Sunday, July 31, 2016

20160731.1219

We just wanted
To update you on
Our progress

Matters are going as expected
Nothing is wrong
No delays are anticipated

Your continues patience is
Appreciated

Saturday, July 30, 2016

20160730.2007

Please excuse any inconvenience
We are in the middle
Of relocating
And your content will resume
Regular delivery
Soon

Friday, July 29, 2016

20160729.0820

Work continues
As ever it must
But
Now
It is not enough
Really
It has never been
Enough
Since there is always
More
To do
And there is more to do
And more of it is
Unseen
Than
Seen

Thursday, July 28, 2016

20160728.0749

I often wonder
What I would need to set aside
To be pure

The answer depends
On the purity I seek
Of course
Because
It is not as if
Only
One
Kind
Is to be found
And
It cannot be
That all are achieved
Save by emptying the self
Fully

But
In such a case
I am minded that
Nature abhors a vacuum
And what would rush in
To fill my void
Is likely undesirable

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

20160727.0857

Coming back from the ranch
To the small city
Mimicking in miniature
The greater motions of people
Green to gray
Quiet to noise
I was struck by
The haze of the rain
Over the hills

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

20160726.0638

It is summer in the hills of oak and cedar
And the heat is known
Legendary, even

Among its effects is
A stifling
Not only of action
But of communication

It is hard to talk
To add more hot air
To air already heated
To the limit of endurance
Or beyond it
As is the case for no small number

This is true for words
Spoken mouth to ear
Written pen to paper
Written finger to key
Even if there is
Air conditioning

Monday, July 25, 2016

20160725.0645

Oh, what a happy day, today!
It's Christmas in July!
I'll go shopping! I'll not say
What all I'm going to buy!
It has to be surprise, you see,
Each of the many gifts
That I will pick up, to my glee.
Oh, how my soul uplifts
When I partake of commerce now!
Oh, how my spirit soars
When, at last, I me allow
To go into the stores
And spend the money I have earned
Through hours spent ill at ease!
Although my skin is not sunburned
Or I hit with disease,
I am tired from the work
And shopping gives a little perk
To me, just enough to jerk
Me to complacency

Sunday, July 24, 2016

20160724.1043

Moving forward
Challenges will present themselves
But we will endure
And we may even thrive
Although things will not be
As they were

Then again
They cannot improve if
They do not change

Saturday, July 23, 2016

20160723.1059

At times like this
I am tempted to look back
To reflect on what has been
Where I was
Who I was

I am fighting the impulse

Acceding to it
Will only make me feel worse
Either
Because I was better then
Than I am now
Or
Because I was all too much
An ass

There is no point

Friday, July 22, 2016

20160722.0803

I hate
Waking up
With a headache
When I did not even
Drink
The night before

How do I wake up
Hungover
When I was not
Drunk
Or drinking
At all?

I hate it

Thursday, July 21, 2016

20160721.0801

The number
21
Has a special significance
In the US
And it adds some today
In SA
How soon it will be
Before it joins
50
Is anyone's guess
But it is certainly
Coming

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

20160720.0924

Nights in places
Not my own
Remind me
That I need to find a place
Of my own
Once again
It will help

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

20160719.0641

Not long ago
I bought new socks

It had been several years since I had done so
I had moved into
And out of
A house
Had a contract job that ran its course
Even crossed time-zones
Since the last time
I bought new socks

I am wearing a pair today

I had forgotten
How nice it feels
To have socks fit to feet

I am glad
I bought new socks
But it will probably be
A long time
Until I do it again

Monday, July 18, 2016

20160718.0822

Work continues
As ever it must
I have students
For whom to prepare
Things to learn
And for whom
I have things to grade
And there is other work
As well
That seems to need to be done again
Which vexes

Sunday, July 17, 2016

20160717.1054

I suppose
This kind of thing
Is drawing on
And on
And on
Long enough

Maybe I will pull out
Something different
But not today

Saturday, July 16, 2016

20160716.0859

Texan I remain
And so I am happy to
Eat breakfast tacos
How any could not be so
Surpasses explanation

Friday, July 15, 2016

20160715.0915

Trying to handle the money
And dealing with the things that make the money--
But not much
Because I teach
And teachers are paid as though they cannot--
And negotiating screaming
And confusion
And fixing broken things
And knowing that the floor needs sweeping
And there are more dishes to do--
Although I am not alone in doing them
Which I appreciate--
I wonder
How anybody does it
Or ever has

Thursday, July 14, 2016

20160714.0803

Somehow
Amid all of this
She sings
She smiles
She babbles contentedly
Words forming from the stream
Intelligibly
More and more often

The questions have not come yet
They will
She is not as close to some things as she might be
As her mother and I fear
But she is not so far from them as we might like
And there will be questions

I do not know how I will answer them
I do not know how I can answer them
Given that I am who I am
Looking in only from the outside
But I do not know where to go to be able to help her
And I want to help her
She will need to know
She deserves answers
When she asks

For now
However
She sings
She smiles
She babbles contentedly
Words forming from the stream
Intelligibly
More and more often
And she says she loves me

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

20160713.0700

There remains much to do
Of course
No matter how much is done

More of it emerges

Someday
I will find the source
And see if I cannot plug it

After all
Even Pandora's box
Shut again
Preserving hope
Against all the rest of the former contents

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

20160712.0747

Silence may be
Complicity
But speaking is not much better
If not to ears that hear
That lead to minds that think
And there are damned few of them

We must not be the teller of tales
Bespoken in the Scottish play
Even if the queen has died
Or her king
Or her children--
Or our sisters and brothers
And others for whom no such convenient word exists

Being otherwise is not easy
But
If there is no challenge
There is no reason to improve

Monday, July 11, 2016

20160711.0647

There are many
Celebrations
Marking small things of some delight
And alleviating some of the tedium
Many feel

If today is not one of them
Calling up the convenience store
I shall be disappointed

After looking
It is not
And I am
But I should
Perhaps
Expect to be so

Sunday, July 10, 2016

20160710.1045

An unnatural piece of natural history
Beckons from the cowboy capital OF the world
And all I can think of are
The laundry I have to do today or tomorrow
And the fact that I need new socks and pants
And the students whose work will need review
And my own writing that I neglect too much
Even though the beckoning calls my family with me
And I know they will go
And that my place is with them

Saturday, July 9, 2016

20160709.1834

There are times I am called away
By other things
Needful things
Although this is needful
Per the Doctor's example

Done with them
I return
And
Things
Are
Good
When I do

Friday, July 8, 2016

20160708.0721

Again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
And again
With no end
Until we make it
But we seem unready to do so
Or unwilling

Thursday, July 7, 2016

20160707.0747

I have been reading
As would be expected
And one of the things I have read
At once makes me sad
And instills some strange pride
That I stood when others have fled
Yet I must wonder
If I have done well
To give free rein to my bull head
I might still get lucky
I might land a job
But I might not, and that fate I dread
I'd not be alone
Did it not happen
Reports claim a third for that trend
And the half that have gone
Perhaps have done better
Quitting for a fairer end

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

20160706.0648

So often insulated
By the red walls of my shuttlepod
Surrounded by its sounds
And its sound system
I forget the quiet that lies between stops on the highway

It is good to be reminded
From time to time

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

20160705.0649

Today
Another Juno fell into orbit
Around Jupiter
And those who put her there
Celebrate

They forget
However
That the Classical antecedents
Did not get along well
Despite being husband and wife
And despite being brother and sister

Look at the kids that came from that

There is this
Too
The orbiter
Is another
There was already one
Long since found
Is she so unimportant as to be supplanted
By artifice
Are all sisters
Wives
So unimportant
So easily replaced by machines
That simply orbit because they are told to by their makers

Perhaps the fight will soon begin
And we will see again
The abuses long reported
Between Rhea's children

Monday, July 4, 2016

20160704.0846

Two hundred forty years in
And people still have yet to figure things out
More those born into it
Than those who come into it

It doesn't seem to make much sense
Perhaps it does not need to do so

How many of us
Prefer
The sensible thing?

Sunday, July 3, 2016

20160703.2233

Sun-cured
With a pink ring a quarter-inch into me
I am ready to be eaten
By some hungry mouth
And digested
Passed on
And set to fertilize
Say what I am
Or
If you know
What crop will arise

Saturday, July 2, 2016

20160702.1000

Things are moving
Stirred despite the summer heat
And I will be out in it
An old roadrunner dashing from shade to shade
In search of something yet unknown

Friday, July 1, 2016

20160701.0853

Today
She is a year older
And I love her a year more
Another year of history shared
Another year of changes that we have had
Together
Changes to her and to the union we comprise
Deepening
Enriching
And I am grateful that she still shares her life with me
As she has for years

It is a shift for her
She has told me so
I hope it will be a good one.