Select Few

How is it that something so magnificently gorgeous

has become mundane?

How is it that beauty

no longer stops the world

just to stand in awe of it?

How is it that splendor

became normal?

How is it that a fly

is something you swat at

and not wonder at?

How is it that the letter  “T”

is in almost every sentence

and we do not hold it in reverence

whenever we cross those lines?

How is it that sharpening a pencil

does not astound us

in its incredible feat?

How is it that God created all the world

but we only revel in the glory of a select few?

Wikimedia/Jessie Eastland

Sometimes I Wonder

“Sometimes I wonder about glue. No one ever stops to ask glue how it’s holding up. If it’s tired of sticking things together or worried about falling apart or wondering how it will pay its bills next week.”
― Tahereh Mafi

Sometimes I wonder about binder twine

and if it gets annoyed with holding hay bales together,

the hay poking it and stretching to its limits.

Sometimes I wonder about electrons in ionic bonds

holding the elementals together to form stronger molecules

and if the electrons ever want to do their own thing.

Sometimes I wonder about skin

if it ever gets peeved with keeping all of our insides together,

keeping everything taut and secure.

Sometimes I wonder about the Corpus Callosum,

if the band of fibers connecting the two hemispheres of the brain would just want to take the day off

it doesn’t want to translate what one side says to the other.

Sometimes I wonder about people who try to be funny to make others happier,

that they would make themselves the fool just so that their loved ones would smile,

that they would defuse the situation at their own expense,

where do they get that energy to keep going with no recognition?

So glue, binder twine, ionic bonds, skin, the Corpus Callosum, funny people,

you are noticed and appreciated,

we thank you.

 

After Now

Why is it that I find your beauty

now, so enticing?

Why now, and not before?

Why is it that you were a mere commonality before,

but now, you are gloriously enrapturing,

heart-breaking and heart-warming

Have my eyes changed?

Have you changed?

Have you transformed from a single glance

to a forever – yet ever to short -of a gaze?

Or is it me?

***

There is a painting of a ship at sea

on my office wall

I have seen it everyday for as long as I can remember

but now, after all these years

do I finally realized how beautiful it is.

I finally appreciate it.

Why now, and not before?

I have read countless books about

sailors

boats

the sea

explorers and whalers

I have learned countless history lessons about events with sailors and boats

I have seen countless movies about the sea

I have read personal accounts concerning explorers and whalers

I have ridden the open waves with no land in sight

I have stared into that sinister, powerful, murky depth

and I have stared into those mystical, lapping, crashing ocean waves

In every sense I’ve been in that painting

but until now, it was just a painting,

but after now, it has its own life

own story

own tears to cry

own cheers to shout

own dead to bury

own lips to smile

own love to find

After now, it is not just something to look at

but something to be a part of

Why now, and not before

do I love you?

Because I finally understand you

and I know that I never truly can either

How Does Your Brain Work?

How does your brain work?

I ask, my dear friend.

What is tumbling around in that noggin of yours?

I laugh with my friend.

What makes you think that?

I wonder.

The random things you say,

the questions you ask.

But they aren’t random to you, are they?

This is how you understand the world.

It is your organization system

and you want all your facts and figures in order.

You want your people to line up with what is important to you.

Maybe this is why your memory is so good?

Maybe we shouldn’t be trying to ‘fix’ autism,

but understand you more.

There is nothing wrong with how you see things,

only different.

How does my brain work?

I ask myself.

What is tumbling around in that noggin of mine?

I laugh.

What makes me think that?

I wonder.

Progress

We have told our story

in many different forms

throughout the ages

beginning in one and being transformed into another

grunts and groans of cavemen

pictures on cave walls

hand signals for hunting

places on maps

oral traditions from ages ago

playing musical bone flutes

hieroglyphics on the pyramids

Inca knots on ropes

carvings on trees

stone and chisel

writing with a stick in the dirt

writing on reeds

letters relaying currency and commerce across the sea

oil paintings

stain glass

feather pen and paper

ship logs

book translations

the Gutenberg printing press

Newspapers

Shakespearean plays

colonist journals

the piano

Enlightenment essays

the Declaration of Independence

Romantic era novels

steam boats and steam trains

Social reform and the Second Great Awakening

telegraph wires

the Pony Express

Photographs

typewriters

the Waltz

Muckrakers

telephones

the radio

Jazz

record player

motion picture

modern art

computers the size of a room

home television

the Beatniks

space travel and moon landings

telephone hot lines

personal computers

Disco

boomboxes

bag phones

Pac-Man

VCR tapes

Walkman cassette tapes

CD players

the internet

MP3 Players

cell phones

Facebook

texting

YouTube

Google Drive

iPads

Angry Birds

Snapchat

All of this progress and communication

where has it brought us

where have we brought it?

It is a part of ourselves now

It is a part of our culture now

We are what we create

and look at what we have created.

I am not saying it is right

I am saying that it is

The Little Red Book

When my grandma died

we found a little red book

filled to the brim

with family history

birthdays

marriages

deaths.

The little red book

was stuffed between

fluffy, white towels

in the up stairs bathroom closet.

Oh the strange places we find treasure

yet to some

the little red book would not be treasure

just “useless history about dead people”

Yes, it is history

and yes, it is about dead people

but it’s my history

it is my dead people

it is my people.

With that in mind

we lost the little red book

for three years

and a week

to be exact.

We found a treasure and lost it

and found it again.

I found the little red book

in a Bible of a woman

that I never met

but know so much about.

That Bible was next to another Bible

belonging to another woman

that I never met

and know nothing about.

One from 1979 and the other from 1869

I have never met them

but they are my people

My people.

The first entry in the little red book

is a birth of a man 1847

a man that I don’t even share a name with

and the last entry in the little red book

is my parent’s marriage.

After excitement of the find

and awed page turning

The little red book

descends to the basement cabinet

with all the other family history items

pictures

letters

newspaper clippings

spoons

souvenirs

old Bibles

military dog tags

items belonging to people

I have met

and some I haven’t

They are my people

My people

Armor

He built armor for himself

but when does

armor cease to be armor

and begin to be a prison?

A Curious Conundrum

I have come across

a curious conundrum

and I don’t know what it means

Live

spelled backwards

is evil.

Lived

spelled backwards

is devil.

I don’t know what it means

but I know that it is there

Just like so many things in life

I don’t know what it means

but I know that it is there

Maybe I don’t know

because I haven’t tried to understand

How to Die

Inspired by Jules Verne’s line in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

“Yes,” I murmured, “we know how to die.”

Yes, we know how to die

on battle fields

in hospital beds

from buildings

in acts of cowardice

in acts of regret

in acts of sacrifice

with love

with fear

with hope

Yes, we know how to die

the question then becomes

how do we live?

That will determine

how we die.

Adapt

Our eyes have adapted

From seeing landscapes and hunting animals

From seeing paper and writing in ink

to now seeing screens and tapping on them.

The question posed to us,

as individuals.

is if we can keep up

with the rest of society

by adapting.

Pixabay/Unsplash