Kitchen Island

 

47° SW by 21° & 8 minutes past the hour.

Tree of Life

 

Scattered to the Winds

 

As friends and family members age, like the leaves of a family tree, they tend to dry and blow away.  Some have blown to Texas, others to Seattle, with many landing along the rugged Eastern coastline.

Sometimes, ignoring the wind, they fall but stay put.  Never tumbling beyond the familiar.

An unseen tug-of-war forms between memories and distance.  Conversations skim the surface, but new surroundings and a different life create immoveable wedges.  Topics restricted to yesterdays and beyond. Things we once did together, now sit quietly on the shelf until dusted by phone calls.  Plans and promises are sealed in jars, like preserves. 

It has always been the fate of a family tree to fall and decay, feeding the surrounding soil with grandchildren.

 

 

ZC

The Box

 

There are wounded toys in the box that have not been attended to, like broken limbs, barely functioning batteries and buttons that can no longer focus.

Children avoid looking when they pass.  Adults see only trash that not long ago was so important.  We can’t always blame time.  Time does its own thing, no matter what else is going on. 

The sweeping hands of the clock are busy pushing schedules, changing hair color and adding more stairs than there once was.  The toys stayed in the background, living their own lives.  They stayed busy in pretend land, where time gets measured in meals. 

But what of the box that we pass and dare not look at?  All the bits we have left behind, blaming time for not being adequate, for running out too soon.  Relationships left unrepaired, phone calls not returned and letters started that still lay folded in the drawer.

 

 "Someday..."

Errant Scribbler's Syndrome

 

There is no cure   

 I am forever destined to stumble over a misspelled word or walk about with a pocket full of leftover punctuation.  I do not know if there is a term for my affliction, I just know it is acute and persistent.

    Things I have scribbled years ago flourish with mistakes that remained hidden back in the day, but for some reason seem to step into the spotlight at the present time.

    I expect it will be my undoing.  I shall be annoyed to death while sitting here at my desk reading an old post somewhere on this blog.  I will come across some glaring tense issue, and it will put me over the edge.

    You’ve seen them, I know you have.  They are like weeds, popping up here and there, now and then.  I imagine Shakespeare struggled with something, the language being so highfalutin back then, with no spell-check or even white-out.  What a nightmare.  I bet that before he changed it to Much ado about nothing, he wrote, What’s all the fuss?

    I could, of course, start a Go Fund Me page, but throwing money at the issue wouldn’t accomplish much, and clinical research would only add lab coats to laundry day.  Like I say, there isn’t a cure.  Until I reach that final period, I will walk along the margins, scanning sentences and paragraphs for booboos.   That’s all I can do.

 

ZC

We're in this together

 

Until there is an attempt, nobody really knows the path of least resistance.  Just as some movie makers overshoot the ending.  “He should have ended it back when…”

It’s difficult to know something beforehand.  If it is the first time for something, it is all guess work.  That can become expensive, not to mention hazardous.

        When you are wheeled into a hospital, you’re hoping your case isn’t unique.  You never want to be the first one to have something like this, or to experience this.  You want the doctor that’s been around the block, not the one who could pass for a 12-year-old.

        The same for an auto mechanic, although the risk is not as high.  A new chef at a restaurant – maybe, but a new trapeze artist that needs to catch you, never.

        You also don’t want to be at the other end either.  “Here, taste this, I think it’s bad.”

        Here’s the thing, this post isn’t about the path of least resistance or screams coming from a hospital room, or an auto mechanic with leftover parts.   It is about everything being connected.  It’s all connected, just like mushrooms you see growing in your lawn.  On the surface each stands on its own, each appears unique, and yet just below the surface it is one large and complicated network of life.

        Even this Blog has connected you and me.  It may be a thin link but here it is.  My brain sprouts an idea, you read it and the connection is made.  The circuit is complete.  Now my idea is floating about in your brain.

        Keep in mind, just as not every mushroom is edible, not all of my ideas are good ones.  In fact, most are just passing time until my expiration date, when I come face to face with that 12-year-old. 

 

 

 

 

 Z. Corwin

 

 

 

 

Forty-seven cents

 

There must be a reason for pocket change

although it varies both in quantity and sound

perfect for some things

but short for others,

 

Adequate to give away

while secure in its keeping

 

Fine to transfer on laundry day

from here to there

With some

finding its way into the wash

 

It has followed us throughout history

It has been on TV

and up on the silver screen

 

It is carried in novels

as well as in short stories

 

and now it has come here.

 

 

ZC

Beneath a Broken Streetlight

 

I wandered nervous through the town

Shadows filled each alley way

I seemed to jump at every sound

I should have come here in the day

 

Homeless sleeping here and there

Blankets made from daily news

I stepped across some underwear

The place it reeked of rancid booze

 

In quiet steps I crossed the street

A familiar sight I hoped to see

But standing dressed from head to feet

A mannequin was all it be

 

In the window looking smug

Showing off his scarf and hat

Oh how I’d love to be inside

Safe and warm and dressed like that

 

Outside instead in all this dark

Scared and hungry all alone

I can’t remember where I parked

Without a signal on my phone.

 

 

 

 

     ZC