A Poem in Iambic Trimeter

This winter-colored scene:
 Stale brown and brittle green

And the relentless sun,
Bauble of cloud, finespun
Against merciless blue:
Frivolous curlicue
of dry fluff, cluttering;
No rainstorm, stuttering
Sleet, or hard-tapping hail...

How can our lives prevail
Clinging to spartan stone?
The high winds moan, they moan
Rising in the parched throat,
The strangled, broken throat

Of the dying land....

The Terrible Importance of Nearly Nothing

I could say right now that I feel small.  Very, very small. I  have gone back, far back in time to where I am a witless waif of a child with a bad taste in my mouth that won't go away no matter how hard I swallow or how many times I try to spit it out.  The fact is I could coat my tongue with honey, rinse with  Listerine, chew on cinnamon sticks all day, stuff my cheeks with Altoids and the bad taste would override them all.



The taste?  Well, I know it all too well.  It is the taste  of failure. A shame taste in my mouth that burns worse than chilis and fills my nostrils with the reek of proven incompetence.

I am chewing on failure and growing smaller and smaller as I chew.

The cause?  Well, really, it's nothing more serious than this:  I thought I could do a bit of acting and it seemed I was succeeding for awhile.  Then some adjudicators at a competition told me I sucked. Not really a big deal. I wasn't aiming for a late-start acting career.

And yet...

...it is a taste so familiar that I'm unable to dismiss it as merely a gustatory hallucination. I'm aware that from some far-off philosophical distance, it is not important, not "The Truth," and in the Grand Scheme of Things so small as to be virtually sub-atomic.

I remember a Sixty Minutes interview with basketball star, LeBron James. "Are you ever nervous?" the interviewer asked. " Aw," said James dismissively, "you can't be afraid of failure."

He is right, of course. And he is tall, very tall, in more ways than one.

What makes some of us stride boldly forth while others of us creep fearfully in the sidelines? One's upbringing, no doubt, plays a part, as does one's genetic programming.  It is in my nature to be both timid and tightly wound. In addition, I was  bombarded with verbal abuse virtually from the time I could crawl. Occasionally, very occasionally, I have reached high and briefly held in my hand a small ripe fruit of success. Inevitably, though, the next attempt replaces sweetness with acidity and I give up, shrinking back into the shadows of anonymity.

Since human beings have been granted freedom of choice, it follows that any self-defeating pattern can be altered. The weak can become strong, the last become first and this does happen on occasion. Exactly how this transformation occurs seems to me though to have more correspondence with magic than behavioral science.

I know there are alchemists in this world who can turn failure into gold...

...and I know that, so far in my life, I am not one of them.

Not Much Gusto

   

I have been thinking about this word, this prompt of the week:  gusto.

It sounds as if it ought to be part of a magician's spell:

     Abracadabra, presto gusto
     Eye of newt and mote of dust(o),
     May you always pine and lust(o)

     After one you cannot trust(o)

It could also be a spell to raise the wind:

     Presto gusto
     push and thrust(o)
     Scatter and shatter
     Rattle and clatter
     Ram the rooftops,
     Raise the dust(o).


Gusto could  also be the name of a friendly golden retriever.

Or the nickname of a boy named Gustav.





Really, though, it is gusto that I lack during these long winter months.  I have of late but -  wherefore I know not -  lost all my mirth; forgone all custom of exercise...

If a warm cave, lit by gentle firelight, were to present itself, I would gladly crawl into it and sleep until spring. Except that, out here in the Southwest mountains, spring generally means high winds smacking you in the face every time you go out and only a few imported flowers and fruit trees blooming courageously under the weight of a late snowfall. Summers, though, are pleasant especially after the monsoon season brings moisture, in the form of thunderstorms, to the brown and shriveled land. Then the native flowers burst into bloom. Subterranean streams rise out of the earth. The leaves of the cottonwood and the aspen shimmer greenly, gladly in the long light.

















The word, gusto, derives from the Latin word meaning "a tasting." And from thence into Spanish -- e.g., con mucho gusto, or with great pleasure.

Par ejemplo:  Quieres dormir hasta el verano?  (Do you want to sleep until summer?)

Si, con mucho gusto.

The Only Good Crowd

The word prompt this week is crowd.

For me this word has mostly negative associations. I am both anti-social and claustrophobic. Finding myself imprisoned in a mass of other human beings is bound to sabotage the restraining influence of my cerebral cortex.  Waiting in a long line of people in front of a counter staffed by a cognitively challenged octogenarian makes me grind my teeth and curse under my breath. If by dint of ill fortune I find myself  jammed into the back of a crowded elevator, I hold both my temper and my breath until the doors slide open and I can elbow my way to freedom.

Naturally I try to avoid these situations.

Take supermarkets for example. If I'm planning wisely, I'll always choose a weekday morning to shop. Sometimes, however, I forget an item and feel compelled to return at a less auspicious time.  Often, in these circumstances, I find myself blocked in the middle of a narrow aisle by shoppers who are taking forever to decide between competing brands. The result is instant outrage. I imagine my shopping cart as a modern-day battering ram. Only the tiniest whisper from my suppressed  superego prevents me from emitting a war whoop and launching my attack on the poor innocent shoppers blocking my egress.

Anticipating my loss of self-control, I have sometimes abandoned a cart full of purchases and left the store. It's a good way to save money, at least.





One of the positive aspects of living in remotest New Mexico is its (relative) lack of crowds and generous portions of open space.  Uninhabited canyons and plateaus, dominated by sage and juniper, comprise the scenery between urban areas which, relative to the East Coast, are sparsely populated.  My eyes feast on this expanse along with the dazzling enormity of blue sky.  Where I lived before, in the San Francisco Bay Area, there was always the endless expanse of the Pacific Ocean, along with the plentiful county, state and federal preserves, to balance the  burgeoning urban and suburban sprawl.

Sometimes I try to imagine how the North American continent looked before droves of Europeans arrived here to devour and breed.

No, I am not rejecting civilization or romanticizing the existence of hunter-gatherers. It's just the visual image of a swarm that seems aesthetically repelling. Bee swarms, ant swarms, swarms of locusts, mud swallow nests jammed together on the side of a building -- all of these make me shudder and look away. In my (albeit over sensitized) mind,  a dense concentration of almost anything is physically abhorrent.

I have, though, at least one positive association with the word "crowd."  I am thinking back to the year 1970 when the American people rose up and stopped the Vietnam War.  I no longer remember which month it was. All I remember is a freeway in Seattle occupied by so many thousands of people you couldn't see the end of the line or the beginning.  Opposition was no longer solely a radical stand. Liberals, quasi-liberals and even moderates had seen more than enough televised images of young girls catching fire and traumatized elderly villagers hobbling on the edges of rice paddies choked with corpses.

The occupants of the freeway sang, brandished signs, pontificated, speculated, and laughed because for this moment in time, our differences --  political, economic and social -- had been set aside in pursuit of a common goal. We were the force of reason, the implement of peace and we would prevail.

It was a crowded situation well worth tolerating.

Such Stuff as Dreams

Rodney walked without hesitation to the rim of the gorge. Ignoring the symptoms of fear -- the tingling in his fingers and toes, the dizziness -- he looked down, marveling that what looked like a thin, twisting crack at the bottom was, in fact, a sizable river.  Below him a red-tailed hawk glided, searching for prey.  Rodney inched closer to the rim so that approximately half of his sneakered feet were over the edge. He leaned forward, then lifted his arms. "Go," he whispered.

And he did. The air flowed beneath his arms, under his whole body, lifting him up and up. He was flying just as he'd always known he could. Now he moved his arms in the sweeping motion he'd practiced so often in his dreams. He flipped onto his back, executing a back stroke, and felt the morning sun on his face.The sky, as usual, was a deep electric blue, an enormous living canopy that hummed with power.  Flipping over again and facing down, he soared lower and lower until he could examine, at close range, the easy progress of the copper river wending its indolent way to the Gulf.


Rodney's eyes, alert and avian, took in the, darting movements of rock squirrels, the staccato dance of dragonflies, the black and white hairy woodpecker with a red dot on its head drilling into a snag for insects, the red-tailed hawk still on the lookout for prey, and the ubiquitous ravens croaking incantations in the cottonwood trees.

This was the one experience in all the nine years of his life that completely lived up to his expectations. Clumsy on land and even in water, he embraced the challenge of flight like a pro. This, without a doubt, was what he was born for . He was (he had known all along) a creature of the air, his body streamlined, his small bones hollow like a bird's. "Eat my dust, you suckers," he shouted, and, laughing, he aimed himself at the river, head down, arms tight against his body, imitating an osprey and, like the osprey, turning sharply parallel just seconds before he touched the water.

"Wheeee.." he exclaimed now aiming skyward. Despite his exertions, he wasn't the least bit winded the way he always was in PE class when they had to run in circles around the periphery of the gym. He became aware of a small bloating sensation in the lower part of his body. He farted and his body lunged forward making him giggle so hard he began doing involuntary lopsided somersaults right there in the air,

He tried farting again but apparently he was all out of gas.

Then, quite suddenly, the sun was captured  by an immense cumulus cloud big as a giant's fist with enormous dark knuckles.  An icy gust of wind slammed into Rodney's body knocking him backward onto something solid and hard.

"No offense, Cindy, but that kid of yours belongs in the loony bin," a gruff, masculine voice said.

On the Subject of Cars

I 

I don't really like cars. In this respect, I think I am probably unusual. I do, of course, appreciate the convenience of having a car at one's disposal.  Waiting for buses (which I did for a couple of car-less years) can be annoying especially if it is raining or unusually windy or cold.  On the other hand, bus passengers can be rather entertaining. For instance, I remember a woman ecstatically clutching a number of items she'd just purchased from the Goodwill Store. "I used to not be caught dead going to some second-hand store," she gloated. "What a fool , huh? What a fool!" The pure pleasure she took in her conversion was
contagious and I departed the bus in a state of euphoria.

I don't remember ever having a "first car" all my own. After receiving my license at the age of seventeen, I borrowed my mother's car and proceeded to back it into a pole at a fast-food establishment called Hot Shoppes (similar to present-day Sonic). That incident was the first of a number of incidents in which I backed into things. Fortunately it coincided with my getting accepted to the college of my choice so my mother wasn't all that mad. She was less forgiving when that same car, which I had hastily parked slamming the gear into reverse rather than park, ended up in a neighbor's front yard.





Just after we were married, my husband and I purchased (with some help from his parents) an Opel Kadett station wagon. (At that time Opels were still made in Germany.) What I remember about this car is that Rick was always locking the doors and leaving the keys inside. Eventually a former car thief taught us how to gain entry by using a bent coat hanger.  I grew to hate this car because whenever I drove it, it sputtered and died.  Rick would have to come to my rescue. One quick turn of the key in the ignition and the damn car revived. Perhaps my former husband was a car whisperer. That's the only explanation that makes sense because he had no mechanical skills whatsoever.



My father was a Unitarian minister in the days when preachers still had dignity. His strong belief was that someone of his profession should drive a somber-looking car, i.e. a black one, a squat, ugly-looking black one. A year or two before he died, though, he boldly departed from tradition and bought a navy-blue Nash which had to be the ugliest car ever made. I thought it resembled a hideously grinning Galapagos turtle and was embarrassed to be seen riding in it. One time I was on my bike practicing wheelies in the middle of the tree-lined suburban street in front of my house, when what should come creeping  into sight over the hill but the repugnant reptilian Nash itself with my father at the wheel. Needless to say, I was grounded, my acrobatic dreams postponed indefinitely.

Ironically, the only car I've ever bonded with wasn't actually mine. It was a Toyota Previa that in fact belonged to the family of one of my special needs clients. Various people suggested that it looked like a condom and maybe it did but I didn't care. SUVs were in and mini-vans were out, hence the derogatory remarks. The Previa was bigger than any car I'd ever driven. I felt elevated and powerful, cozy and well-protected. This was a vehicle I could live in if I had to. (Having once or twice fallen on bad times, I was always looking for make-do possibilities.)

After a number of years, the Previa gave up the ghost and I ended up driving a Toyota Corolla which I still have. It is a sturdy, serviceable car and I'm not complaining. It is heavily dented because a well-meaning gentleman with the sun in his eyes accidentally drove into the side of it. Years later, another well-intentioned person backed into it and slightly enlarged the dent. There is, in addition, a bullet-sized hole in the rear bumper which I acquired while being pursued by members of the Mafia hell-bent on trying to silence me.

Additionally, the doors on two of the interior compartments have broken as has the handle to the door on the driver's side. There are two prominent cracks on the front windshield and the left side view mirror has been shattered. Since none of these cosmetic flaws interfere with driving, I have chosen not to spend my scarce monetary resources getting them repaired. Though the car looks like shit,  its internal organs remain healthy and that's what counts. People whose self-esteem is linked to the the make, year and pristine condition of their vehicle inspire nothing but pity and contempt on my part. To quote the infamous Mrs. Rafina Draminsky, "A car is a machine the purpose of which is to get you from one place to another. If yours is a work of art, then park it in a museum!"

That could be a matter of sour grapes on Mrs. Draminsky's part, and mine too, but I honestly believe that were I  to become the proud winner of a brand new car, I would sell it in order to buy and fill another floor-to-ceiling book case or maybe take an extended vacation on some tropical isle.

Or, if I was feeling generous, I would give it to my oldest grandson who, being infinitely more sensible and conscientious than his nana, might actually take good care of it.

On Writing

The rarest thoughts
have wings of tissue that
once torn, remain
forever grounded...

Inspiration of the kind
worth sharing
rarely can
take flight;

through you always
remember how it feels
the lift, the thrust,
and now aloft...

Sweet savagery of wind,
bare, craggy heights,
nearness of dimpled cloud
and shock of sunlight...

Green sea beneath
all gold-chipped
tumble of waves and sweep of froth
that cannot stop

that cannot stop,
that, surely,
cannot stop,

And yet
inevitably does.
World without end
but ending
nonetheless.

Wings ripped to shreds,
all broken now,
nerve endings
shrieking pain,

and all that remains:
faint shadow of wings,
the leap
and the ache of the love of it.