Some take what is not theirs
Claim what never was
Are unhappy in their own bed –
although made by their own hands
The world is full of the Taking –
as if they were not noticed
But need cannot be hid
Giving only stands opposite Taking when neediness is matched
Otherwise Giving sees Taking and passes by
True giving is expansive, even without pennies
Giving is of soul, a commodity earnestly sought by Taking
But it cannot be had that way
Soul is earned,
it is not there for the taking
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There is a googly eye in the street. I have been watching it.
Wind and rain have passed and the googly eye remains. There is only one, it gives the blacktop some character, although it does not say much.
Last year I watched an orange sharpie marker, devoid of cap, work its way through winter months down the street and toward the storm drain. When spring came, the melt navigated the marker past the storm drain to safety. More surprising, its cap emerged from the snow just a foot distant.
Now residing comfortably in my pen drawer with a rubber band to correct its loose cap, the sharpie marker still works.
There is a googly eye in the street. I will watch it. I admire things that make it through.
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Closet cleaning. That time of the year. Jewelry boxes stirred my curiosity.
Years ago, bright things attracted me, cloisonne, precious and semi-precious gemstones. Provenance pulled at me, the story of the thing, the antique dealers knew me.
I rarely wear jewelry now, if at all. My wedding ring was boxed long before divorce was contemplated.
Today it was earrings and what-not, almost all artifacts without present or future use. The ornate dragon charm that meant so much, the antique mother-of-pearl silver earrings with matching cuff that are beautiful still. A strand of pearls from a man who loved me, one diamond stud, its partner lost. My first pair of earrings and many in-between.
Even as I write, I add to the discard pile. Knotted chains, a crescent moon with inlaid amethyst I tried to retrieve from tarnish and ruined in the process. You cannot go back. Bangles I will never wear. Costume jewelry and red coral, silver and dull gold.
They held something once, said something. But despite their age, they remain young, unlike me.
What am I keeping? The diamond stud, the string of pearls, the small gold dragon. The dangling shell earrings from the 1970’s. The mother-of-pearl and a few others. The wedding ring long sold to pay for legal proceedings – a fitting end.
Trinkets and tarnish, if you have one, you get the other.
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Looking at a wall calendar, it was September before I knew it. The picture is Zions National Park in Utah, a place I have set foot.
I know the texture of the scrub grass, the look, feel and warmth of sandstone and the terrain it creates. Dry places interspersed by cold stream or river. Changing treeline, now deciduous, then coniferous, I have touched those anonymous twisting trunks. Blue plateau in the distance. Shape, color and setting unique on the planet. Even the air, the whiff of sage in the breeze. Sparse. Big sky, I can breathe.
We visit places, but if touched deeply, do we ever leave? Transit through memory of image. Is it illusion that I sit in a chair, in my home office, washing machine gently chugging, crickets sounding through open windows? With age I understand no tickets are needed to ride.
I wish I were there. Maybe I am.
Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday | Tagged consciousness, desert, time | Leave a Comment »
On walkabout, the world appears about as it should, despite the march of the calendar.
A chat with an elderly neighbor, a friendly wave to the trash collector and the UPS fellow. Leaves changing but weather still warm, dry pebbles working their way out of the roadbed.
The gift of inconsequence, eternity in the most common moments. Ordinary is anything but.
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Full at 7:13 AM, the view of the moon was nixed by cirrostratus, stratus and altocumulous, a mixed cloud deck that held its place as our planet rotated eastward.
The first hint of the coming sun whispered in glowing pink on the underside of those clouds and progressed through intense salmon into a gold tinged riot of unearthly order. Seraphim on high as water droplet, light and elevation combined to create a sky more beautiful than the divine dreams of any Renaissance artist.
Available for free, I enjoyed this inspired scene through my windshield as I drove eastward from the daily ritual of taking children to school. On westward return, a stunning half-rainbow hung in a sky devoid of storm clouds.
Heaven on earth. Happens most days, just depends where you look.
Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday | Tagged Clouds | Leave a Comment »
In the late 1800’s, my forebears made their way west from Salina, Kansas. As a locomotive engineer, the Iron Horse provided my great grandfather a respectable living. He settled down, built a house and worked hard like his Irish immigrant father before him. In that place, he grew a wild yellow rose bush, its origin unknown.
Time wound on. My great-grandfather passed away first and his family in due. The house my mother grew up in remains, sold long ago, but still inhabited. When she left or sometime after, my mother acquired a piece of that rose and like any good gardener, made history a part of her landscape.
Years ago she sent me a piece of that rose and gave story to my garden too. At first it thrived but fell back as life shaded it. By the time I moved it to a locale with free view of the sky, it was gone.
A month ago, I returned to her garden – a lifetime in the growing – it is something to see. But age is crowding my mother, leaving shadows in the memory of a garden once bright. The rose still thrives, scrambling through tree and bush toward the sun, tough. While there I snipped some stems and ferried them home.
Despite my efforts, the starts I clipped that day dropped their leaves and browned in the water where I had hoped new roots would grow. Deciding it should depart in the sun, I placed it in a full south window and waited for brittle sticks of time.
Yesterday I noticed green. The stems have not further withered, but instead produced a tiny unfolding leaflet.
My mother loves the sun, always did. So does this rose. Hopefully the story will play on. We will see.
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Lest we forget, it is September 11, a date to mark the depths of human cruelty, misunderstanding and heroism.
And lest we forget, it is only one date among too many others that lay behind and before us, that give stark evidence of the destructive capabilities of dark idea and darker action.
When the tumult and the shouting dies, lest we forget.
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One generation serves the next. Not just the hardscape, but ephemeral ground. Patterned land unseen where the future is built.
Ancestors and invaders put down blood and dreams that drive individual and culture forward.
To live is to serve by living it all, bitter, sweet, deadly. For the branching creativity when idea makes landfall in the Being of those who understand.
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Not here
Not there
Having left
Not having arrived
Liminal, a place in flux
What is before
Will be after
Finding me here once again
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Shouldn't...but Do 