We walked about with little thought.

Making their single-syllable calls, the Common Nighthawks showed up first over the runway just after sunset, and then, hurray, the Antilleans put in an appearance, differentiated from their cousins only by their multi-syllabic calls. A new species for the life list.

But I have no life list; it’s all the companionable loitering at the airport I remember, the physical sense of having no demands but to exist for awhile, vividly remembered perhaps because it was a gift that was not sought.

Monday, January 7, 2008

OPEN
and motley surprises
rush in
as though the door
gives way
to a flood tide:
a dying rat
a pair of shoes
a person missing
8 ½ years
the shabby building where
the rat once lived
in a dream-

Have you ever smelled
the day change from fog
to sunlight?
Dark chocolate
where none remains?
Theodore Roethke’s inside a candy wrapper-
hidden prize in December’s raspberry chocolate bar:
(“I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one;
The shapes a bright container can contain!”)

Have you ever plucked a mosquito from your arm-
a translucent ruby siphoning blood-
then let her go?
No fiery welt left behind-
Yet here’s the first fiery camellia on the bough-
a young harrier intent on the hunt
glows red from a distant tree-
The wind stirs
and all is calm-
prayer rides the wave.

My mother’s roommate calls out to me:
"You should live here;
You’re as handy as a shirt pocket-"
Half a smile
dawns on Mom’s still face;
Her eyes are closed.
Debris pushes through the open door;
solace and sorrow
ride the same strange wave.


Sunday, January 6, 2008

OK. Here’s the short version. A rat was dying on my shoe. It was a rat with healthy soft brown and gold fur. It was as big as my size 8 1/2 athletic shoe, and probably weighed a pound at least. It had a furry tail, not one of tough skin, and it had large gentle brown eyes. She looked at me squarely without panic or accusation, perhaps with love. I was stunned and disturbed, uncertain what I was to do. In the end, I left her alone to either come out of her shock and go her own way, or to die in peace. After all, she had taken sanctuary in my shoe. I wasn't going to move her.

I returned a couple hours later to find her body curled up a foot or two away from my shoes.

Sometimes it takes extraordinary events to startle us out of our apathy. During those hours, I thought about what message this rat carried that she should go to such lengths to get my attention. The issues that surfaced will offer direction throughout this new year.

Saturday, January 5, 2008









Unfamiliar birds sing from the trees;
The 12th day of Christmas is near...

Friday, January 4, 2008













Then there is the human voice. The sum of a person can be read in his or her voice if we listen. The problem is, we get so distracted by the words, the content of a conversation, it’s hard to listen consciously to the truth of the voice.

A good way to practice is to listen to a conversation in which we're not taking part. Focus on what is carried in the voice. Pitch, tremor, steadiness, hardness, softness, volume, speed. Shifts within each variable.

Better yet is to listen deeply to people speaking in a language that is foreign to us, where words are meaningless and all there is is voice.

Thursday, January 3, 2008





This morning was day 3 of a 5-day new year meditation. No particular idea or mental focus. Just get up before the sun rises and before the chickadee starts singing, and get outside. Cedar waxwings for company, and a little red leaf on the trail. Warmups and shoko-tenso. Sky-horizon. (Although this morning at 25 degrees, it was mostly walk, and walk faster.)

But between yesterday and today, life has been from dark to light, as though a switch were flipped. No change in circumstance or situation; no new intention. Just quiet ecstasy. Loneliness vanished. Light undammed.

The only source I can figure for the transition is the meditation. Just showing up…

Wednesday, January 2, 2008



Small beetle-like bugs would cluster on the trunk of a magnolia tree in the yard. The beetles formed a circle—or a pie really because it was a circle filled with dots—maybe 30-40 bugs. What fascinated me was that when I gently touched a stick to the center of the group, all of the bugs would spread outward, then relocate to form another circle maybe four inches away. Touch, scatter, reconstitute. The whole process took maybe six seconds.

It was like watching a single animal or entity, the opening and closing of a hand, except the parts were not visibly connected. Each beetle looked like an individual, but behaved as though attached to the others.

This morning, a flock of about 40 cedar waxwings roosted high in the pecan tree, a choir along the first branches to catch sun. When something startles waxwings, they take off in all directions, soar up, regather in midair flight, then land in place with little thought, discussion, or training, as though they are a part of one entity.

Schools of fish behave similarly.

Watching certain soccer games, you may see the same thing. There are the rehearsed plays. But then you see something else kick in, where the players without time to think, sometimes without the ability to physically see each other, coordinate as one. It's beautiful to watch.

It’s what can grow among members of certain bands on a good night, when the music becomes transcendent, or between dance or ice-skating partners. A connection--maybe even union.

==

BTW, the blurry photo above is from March of 2005: Cedar Waxwings waiting to dine on pyracantha berries, weighting the branches of not-so-tall central Texas oaks.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008