not mother's day

My sweet and amazing friend is pregnant
with a baby without a brain
that will die at birth or soon after.

"Although some individuals
with anencephaly may be born
with a main brain stem, the lack
of a functioning cerebrum
permanently rules out the possibility
of ever gaining consciousness."

I wrote the due date
in my calendar.
May 13th is
Mother's Day, and I
hate that this is so.  Why
couldn't the doctors know that
and pick some random other
not-Mother's Day day?  It's not
as if the exact date matters.  So
why that day of all days?

"There is no cure
or standard treatment
for anencephaly and
the prognosis for patients
is death."

They have decided to carry it to term
and they will love their little incomplete
baby until the day it dies.

"If the infant is not
stillborn, then he
or she will usually
die within a few hours
or days after birth
from cardiorespiratory arrest."

There will be a lot of
broken hearts over this.

"Reflex actions
such as breathing and
responses to sound or touch
occur."

I'm not sure if I wish
the child to be stillborn
to save them
from their little one
responding
brainlessly

to the sound of
mother's voice or the touch
of father's hand.

I'm not sure
they would want
to be saved
from that.




Fair warning I didn't get: the images are disturbing; quotes taken from here.

remembering June 27th

.
today
perfectly cloudy

with sun wind
and a high of 75

every spider's web
outlined in cottonwood seeds
.

and now the pond

.
and now the pond
is visible through thinning leaves
widening my view
trees and water
not just trees
there is nothing wrong with just trees
but water, well, there's nothing wrong with that, either

I have never owned
a view of a pond
I find it is something I am
looking forward to
once the wasps are really gone
and I can relax in my home again
without wariness or wasp-smeared windows.
.

False positives

I'm trying to be positive about the cold virus that currently has me by the throat.  I mean, at least it's happening now and not, say, when I need to be recording feedback for my students for eight hours a day or dictating a ton of stuff at my other job.  (That's next week, so as long as I get over this in half the time it normally takes, I'll be fine!)  I also learned something valuable: you don't actually have to get worried about coughing up bloody crap unless it's pure blood or you've been doing it for 10 days.  See?  Illness can be a positively enlightening learning experience! 

. . .

tonight's October moon

.
one
huge
half-lidded
black cat's eye
staring from the sky
luminous

don't look away
don't blink
.

The view in winter

.
from my third floor apartment
the view will be lovely

stark and leafless

branches against
the skies in winter
.



Any comments/suggestions about line breaks?

Lost

.

Harvest moon

hanging low

tell me where

I ought to go.

.

Better as two lines?  Part of something bigger?  As is?

Snuff: A Novel of Discworld will be released on October 11, 2011

Just had to share.
:)

Waspocalypse 2011 continues . . .

In case you didn't know, I've been suffering from a plague of wasps for a month and a half, and my nerves are rather frayed.  There's nothing like being tied to your computer, the only place you can grade stuff for your online course, while you are dodging and slaughtering wasps.  It's made it hard for me to post on my blog, even, sadly enough.  I've been avoiding home.

Any attempt at a relaxing day at home is a failure when you are forced to kill something.  I am bad at the killing.  I'm not referring to my wasp-slaying skills, though there has been definite improvement in this area by necessity.  I just can't handle killing and death very well.  Even if it's just a wasp, I feel sick inside that it has to die just so I can relax.

Why I should appreciate the wasps

• They keep me on my toes.
• They love art.
• They encourage me to work faster.
• They encourage me to get out more.

After my 5 wasps in 24 hours debacle and subsequent hysterical phone call to the apartment manager who had told me they had done everything they could, they called in an exterminator who looked a the exterior of the building and said, yep, it's sealed up tight with no way for wasps to get in.  He sprayed it to humor me. 

The next day I had a wasp. 

Today, I've killed one and been stalking another since noon.  It has ADHD and won't land where I can kill it.  I have neck strain as a result. 

Now it has another friend, and they're hanging out on my painting, which I am not going to smash them onto for all time.  They are laughing at me; I can tell. 

I really need this to stop. 

They're going to call wasp dude back and have him fumigate my apartment, which might actually be more likely to kill me than the wasps.  It's not an ideal solution because it could wreck my computer and my books and my couch and even my clothes, and if this misses any, then I will get to meet them in the spring.  I really don't think I can handle being afraid to come home and having to twitch at every noise not related to the regular domestic disturbances.

I have twitched over 50 times today when wasps hit or approached the window.  I was told by the maintenance guy that every time he's been up to look around, he hasn't seen any.  I really find that hard to believe, but he's not as twitchy as I am.  He's also slightly hard of hearing from power tool use, so he probably misses the meaty thunks and slightly stunned hovering I see and hear on the other side of the window on a bright, sunny day.

I will leave another note and the corpses, so when the wasp guy comes, he can see I am not making this up.  As if the smears on the window, walls, and ceiling marking their final resting places are not enough proof. 

So the main question is why do wasps like this apartment so much when they never have before?  I have come up with some possible ideas

• They are literary wasps.
• They are artistic wasps.
• They think I smell like common field pest bugs.
• They hate me.
• They enjoy seeing me hyperventilate.
• There is a game of Wasp Survivor going on in my walls, and the loser doesn't just get kicked out of the nest . . .

They say there's no nest and that there's no way for the wasps to get in from outside.  Tell that to the two wasps canoodling on the top of my painting right now and the corpse in the window groove.  Where are Holmes and Watson when I need them?

A poem from last week

The problem with opening
the curtains to let in the sunlight
is that I can see the smears
of dead wasp goo on the
shadows of the window glass
on the floor.

Goo isn't the most artistic word.  Anyone have a better suggestion?