Perpetuation

The son, dressed in a white, wife-beater t-shirt and ragged, cutoff jean shorts (and neon orange tennis shoes) exactly like his father (whose tennis shoes were white), brought the son to the desserts and told him he could pick whatever cupcake he wanted.  His son looked up from the corner of his eyes to be sure his dad meant it, half-flinching in the way of too many sons who want nothing more than to avoid angering their fathers, and then he pointed to a neon pink frosted cupcake.  His father nearly shouted, "No!  Not pink!"  The boy flinched and curled in on himself, and the father grabbed a yellow cupcake and then dragged his son by his wrist back to their place at the picnic table. 

Later I hear that the orange shoes were a compromise because they were the closest to pink his father would allow.

Thanksgiving 2013

The school bell rings
summoning imaginary
students to class and
releasing them from it,

and I don't even twitch
at the sound because
those bells have not
ruled me for years.

On hold to Beethoven's Emperor Piano Concerto

The only thing that made
all the waiting on hold
with the computer help
desk bearable was the
hold music--Beethoven's
Emperor Piano Concerto
(No. 5 in E Flat Major,
Op. 73)--because, even
though it is a terrible
recording with pops and
scratches, I can't help
snickering because the
last time I heard this
lovely piece so much, it
was threaded through an
anime tv show where none
of the characters were
very likeable and all
died brutally by the end,
along with everyone in
the entire world, and this
humorous incongruity is
what keeps the rage at
bay through wasted hours.

Today (November 30)

today

I am changing

my calendar early,

so I can start at least 

the last month
on time

Orion on the couch again (early November)

Orion's back on his couch on the clear nights
lounging on the horizon waiting for the snow
to fall, waiting for some other constellation
to talk him through his pre-winter blues and
get him up on his feet again, ready to face
another dizzying elliptical trek through the darkness.

The Calendar (October)

I turned to October late,
but the picture grew so
lovely to me by then end,
I didn't want November
to come.

a dream so bright

the dream I woke from was so bright

it took half an hour for me to realize

it was a dark and cloudy day

the trouble with autumn

the trouble with autumn

in the Midwest is that

there are no blue trees

to complete the rainbow

How to love the broken

I don't know how 

to communicate

through all the broken 

glass and spikes you

have wrapped yourself 

in that you are loved 

and liked and you

do not have to be 

like your mother

or let her have 

this power over you

anymore.

Eclipse with clouds and rain

Somewhere above the clouds tonight

was an interesting eclipse I wish I'd seen:

half the moon in the shadow of the earth

and half reflecting all the sun. But it was

completely overcast, autumn cold and

drizzly, and all I could see when I looked

up was the rain and the city lights 

reflecting down off the clouds, and I

wanted to know how to show love 

to this broken person in my life, but 

I can't see past the clouds and the cold rain.

October haiku

.

rain falls on the roof
winter comes to steal the warmth
the trees bleed and rust

.

.

the tree on the left under a solidly cloudy sky

the tree on the left
is glowing with such brilliant
gold in the gloom that
at first I thought the sun
had come out and spoiled
my lovely, melancholy day

ordinary moments

Today there were 3
fortunes in my fortune cookie.
Good fortune or bad?

Two of the fortunes
were lost in translation, but
the third, at least, is
worth contemplating:

There are
no
ordinary moments.

Santa Maria del Mar in Barcelona, Spain

The travel website says
you should leave at least
half an hour to fully enjoy

the cathedral.  It has 34
chapels, a unique exterior
and interior, and it would
take me hours even to glance

over all the glorious light and
shadow, especially because
the windows were built to
make the nature of the light
change inside as the sun
moves across the sky outside,

something I would never
have noticed on my own,
because who can sit still
and watch surrounded by
all that soot-stained stonework,
imagining the raising of the
keystone and arches with

ropes and pulleys and
sweat and blood
and Plague and Inquisition
or the time it burned for
11 days and almost fell apart.

The travel website is silly
to think 30 minutes can
contain all that beauty.

It's probably a good
thing I will never go there
because I would weep
at all those tourists

who could see all
they wanted to see
(who thought they had
seen everything
there is to see)
in 30 minutes.

Things not to do before bed because they are not relaxing

Things not to do before bed because they are not relaxing

• Read John Scalzi's Whatever blog
• Catch up on email
• Read anything about your alma mater continuing to embarrass itself
• Do anything on Facebook
• Read any comments on anything on the internet
• Look at houses you can't afford or houses in neighborhoods you can't live in
• Add your own thing here

another good thing about working 10 hour days (aside from being employed, which is great)

A good thing about working
10-hour days is that, if it is this

hot outside, by the time you 

leave work, the temperature is 

less dreadful, and you don't 

have to overload the power grid
with your AC quite as intensely.

ways to drown out the shouty people

Ways to drown out the shouty people in your apartment building when you want to relax and enjoy your days off work

• Play opera music loudly (even if all the ones you need to listen to have Kiri Te Kanawa, who is not your favorite soprano)
• Play your favorite fighting anime loudly
• Keep the AC on constantly
• Other suggestions that are actually relaxing?

on ode to back porches (the one I can't write)

I want to write an ode to back porches
because it's not possible for there to
be too many praises for such places,
but I can't remember how to write one,
and I'm too lazy to get up off this
padded porch furniture from which I watch
the grass growing when I open my eyes.

against the dying of the light

There is still a month of summer left

technically, but the longest day is two

months behind us, and I am half-sick

of shadows already, trying not to sulk

or rage against the dying of the light.

A good reunion

My voice today

is still a little bit

hoarse from talking

to people I love

but only see once

a year or even less

frequently, and that

is one way to tell it

was a good reunion.