worms, pigeons, bats, and beehives

It's Halloween, and I'm thinking about worms. Not the maggot-type things we sometimes call 'worms' - but earthworms. The house in central Texas was situated on dry, limey, hard-crusted soil and crumbled limestone. Semi-arid climate - the native grasses and shrubs had to be pretty hardy and drought-resistant. Though we had earthworms in the moist lovely crumbly dark soil of Louisiana, I never really looked at earthworms until I saw them at work in our back yard in Texas.

Three or four inches long, they traveled through the upper layer of earth (only a few inches deep) by swallowing the dirt in front of them and moving forward, letting it pass through their bodies out the other end. You could tell where they had passed because the dirt was more crumbly, and it consisted of cylindrical segments the size of what would have exited a worm's body. The earthworms tilled the soil!

Today I was driving and I wished I had a camera. There was a huge elegant ad for Rolex watches with a large image of a gleaming watch. Above the watch, perched on the structure of the billboard, were 7 pigeons, and something about the homey little birds and the giant fancy watch amused me.

I had the radio on, picking up a Baton Rouge station playing 'classic oldies'. I passed a restaurant with a flashing electronic sign advertising their menu and specials and oops, a large Halloween bat appeared on the sign, flashing off and on to the rhythm of the song playing in the car: 'Another One Bites the Dust'.

I was almost home when somehow I got to thinking about beehives. Not the residences for bees, and not the musical, but the hairstyle popular in the late 1950s, early 1960s. You held a strand of hair by its tip, and with a comb, you 'teased' or 'ratted' it into an airy nest, which you shaped like a beehive and held in place with bobby pins and lots and lots of sticky hairspray. They made a person look like a conehead (aliens popularized on Saturday Night Live a decade or two later). I remember a girl just out of high school getting into a vehicle, and the top of her beehive squashing against the ceiling of the car. As a little kid, I was impressed, but not envious.

The grasshoppers in our yard in Louisiana in the 1960s were a cheerful shade of green, and were about an inch long max. They were easy to catch in our hands, did no harm, and seemed happy and unresentful when released. Kids who were scared of most insects tended not to be afraid of the gentle little grasshoppers.

The grasshoppers in our yard in the 1990s in central Texas were a pale brown with handsome, geometric looking markings in darker colors. What hind legs they had! - and I think they had compact wings. The Texas grasshoppers were at least 2 inches long, had a harder exoskeleton, and when the lawnmower came through the native grasses, they flew up into the air a few feet, to sail out of harm's way. The ones that were damaged or did not survive were quickly consumed by mockingbirds. I'm guessing grasshoppers were a significant source of nutrition for many birds, such as robins and roadrunners.

Crickets were pretty much the same in both decades and locations - similar to the grasshoppers. Crickets, friendly and harmless, were dark brown, slightly larger than the green hoppers, and smaller than the Texans. They made chirping noises with their legs, and you could tell how cold the temperature was by the pitch of the sounds. The colder the temp, the slower and lower the sound. They served as food for many critters. One striking thing about them was that in the 1990s, they showed up sometimes in hordes. In Dripping Springs, Texas, crickets would be crawling up the walls of the schools, and covering the gasoline pumps at the service stations. They'd be on the sidewalks and crunch under your feet. I'd never seen that before, and I don't know what caused the plagues of crickets to occur.

The Naming of Cats

'The Naming of Cats' is a curious poem by the late T. S. Eliot. He states 'a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES' : 1) a 'sensible everyday name', 2) a 'peculiar' 'more dignified' name 'that never belong[s] to more than one cat', and 3) 'the name no human research can discover - but THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.'

Having called a very dear cat 'oreo felius cattus number 9', I get where Mr. Eliot was coming from.

When I was a kid in the 1960s, we lived in the country, and I didn't go to 'the picture show' very often, maybe two or three times a year. When Mom was busy on a Saturday afternoon, though, sometimes she left us at the show, and we sat through two or three runs of the same movie. At that time, as we understood it, once you bought a ticket, you didn't have to leave the theater. There was no big breaks between showings, and so if you came in late, you could still see the beginning next time around. In that way, we saw 'Help!' maybe three times in one afternoon. 'Moonspinners'. 'Gidget Goes to Rome'.

There were no videos - or video players - back then; I guess this was just an early way to experience the kind of imprinting kids in the 1990s experienced when they were home alone for an afternoon. Watching a favorite video three times over, or one that was considered off limits by their parents, was not uncommon.

invitation

at 8 am or so yesterday, in a bit of a funk, i was walking down a narrow street in our neighborhood, long and straight. This street was lined by trees and houses, and the asphalt was pebbled with twigs and dry acorns which crunched beneath my feet. The view ahead of me was layered one leafy branch against the next leafy branch, a mosaic of shaded patterns. at the distant end of the street, a mist of sundrops, an ecstasy of light, radiated like an invitation and, for some minutes as i walked toward it, the weight in me was lifted.

night art

(abstract photo I took during a night drive in August 2012 -)

on a raft of notes
floats a thin clear melody
across a human divide.

the dogs across the street are out;
they wag their tails.
a cat presses against the calf of my leg.

we give the dog a pat
or a mouse a cookie -
we give a gumdrop to a daughter.

what cannot be spoken
where words fail
words are not needed.

there is a nod,
or a shared stillness -
a stroke of paint against paper.

Thinking about the small pleasures of Halloweens past as Halloween 2013 approaches -

There are still trick-or-treaters who come to our door - and it seems more people now offer the really delicious little candy bars to the kids. But I do get wistful about the treasures of Halloweens past. In October, the corner stores started stocking the candy shelves with chewable sweetened wax toys. There were 4 items each year: the fat red kissy lips you held in place with your own lips, the black licorice flavored mustache, the toothy white wax fangs, and the orange harmonica-like wax pipes that did indeed make whistling sounds. They cost a nickel each. The popular candies were straws full of flavored sugar, candy cigarettes, Necco wafers, bubble gum cigars (in pastel pink, blue, yellow and purple), and jaw breakers. Then there were the noisemakers, the little tin rattles and clickers and the tin toy you spun with the plastic knob to make a whirring sound.

This way, you could scare off the ghosts!

and bless the moms and dads who each year made the sticky, syrupy, buttery popcorn balls wrapped in wax paper. (Steen's Cane Syrup, a local Louisiana product, was the key, not-so-secret ingredient.)

Then, thirty years later, my kids were kids in Texas. Friendly paper bats and pumpkins adorned the windows, with one big, scary-friendly skeleton waving a welcome. We made little ghosts to flutter on the tree in the front yard. The afternoon before the trick-or-treating, we carved a pumpkin to make a jack-o-lantern. The candle inside made its eyes and toothy grin flicker with golden light. We played a little cassette with owl, ghost, and witch noises over and over near the front door.

Though we were in a rural location where the houses were not very close together, the kids began to show up just before sundown. The tiny princesses, ladybugs and dinosaurs with their parents; the older kids racing about on foot with just a scary mask and one big bag for the sugary loot.

I. I am the Lord thy God - thou shalt worship no other god before me.
II. Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain.
III. Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath day.
IV. Honor thy father and thy mother.
V. Thou shalt not kill.
VI. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
VII. Thou shalt not steal.
VIII. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
IX. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.
X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods.

The ten commandments are the fundamental code of ethics in Judaic-Christian cultures, and, I understand, are also to be found in similar form in Islamic and other cultures as well as in ancient societies. The list above is partly from memory from my Catholic childhood in the 1960s. There are many variations in English wording. The internet search I attempted was surprisingly muddled.

I just wanted to look at them again and ponder, from within and without a religious perspective.

Hedgerows

Smithsonian magazine - which originated around 1970 - has represented well the purpose of the Smithsonian Institute (founded and maintained by the United States government since the 1800s) 'for the increase and diffusion of knowledge'. I remember that many of the early magazine issues were weighted toward the arts, but a more expanded range of topics developed over the years. I've enjoyed learning about art - say, about the letters van Gogh and his brother exchanged during their lives, or the Tapisserie de Bayeux, or the glass artist Dale Chihuly. Well-written and researched articles in other areas have stuck in my mind. One was about how numerous mines were still buried in the beaches and fields of France from the world wars I and II. Another was about the many almost magical species of jellyfish (now more commonly referred to as 'jellies' since they do not meet the definition of 'fish') living in the Earth's oceans and seas. The article I'm thinking about tonight was about the hedgerows of England, something I've never had the opportunity to see.

Decades have passed since I read that issue but I recall that some of the hedgerows - living, natural walls or fences or landscape dividing lines - were centuries old. While much of England's land was devoted to agriculture, the hedgerows evolved into little wildernesses where wildlife on a small scale could still exist. The hedgerows have an ecology of their own - birds and small mammals feeding from the berries and building nests and dens within. Moles and foxes, and little mice coexist there. The hedgerows - made of vines and thorny shrubs and twisted trees - have become so dense that they are difficult to get through, and people go around to gates and breaks to get past the intentional barrier the hedgerows create.

I have not seen quite that complex a living structure in the US, but there exist taller brakes made of fast-growing trees that create a kind of labyrinthian sensation.

secrets of trees

looming larger in the night
those mighty trees
they arch against
a not so faraway sky
the patterns of
the leaves and boughs
come to crazy life

the secrets of trees -
all by themselves -
like a butterfly
flashing her wings
shh shh -
they generate
a little breeze -
those little leaves -
a distant wind

summer was in full glory
and where were the teenagers?
where were the sounds of boomboxes near swimming pools,
voices shouting out of cars with open windows
tooling down the two-lane streets
where were the basketballs
beating a rhythm in the driveway
the newest crazy music on the radios
the flowered shorts and flip-flops on sunburnt feet
the feasting on ketchup and fries?

the angel trumpet's
maize gold petals
yearn to touch the leaves -
sparrows nest
in the tufted bark
of the great palm trees.
the palm and the birds
they twitter and sway
partners in the
venture of life

music - 1960s, 70s

The shared culture of music united young people of the US (and elsewhere) in the 1960s and 70s as recordings of many different performers became easier to access than ever before in human history. The radios were jumping with new sounds, and high school kids were buying 45s (single hits) and eventually albums, 8-tracks, and cassettes. Concerts were sprouting, not only in auditoriums, but in fields and stadiums and parks and gymnasiums. This was a rugged, confusing time period during the Vietnam War, the nuclear armaments race, the moon landing, and multiple assassinations of public figures. Building on roots from big band to blues and gospel to bluegrass to country-western to folk, with soul and rock & roll exploding, popular music was a huge creative, comforting, and uniting force. Electronic instruments were coming up fast as were new ways to mix sounds and tracks.

I spend an hour or two now and again on youtube, finding treasures from that era, marveling at the complexity of sounds young bands were inventing, and the crazy, prophetic lyrics that surfaced. Tonight, I listened to early Elton John - 'Grey Seal' and 'Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters' - and to Simon and Garfunkel's 'Only Living Boy in New York', immediate and poetic. I feel the surprised gratitude I felt when I first heard them decades ago.

is there any simpler, more elegant form of mechanical recreation and transportation than the bicycle?

there was a picture
stacks of shark fins
drying on a rooftop
a picture
hundreds of wild ducks
quiet at the feet and shoulders
of a handful of hunters
i've lost my bearings


squirrels are busy
doing the work
armadillos and possums once did
crows quack like ducks
as they fly overhead
farmers prepare small fields
churning furrows of earth
an azalea in bloom
in the October sunlight

Stargazing

Stargazing - the ancient method of learning about celestial activity.

Illustration by Beth Krommes. http://www.danforthmuseum.org/assets/art/Krommes_Sing_SM.gif

a simple celestial timepiece

The North Star is like the center of the face of a clock. The center does not move. Two bright constellations (along with the rest of the stars from our earthling perspective) revolve around the North Star: The Big Dipper and Cassiopeia's Chair. They are always opposite each other, with the north star between them.

If you were in a dark place (in the Northern Hemisphere) and spent a clear night watching The Big Dipper and Cassiopeia's Chair, you would see the two constellations slowly chasing each other around the North Star in a great circle. It's fascinating, a simple celestial timepiece! The position of either one of the constellations and the North Star can tell you what season and time it is.

I'm living in Lafayette, Louisiana, my birthplace, after some thirty plus years away. It was here I first saw a production of the musical, 'Fiddler on the Roof'. Performed at the Heymann Center, it may have been put on by the University of Southwestern Louisiana theater/drama department, probably around 1970. (USL is now University of Louisiana, Lafayette.)

A movie of the musical also came out around that time. I'm snapping my fingers to the song 'Tradition', and the feet want to step to the wonderful timing of Jewish dance.

The other song I most remember from 'Fiddler on the Roof' is a conversation that goes: 'Do you love me?' 'Do I WHAT?'

There was beautiful music that I do not remember very well because it had a kind of grieving to it as the villagers are forced to leave their homes near the end, transforming from a stable community into refugees. It's painful, and the music suitable and very good.

I don't remember why there is a fiddler on the roof or why the actors in their colorful garb might be dancing on the roof tops, but that's the only scene I really visually remember. Like many American musicals - The Music Man, West Side Side Story, Camelot, Brigadoon, All That Jazz - it's truly American art that pleases and transforms the audience. It's still with me after these many years.

the yellow pencil

I bought a set of special colored pencils a couple years back, I don't remember where, but they have worked well for me and the kind of art I do. Even when several broke in two one day soon after I bought them, it just meant there were more of them!

The yellow pencil remained whole, and it added courageous heart to works that were incomplete, or fractious. Heart on fire is how I thought of it.

I say thought - as in the past tense - because although I used it today, carrying it about in my fabric bag - I cannot find the yellow pencil tonight. It'll likely show up, but I'm learning something here. There is mourning I feel over a pencil, or over a paintbrush that (with its unique wear and tear, weight, and paint patterns) leaves the table for good. It's worse than losing a favorite word in your vocabulary, or a favorite skillet in the kitchen. The painting and drawing are a passionate process. As oddball as it seems, I'm connected to this yellow pencil.

the house by the side of the road ...

...Let me live in my house by the side of the road,
Where the race of men go by-
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,
Wise, foolish - so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat,
Or hurl the cynic's ban?
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.



(my father's favorite stanza from 'The House by the Side of the Road' by Sam Walter Foss)

i want to tell you something
she said
tonight the kitchen door was open
to let in the cooler air
the neighbor cat
walks in and yawns
and has a bite to eat
'the kitten chow is good' he says.
his ears point up
and he trots out
following the soft noises of a prowler I do not see
the cat disappears, but there comes a striped tail in the bougainvillea
and then a face
a bold black mask outlined in white
the raccoon is digging up the compost I buried

i want to tell you more
she said
the tiny ants so busy on the counter
do not notice the sugar;
the crescent moon paired with Venus this evening
bright and personal.
the cappucino had no coffee in it
but the cold chicken and dried apricots,
the last of the blueberry wine,
made a good supper.
how happy the coupling
the red and orange scarf I'm knitting
the orange yarn entwined with the red
glows - you never would have guessed
you who are always near
and never here
perhaps you would enjoy
this good supper

Dad's in a wheelchair, his back partially exposed by the hospital gown, a bandage on a fresh abdominal incision, his face puffy with exhaustion, and he's cracking jokes, one after the other. Humor carries him an inch or two above the fray.

from a hospital window, eighth floor -

(from a hospital window, eighth floor -)

raindrops
like thousands of promises kept
fell lightly
fell soundlessly

iced tea

the glass of tea
was big and cold
with two hands
the withered woman
drank,
the ice cubes
winking in the light

There were water spigots every few campsites at the Mazama Campground at Crater Lake National Park in the 1990s. The water flowed well enough, but there wasn't much of a drainage system, so we used little or no detergent to wash our dishes when camping. In consideration for the people following us, it seemed best not leave a mass of dirty suds at the base of the faucet. The tin plates and plastic cups came out clean enough.

(Washing dishes under the great pines of Crater Lake has come to mind while I'm washing dishes in kitchens far from Oregon. The amount of detergent I use has grown smaller with every memory.)

Before going camping, our friends in western Oregon took us to orchards where berries and fruit were cultivated, not far from the Willamette River. We and the kids picked blueberries and sometimes raspberries too, to take with us to Crater Lake.

Once there, we sat at the picnic table taking fistsful of berries from the boxes, and eating wild salmon our friend had caught in Alaska and preserved in the smoke of alderwood. We were eating simply, yet came to know - this is a true feast. The taste of wild, fresh foods curls around the tongue and awakens the mind and heart.