Best Laid Plans

I woke up early, really early.
The dogs didn't even get up.

I thought I'd look out the window and
write a poem about nature.

It was pitch black outside.
The only nature to be seen
was in my mind.
And . . . then the phone rang.

Today's plan was changing.
Nature once again was supplanted by
a little forgetfulness, and
perhaps a little
unconscious deliberation.

And the poem about nature . . .
became one about the nature of life.

Greedy Leaf

He said it was a bad leaf,
shooting out from her brothers and sisters
to catch a ray of sunshine.

She had no business on this tree ——
greedy, not a "team player"
and obviously exploiting the others
who so diligently grew up
so that the greedy
leaf had only inches to go
to reach the warm sunlight.

But lo and behold,
inadvertently the
greedy one gave back
energy to the tree, and ergo,
to her brothers and sisters.

The Early Bird

I look out the window
early in the fall morning
and see only darkness.
I imagine the sun still as bright
as yesterday when I groped
for my sun glasses.
I'm in a shadow, so vast
I can't tell where she ends.

In time, though, my eyes adjust
and I see first the moon,
then the stars,
only to be briefly interrupted
by the headlights of an early bird
driving down the street.

Spotty Shadows

The leaves begin to fall,
as the sun shoots through the trees,

casting spotty shadows
on the wood pile,
where each log waits
for another winter
to find out if they will
be carried inside
to face the burning embers.

At the bottom of the pile
the logs are safe from the fire,
and termites and rot
will chart its destiny,

unless, or course, it is
an unusually cold winter.

Halloween

Trick or treat:
it gets dark early
and the evening is cold.

Gangs of kids move down the street
with a parent often in tow.

It is a fashion show
of sorts, of the latest
monster costumes,

with the oddball kid in each gang,
either too lazy or too poor
for a costume of her own.

Trick or treat, they say,
as the door is opened, and
ah, shucks, we don't want apples,
a moment later.

Autumn Poem Activity

Autumn is such an overused
subject for a poem.

Who wants to hear
once again about
leaves that change colors
and whither and die
or how the weather
alternates between cold and rainy?

Next election, I'm
voting for the candidate
who proposes making
autumn poems a crime.

That will
surely regenerate quite a flurry
of autumn poem activity.

1000 Miles Per Hour

No wonder we need to sleep at night.
Each day we breathe 20000+ breaths
and then we are expected
to remain upright

on this vast planet that spins
on its axis
at 1000 miles per hour.

Each day we see changes from darkness
to light and back again to darkness.

We are but on a rocket
exploding into an expanding space
and then we wonder why

sanity is
something we need to work at
breath after breath.

Dogs

I often wonder what
a dog thinks about
when she sees humans

get into an iron horse
and turn a key and zoom
off into the distance.

Or when she sees
mom and dad kissing
each other.

I wonder what the various
barks and growls say,
but most of all,

what that thought is
when she comes to me
to be petted.

COMMENT: ABOUT WHAT DO DOGS THINK? A PRIZE FOR THE BEST ANSWER! CLICK ON COMMENT BELOW TO LEAVE YOUR ANSWER.

Stop and Look

We rush around,
looking for peace.
The faster we go,

the greater the distance
between us and stillness.
Our MP4 earphones

take a break from our cellphone
and our cellphone
takes a break for an old friend

coming down the platform.
The train comes, but from the other direction.
We sit down to wait.

Our batteries die from overuse.
We notice the clouds
gently nudging one another.

How Much are Kids Worth?

I'm reading a book
that says it is stupid
that plumbers get paid more

than childcare workers
because kids are worth
more than pipes.

My wife thinks
it is good that plumbers
are well-paid

because they have lots of kids.
If childcare workers had
as many kids as plumbers

they'd have to stay at home
and wouldn't be able
to work. This would,

of course, decrease
the supply of the childcare
workers, so the facilities

would have to pay
them more, which probably
means that people wouldn't

use paid childcare,
or wouldn't have children,
or wouldn't buy big screen TVs.

The big question,
as I see it,
is not what is unfair,

but rather what measures
should be taken
to correct

all the world's injustices,
and what the costs are
of these measures?

Next time you pay a
child care worker,
please add a substantial tip,

and next time you pay
a plumber, ask her if
she'll take less.

Just tell the plumber
it is all
in the name of fairness,

and watch the steam
erupt
from her pipe!

The 5 am Alarm Clock

When you visit
loved ones, there
is always the last

day of a visit,
when you make sure
you've said what

you have to say,
and you try to remember
to pack all the little things

you had brought
with the intention
of not leaving behind.

Being there
becomes so habitual
you believe

you'll be wakened
each morning of your life
with the pidder patter

of a toddler's feet above you,
and then
"it's time to leave"

and you hop on
some mode of transportation
and arrive home

and wake up
the next morning
to realize what had become

a 5 am alarm clock
has been turned off
until the next visit.

Play at Work, Work at Play

Sometimes we
mistakenly believe
that kids play and adults work,

but one just needs
to watch a toddler
and see how

dedicated they are
to the task at hand
to realize

they are learning
about their universe
in record time

and will not
be led astray
by any distractions.

Adults, on the other hand,
with their great understanding
of the world,

seem to have lots of time
for play, sports, movies,
and candlelight dinners.

QUESTION: AT WHAT AGE DO HUMANS PLAY? WHY?

Shaving

How did it happen
that we obsessively
want to shave

certain parts
of our body?
We wake up

in the morning and
feel the sandpaper
on our face,

rushing
to the bathroom
to smooth it out.

We go to the barber
frequently to make
ourselves clean cut.

Woman eradicate the
hair under their arms
and on their legs.

Smooth
becomes the norm,
and rough

the sign
that we've been negligent
in our care.

COMMENT: IS OUR OBSESSION WITH BEING CLEAN-SHAVEN AKIN TO OUR OBSESSION WITH THE "NEW?"

The Plane

A cow's hide found
her way to be a
seat on an airplane

comforting the bodies
of humans flying
to and fro

for pleasure, profit
or grief.
From cows' heaven

moo moo watches
the big sky machine
carrying its karma

to exotic places
where grass has
been eaten by

little lawn machines
or turned to concrete
for cars and

even cattle
trucks going to
the slaughter house.

COMMENT: DO YOU BELIEVE IN COW HEAVEN? IS THE GRASS GREENER?

The Hypochondriac Goes to the Doctor

I go
to the doctor today
to inquire

about a obscure condition
that I've probably always had,
but have just noticed.

I suspect he'll tell me
about the 38 million
who have the same problem,

and that one just has
to live with it.
Unless, of course,

I want to try
some medicines
and surgical procedures

and trade one symptom
for another.
So he gets a pretty penny

for a few minutes with me,
and I get the satisfaction
of discovering that I'm mortal

and I can choose to
live with my body
the way it is,

or go to extreme measures
to turn it in for
another body

whose owner
will surely
have equally minute complaints.

PLEASE COMMENT: WHOSE BODY IS YOURS?

Study

The fly swishes
in my hair as I
wait to begin.

He hovers here
and there after
a full week of toil.

The man on
the other side
of the table

tries to understand
"the deepest wisdom
we've ever read."

The fly knows the taste
of the words
but is too busy to learn to read.

PLEASE COMMENT BELOW: WHY DO WE NOT REVERE THE COMMON HOUSE FLY WHO ALWAYS IS AUTHENTIC AND SPONTANEOUS?

Mouse

He called
to tell me
he had caught a mouse

and wondered what he
should do with it.
Where was it?

By the fireplace.
How big was it?
About two inches.

What should he do with it?
Is it a baby?
I don't know.

You could flush it
down the toilet,
but how about

letting it out
a block from your house.
Okay, thanks.

PLEASE COMMENT BELOW: WAS HE SHOWING COMPASSION BY SEPARATING THE MOUSE FROM IT'S MOTHER? WAS IT NICE TO THE FOLKS WHO LIVED A BLOCK AWAY TO LET IT GO BY THEIR HOUSES?

The Colony

As I step
off my porch,
I see a colony

of ants scurrying
around, with no
time to spare.

We wonder
if humanoids
are too busy,

until we
study these ants——
fine creatures,

as serious as could be,
working as if their
lives depended on it.

We take vacations,
sleep, and retire.
The ants only nap
sixteen minutes a day,

and for the rest of the time,
work, work, and work,

preparing their next
meal for themselves,
and their nieces and nephews.

PLEASE COMMENT BELOW: WHEN DO WE CALL THESE CREATURES OUR FRIENDS, AND WHEN DO WE PUT OUT THE ANT TRAPS?

Soup Kitchen

Classical music,
of the finest quality.
But afterwards,

a gluttonous reception.
Food galore,
with lines forming

at each table.
Are we that hungry
or that greedy

for sweets and
high fat treats
that lead us

to the grave like
the sirens on the
the rocks?

Are we products
of the great depression,
or the unholy holocaust,

never knowing
where our next meal
might come from,

or whether
it will be
at all?

PLEASE COMMENT, ANSWERING THIS QUESTION: AM I BEING TOO SENSITIVE ABOUT THE WAY EVERYONE EATS. IS THIS MY OBSESSION?

That Mighty Villian

How oft are
we frustrated?
When we are late and

the light won't turn green,
or we go to the gas pump
and wait for that woman

talking on her cell
to move her car
Or or or.

We expect better,
that life will go
like clockwork,

swiss clockwork,
that is, keeping
time so precisely

a second is not
lost. Yet we get sick
and injured, and we die,

always with a
surprise on
our face saying

"how could this
happen to me."
Perhaps

all these
seemingly catastrophic
events are not

that mighty villain,
but actually
the stuff of life.

The Runaway Book

How many times
in one day
do we lose

a good friend
only to find her
moments later?

We set down a book
and can't remember where.
We search and search all

the obvious places
and she is not
to be found.

We nervously zoom
though the house,
in a somewhat frenzy,

wondering if the runaway book
might have walked off
on her own.

We hold our breathe,
not wanting to waste time
as we run up the stairs

to check the bed stand.
And then back downstairs
to check the living room, the dining room, the basement.

And even the dog bed.
"Where is that book,"
we wonder.

Just before giving up
and calling it a cruddy day,
we catch a glimse

of her frayed cover
under a magazine.

Is that the book?
We say a prayer,
lift the magazine,

adjust our focus,
and once again we take another breath.
She's back!

Dad's Golf Bag

The old canvas golf bag
collected dust bunnies
in our summer cottage

waiting for my father
to return from the
hot Chicago summer.

From time to time
I'd take out the
putter and

dig a hole in the backyard
and try to bear down
on the grip

focusing hard to sink
the one worn ball
that we had.

Each summer I'd ask my dad
if he had ever used
those clubs.

He'd say that he did
and that one summer
he'd go out again

with his archaic canvas bag
and that one single ball.
I never quite

believed him
but thought,
maybe someday,

I'd take the bag out myself
to those neatly trimmed
rolling hills.

The cottage and the clubs
are now only a faint memory.
My dad's ashes wait

for next summer
when it will be
just the right day

for his attempt at
that elusive
hole-in-one.

Is Anything Passive?

I look out
at an old chair
on our patio.

It has not
been moved
for a month, and

even through rain and wind storms,
it is stoic
and immobile.

Yet when I glance at her feet,
I see her holding on
for dear life,

to an earth
revolving around the sun,
a sun moving in a galaxy,

and a galaxy
floating in an expanding
universe.

Hummingbirds dart so quickly
that they perceive humans
as statutes.

I suspect they are moving
just a minuscule faster than my chair
or even a stone Buddha.

Relativity

Sometimes it takes
a lot more time
than we think.

Like getting the oil changed,
or saying goodbye
to a friend.

And sometimes
it takes exactly
the time we think,

like a sixty minute massage,
a fifty minute class.
or even a half-second tooth x ray.

Someone asked me
if the night
seemed longer than the day,

and I said no,
for me
it was the other way around.

Our lives seem long
when we meet an insect
that will only live for a day,

and short compared to how long
there has been
life on earth.

And a mere flash in the pan
compared to
the age of the universe,

or even how long ago
was that special moment
when Adam and Eve

took that delicious bite
from the
apple of life.

The Nonmask

I wear a mask.
My being, hidden from you,
is also hidden from me.

You see a
thin exterior,
and I see

you looking at
the me
that we both

know is not really me
and not you,
but a stranger to both of us.

I smile, or laugh,
or frown,
or so you say,

but is that me or
the multitude of my faces
seducing me into thinking that is me?

I don’t need another mask
to hide this mask
that is so very hard to remove.

Ben's Bday

Ben turning 50,
a legendary event
for a guy who always
gives 100 and raises
the bar for the rest of us.

Selflessly the caretaker
of gardens, trees, and a
wife who wants to
change the world
yesterday.

Life demands diligent
work for exquisite beauty
and everlasting love to occur.
Ben does that work
every long day of
his life.

Dangling Conversation

Well, that’s the second miracle of the day.

What?

I never saw those stairs, and I’ve been to this restaurant many times. Three miracles make me a saint, right?

No, after two miracles you vaporize.

Well, I don’t want to do that. Aren’t you interested in the first miracle?

Is it about the cat that knows when people are going to die?

That cat really is amazing. She was cited in the New England Journal of Medicine. And that’s a reputable study.

Yea, he knew within 4 hours when 12 people were going to die and he’d keep them warm.

It was many more than 12. Maybe 48.

Does anyone want to know about the miracle?

Oh, it wasn’t the cat. Here comes Carolyn. I think Janice is out of town.

I think it is time to go inside. It is awfully muggy today.

Yea, let’s go inside.

But what about my miracle, isn’t anyone interested?

Ok, tell us about your miracle.

Oh, it was the stairs.

No, no, it isn’t the stairs. That was the second miracle. My dog Zooey killed a rabbit.

Why is that a miracle? My dog kills rabbits too.

Wait, you haven’t heard the story. My wife and I were on the phone with our son. It was time to exercise, so I walked around the driveway 1000 times while we talked to him. Then I saw Zooey kill the rabbit. I called the dog and she dropped the little critter. The rabbit was bleeding from the belly, and after a few feeble gestures stopped moving altogether. She was listless.

I told my son and wife what had happened and that I didn’t know if the rabbit was dead.

My wife said what she does is hits it with a shovel and then buries it.

I didn’t say that, and I would never hit a rabbit with a shovel. I dug the hole with the shovel.

Well, I thought you said that. But I decided that I’d first dig the hole and then pick up the rabbit with the shovel. So I did.

So what’s the miracle? That you dug a hole?

No! You’ll just have to listen.

But I never would hit a rabbit with a shovel.

Ok, so I heard you wrong. I dug the hole and then came back to the rabbit.

The dead rabbit?

Yes, the rabbit was as dead as a doornail. It wasn’t moving and was lying down in a lifeless position.

And what did you do? Hit it with the shovel?

No, I just gently scooped it up with the shovel.

And that’s a miracle?

No, but when the shovel touched the rabbit he ran off into the bushes.

Must have been unconscious?

Or maybe in shock?

Now what was the miracle?

That he came alive!

Oh. Here comes Janice.

I thought she was on vacation. You don’t think it’s a miracle when a dead rabbit comes back to life?

No. Must have been in shock.

Saturday and a Question about War and Peace

After today I have sixteen Saturdays left before I retire. Or maybe fifteen, if you don't count the last one, since I'm not working that day.

All week I've been getting up earlier and earlier to make sure I get some writing done before school. And I've been telling people that when I retired I was going to get up even earlier.

And then the crash came. I slept until eight, and then laid in bed and watched a movie about Caesar and Rome and Paul. Paul was an advocate for peace and Caesar was an advocate for war. Caesar fell in love with a woman and, rather than winning her over with kind words and flowers, wanted to "own" her as a slave.

Yesterday a supervisor was lamenting that so many of his employees were at war. Another was lamenting that we have a "them and us" mentality. Even with the Gideons putting a book about peace in every hotel room, and even with some of the worst offenders going to church each Sunday, we still fight to the death to main our territories and our prides.

My college has twice the number of students in Criminal Justice than we do in Teacher Education. Yet most of us know that education is the means to keep people out of the criminal justice system (i.e. jail). As in Caesar's time, more choose to fight than to be an agents of peace like Paul.

Why?

Ideas, Digestion, and Garlic

All day long I think of ideas for the next blog. I try to write them down, but often they fleet out of my mind as quickly as they appear.

And yet, it is against my rules to look back at my list for an idea. The list is just a safety net. Suppose I wake up one morning without an idea. All I would have to do is to check my list and pick one of the ideas.

I could write about my rules, i.e. the fact that I make rules (perhaps some brand of mild autism) so that I don't have to make choices about the little things in life...like what to eat.

Or I could write about being lost. I was talking with a friend yesterday that I'd rather be lost than found. Someone asked (trying to be friendly) if I was lost, and could they help me? I replied that I'd rather be lost. For me, it is the process of finding one's way that makes life exciting. Who wants to be told how the book ends?

But instead I want to write about digestion. Or maybe about garlic. Both of these are not proper subjects for discussion. For me, the more garlic I eat the less I sleep. When I go to a dinner I ask for a vegan or vegetarian selection. Chefs must be trained to think that garlic is a favorite among vegetarians. And unfortunately, most of the recipes in vegetarian cookbooks contain garlic, by the cloves. And most of the vegetarian selections at Whole Foods have garlic. Buddhists do not eat garlic (or onions). Why don't we listen to them?

Remember, though, that I'm not going to write about garlic either. My wife doesn't like it when I eat garlic, and this is her computer, so I have to honor her wishes.

It is digestion that interests me. It is digestion as a metaphor for how we process experience. And it is digestion as one of those very elemental processes (like sex) that we should only mention to our very best of friends.

Except, that is, if your parents were psychoanalyzed by a Freudian. Then it is fine to make reference to the entire eating process, and since eating is really sublimated sex, the only subject we really can talk about (either directly, or by inference) is sex.

Hey wait, this was going to be about digestion. A friend used the word "digestion" in the sentence "art is good for the soul and the digestion" and her friend thought she shouldn't have used the "d" word. I suspect her friend's parents are not psychologists, so she doesn't quite understand how the word was used. These "bodily" processes are for some the elephant in the room. We all know they are there, but we should never mention them.

I took someone to see some drawings I am exhibiting. They immediately were taken aback because the figures were sexual beings. At an attempt to explain, I told him that we were all made that way (with sex).

One of my creative writing teachers in college told me that I needed to get rid of the toilet paper. I never asked him what he meant, because I understood that this was more about him and the fact his parents weren't Freudians.

The challenges remain. How do I tell the host that I eat everything except food with eyes, cheese, wheat, eggs, sugar, onions, and garlic without seeming a little bit overbearing and obnoxious? And, in a world of non-Freudians, how can I mention words (or images) about digestion and sex without making the reader a little (or a lot) uncomfortable?

Continuum

Photographers (my mindset) have a special affinity for grays. That is, photographers raised in the black and white tradition abhor pictures with too much contrast because they lack in detail. We never really meant black and white as the only tones. In fact, when there is excessive contrast we take the appropriate measures to lower the contrast (add a fill light, reduce the development, etc.).

Yes and no are parallel in many ways to black and white. I'm not sure if yes should always be associated with one or the other. In the question, should we be in Iraq? (one of my proposed topics for the day), yes may be black (we fight until one side is dead) and no may be white (we leave, the smoke clears, and the sun shines brightly).

One of the problems with yes or no is that it polarizes two people in a debate. One says yes, and another says no, and neither acknowledges that gray (somewhat, maybe, sometimes, often, etc.) is probably a much better answer. Often I'm asked a "yes/no" question, and I give a maybe answer. I'll say that "I'll look into that" or "we'll see" or even "that's a good idea." Then the requester will go away thinking the answer was yes, and all sorts of confusion and disappointment may ensue.

Will John Edwards be a good candidate for the Republicans? He'd probably be better that the dumber of my two dogs, and he'd probably be worse than an ideal candidate that we might imagine. So why don't we ask "how good will he be" or "how bad"? Photographers speak of high key (predominately white) and low key (predominately black) images. Suppose the debate became more about the tones of gray rather than about black or white?

Even such seemingly absolutes like marriage are continuums. We know of people who are "married" to the extent that they hold a license and occasionally go out to dinner. And there are others you can not imagine life without the other person and desire a simultaneous death should the other decease. When we get down to our knees, perhaps we should be asking, "how much will you marry me?" Marriages all end up as a range of tones (perhaps high or low key), though we often don't discuss "what kind of marriage" from the start.

I believe that compromise and continuums may not be good friends. Compromise comes from black and white and often comes with disappointment. It is not always the win win that it is touted to be. Instead of saying, should I work today? should we say, "how much should I work today?"

Is this now the end of this defense of the gray scale? Maybe, somewhat, close, yes, for now.