There was an absence of leaves shaped like a bear. I thought it was a bear at first glance. It was like one of those cartoon characters
that just ran through a wall, and now the hole in the wall is their exact outline,
but this was a wall of leaves and the outline was a bear.
Of course, the more I looked at it the more the bear simply
became a misshapen shadow of dark forest, which – by the way, would not be my
color of choice for a kid’s room.
“No Timmy, that one IS a bear.”
Our likeness was captured and placed in a frame,
Now we are destined to sit here and smile –
Nowhere at all does it mention our name,
We’ll be here for quite a long while.
Through yard sales and garage sales to antique shops in
time,
We will travel through life just as faces –
In cartons and boxes with clocks that don’t chime,
With postcards of forgotten places,
We know you don’t know us, our houses are gone
Our number – don’t bother to call it,
We’re simply a couple, call us Linda and John –
The ones who came with your wallet.
The photograph below has not been doctored
or photo-shopped. It was taken without special filters
or enhancements of any kind.
edge of this cloud formation.
They have been verified.
Notation: These craft are smaller than those previously photographed, and are not visible in the night sky.
I felt an insignificance
compared to life around,
I was smaller than a crumb –
Everything was large to me
I was smaller than a bumble bee,
no opposable thumbs –
Minding my own business
just doing what I otter,
When suddenly it all went dark...
I call this poem –
Fly Swatter.
Sue had gotten a book from the library on spaghetti farming,
and the more she read up on it, the more she wanted to do it. Her sister Leeann already owned the stretch
of land just west of the interstate, and hadn’t ever done anything with
it. The book had a lot of good
information in it and several good hints, so before Sue returned it to the
library, she wrote down the author’s name and the publisher’s information and
ordered her own copy from Amazon.
After convincing Leeann to lease her the property, Sue set
out to talk to the banker. She was going
to need some rather expensive equipment and some initial supplies to get
started, so she would need more money than she currently had. What Sue lacked in collateral she made up for
in enthusiasm and the banker could see that.
The bank manager just seemed to know there was no way Sue would fail at
this business. She got her loan.
That first summer was spent prepping the land. Using a Massey Ferguson 571 Tractor, Sue
scraped off the top surface of her stretch of Interstate land. Not only had there been weeds, but debris as
well. There were all kinds of litterie
things along the roadside, like beer cans, candy wrappers, the occasional
hubcap and a few body parts. Sue donated
everything she collected to the local landfill.
In the meantime, her order of Italian seasonings had
arrived, which included large sacks of Parsley, Oregano,
Basil and Fennel. Using her John Deer
tiller, she blended the spices into the thick, rich tomato sauce mixture she had spread across the farm, sprinkling olive
oil as she went.
Using breadsticks, Sue marked off her property line at each end and set long
stretches of red and white checkered tablecloth material as a barrier along the
edge of the Interstate to prevent any future debris from coming over onto her
farm.
Not unlike sourdough starter, pasta noodles must be carefully trimmed from a source noodle. Once gathered, there is only so much time to get them spliced and into the sauce before growing season begins. Just as Sue was well into the splicing project, a health inspector showed up and began to question Sue about the various body parts she had donated to the landfill. As Sue was giving the inspector the details of what she had come across, the inspector was sniffing the air and looking a little confused.
He finally interrupted
Sue and asked, “Where’s your garlic?”
There comes a point when you know nothing you do is going to
keep the ship from sinking. It is a
mental resignation. Just as you knew
back at the bar, you had enough money to keep drinking but no amount of alcohol
was going to undo what had been done.
There was no going back.
Neither scenario is desirable. All control has been taken away from
you. The water that now washes over the
deck of the ship is ice-cold on your feet and urges you to seek higher ground,
but too much has transpired leading to this point in time. Even your now soaked shoes feel the ocean floor
tugging at them, beckoning them to join the murky bottom. They have become anchors. They are heavy and your feet are freezing, perhaps
offering a glimpse of an imminent reality.
There are no Jack Sparrow moments here. No last-minute rescues or flashes of genius
that will turn things around. In this
moment you know exactly what it means to go down with the ship, and yet your
mind races, your eyes dart about the deck hoping to see something, anything MacGyverish.
By the time he got home he was completely
worn out.
That was way too far to carry the one.
