Still on vacation

Poems and patterns to tickle your imagination

Check in

I’m still on vacation. Still reading. Driving my wheelchair slowly through the neighborhood. Taking fewer pictures. Trying to draw.

Sleeping more. Dreaming more. Enjoying cool evenings after summer heat.

I’m gathering stories and observations to share with you. Soon. Starting next week.

Pattern

Over the two years I’ve been writing Becoming, I’ve enjoyed pointing out the sometimes hidden patterns in mundane scenes. Here are some other opportunities to look more deeply.

I resisted cropping this asymmetric photo because of all the patterns in it. The slashing black shadows. The mower tracks in the grass. The grass against the pole.

Pavement in Barcelona. The arrangement of colors is completely random. and immensely appealing.

I left the cinderblock background in the photo because its staid lines balance the chaos of the decrepit air conditioner.

Poem

If I wander

If I wander, where could I go?
This heavy wheelchair cuts a swath.
Some store, I’ll knock down a display.
Piles of goods are stacked in my way.

But really, where would I go?
Ever, as now, on the bus.
People to watch, bridges to cross—
Come, let’s explore, there’s no loss.

On the streets, there’s always a story. 
Children run backward, dogs pull their leash.
Scent of a bakery, lilacs in bloom,
Wet roads and urine, an urban perfume.

Sometime the rain soaks through my jacket.
That’s no matter; I will dry out.
Find me some coffee, cortado and cream.
I’ll stop there to write, in the cave of my dream.

More about pattern

This is not a crime scene. Forests are full of patterns. Leaves, pinecones, foliage, trunks, spiderwebs, scat. What looks like a pile of bones is really roots, fir needles and twigs with a dressing of green new life.

Mundane things are seldom mundane when you look carefully. These are lentils.

More often, nature is anything but mundane.

Poem and photo

Upside down day

First things last,
Dinner for breakfast.
We’re out of coffee.
How did that happen?

The cat chooses aloofness. 
No calls on your phone.
Writing late, sewing easy,
Thread the needle first try.

Lavender sky, portent of fortune.
There in the street, find a glittering ball,
Toy of a dog, or perhaps an infant
Squishy, mysterious, miraculously orange.

Now try meditation, 
Keep to the middle.
That bottle of fireflies,
Too close to the edge.

The edge of dark twilight,
The edge of not knowing
How to move onward?
Take the middle fork.

Wait, no—there are two forks.
You have to choose one.
Blaze a path now between them,
Just special to you.

Remember the middle!
The hole in the doughnut
We suspect that the middle
Is really a void.

See, now I’ve convinced you
To veer from the median.
Follow the fringes—
There is your bliss.

There is the middle,
Cloven in two.
Pick one and suck till
The marrow is gone.

This is the squishy, sparkly orange ball mentioned in the poem. I found it lying in the street. Its plastic surface is tacky, and the center of gravity shifts as you manipulate it. It is also remarkably heavy. Photo by Robert Jaffe

Check out

Well, here is the end. I’ll be back next week with a more robust posting. I’ve been gathering stories. I got my hair cut. I rode the bus but took fewer photos. I went to a Portland neighborhood called Lents, where many people asked me to write poems for them. I’m interviewing two authors, one of whom wrote a book about Lents.

And you? Please take care of yourself. Do more reading. I hope you are writing, but I don’t like to nag.

It has just occurred to me that I haven’t seen any petunias this summer. Nor primroses.

Here’s a quote about primrose. I have shared it already, on June 3, 2023, but it’s so delicious I’m serving it again. The speaker is Francis Crawford of Lymond, a character in a series of historical novels by the Scots writer Dorothy Dunnett that I recommend.

It is very sad; but no one with theological training is ever going to believe that nine times out of ten, what is best for one’s character is the primrose path, not the thicket of thorns.

Gather ye primroses while ye may. And please check the “like” heart on your way out. Even better, leave a comment.

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