Do You See?

He sees. 

The masses of humanity  who pass him by ( if you can even call them that.) For where IS their humanity ?

Webster’s , that great tome of definitions, tells us ; HUMANITY ~compassion, brotherly love, fraternity, fellow feeling, philanthropy, humaneness, kindness, consideration, understanding, sympathy, tolerance …………

Perched on a milk crate , in mis-matched shoes, soles worn down to paper thin.

The little dog,  eyes shining bright , with the reflection that , he and the man are a tribe all their own.

The man’s grayed hair , and face lined  with a hundred, no maybe even a thousand memories .

Perhaps even memories he would wish to forget , of places far away, jungles hot and fetid.

The chopping sounds of helos flying over, and wondering if there is an end to this madness.

He sees.

That the people passing by have forgotten about those days, easier for them to pretend it never happened.

And so to pretend that he does not exist either.

But , he sees. 

And wrapped in an honor that only a few will know, that even fewer CAN know.

The creases in his face , would tell you the story, if  only YOU could see.

Fluid ~

 

 

It waters the Earth, and the flowers , trees and all things green.

The lovely yet jangled noise of it on the tin roof of my house,

reminds me that it is good for all living things.

And yet, my broken body , shrinks into itself,

when it sees the clouds on the horizon.

Bringing with it the ache of the dark forces of weather.

And then it comes full -force.

I see it dripping from the eaves, in perfect timing,

reminiscent of a thousand drops of  intravenous fluids.

The rivulets of rain , coming sharp and fast,

like needles in the hundreds of hands ,

I’ve been subject to.

I remind myself , “It is only rain. “

And yet my subconscious whispers ………….

“It is only rain………….for now. “

When I Was Four~

*When I was four*

Being four is not fair.Not fair at all.  I don’t belong in this dress.

Stupid lacy hat . Choking me with it’s girliness.
And a purse?
I can’t put my baseball and dead bugs in this.
I need my rolled-up Levi’s and Chucks.

Or better still bare-footed
I want so badly to pull away from this picture,
because it isn’t showing me.
I don’t want to look at it now, five years from now , or even ten years from now,
because all I see in this moment , and will see later, is a stranger standing there.
I see my best boy friends, John, Adam and Matt standing across the street.

My Three Amigos, or perhaps in this situation, the Three Stooges …….
They are  laughing at me, and doing their  best imitations of a ballerinas,
just to mock me.
They’ll see. 
This pink dress won’t keep me from blacking their eyes, and dealing out a bloody nose or two.
It’s not fair. I don’t belong in this dress.

Komorebi~

Komorebi~木漏れ日

Early a.m, and the magic will start  , ever so slightly at first.

That certain gold that drips from God’s never-ending palette.

Down from the tops of the elms, and oaks,

it comes,  unaware of its own spectacular beauty.

Diamonds lit from within , dappled light transformed.

Glittering down , in a never-ending spectacular kaleidoscope ,

infinite in its choices of fractals.

I am struck by the feeling  that the golden drops have their own secrets,

and whisper them only to the leaves, who raise their veined bodies to hear it all.

Devotees’ to the words the sunlight speaks.

Never spoken to outsiders,

but passed from one to another ,

on the sacred parchment of their own greenery.

Komorebi , 木漏れ日,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hillbillies, Happenings, and How are y’all?

 

 

So , How are y’all ? or as some would say , How y’all are?  There have been quite a few interesting happenings  in my lovely home state  of Arkansas in just the last few days. Some private citizens paid to have a monument to those good list of rules that are just a pretty good idea for all people to follow, or you would think pretty much everybody would think they are good rules for everybody to follow. You know things like, “Don’t go knockin’ your neighbor over the head. ” and “How ’bout we don’t make off with things that don’t belong to us?” and here’s a pretty swell idea for the general population , “How’s about we don’t lie to each other , so as we can trust what we all say?”  and maybe , ” Let’s not go gettin’ naked with somebody else’s spouse?” that wouldn’t be an alright thing, now would it?. So anywho, they put these and few more like them on a big ole rock, and put them on the lawn of a building. Now the government didn’t pay for them, some regular people did. And they were no more out there a day , then what some feller decided he’d run them down with his car while shouting , “FREEEEEEDOOOOMMM!!!!!” Yes. This really happened.  And what’s more , apparently this individual had done this once before.

So this happens two days ago. Now TODAY,  in some club in the capitol city of my home state some people decided that they were offended by something someone said, or did, or just looked at them sideways, and 25 people were shot, and 3 other people were wounded. No one died. Which brings me to the point of my blog today. Which is……… WHEN people find out I am from Arkansas. Which is pretty much right  after I open my mouth. ‘Cause I guess, I have an accent. Who knew.

That’s right . Y’all go on ahead and laugh. Everybody else does. Other people have two reactions. They either think it is the sweetest thing ever, or the most ignorant . But it’s always the same. “Oh my goodness, that is just the sweetest thing! Where are you from?!?” or “Well, don’t you just sound stupid. You MUST be from the South.  ” Because apparently, being from the South, especially from Arkansas , and having my particular accent , makes you immediately some sort of inbred with the I. Q. of a turnip.  And these types of news stories are NOT helpful. So I am going to set the record straight, we have had loads of educated, brilliant , magnificent people hail from here, and  as a tiny tasting here is a small list……………..

Alan Ladd ~ Actor

E. Fay Jones  ~ Architect

Maya Angelou~ Poet

John Grisham ~ Author

Sam Walton ~ Founder of Wal-Mart

General Douglas MacArthur

Brigadier General Archibald Yell

Glen Campbell ~ Singer

Johnny Cash ~ Singer

Ne-Yo ~ Rapper

Hattie Caraway ~ 1st Woman U.S. Senator

Dick Covey~ Astronaut

Hangin’ Judge Isaac Parker

President Bill Clinton

Luther Capps

Okay, so you probably don’t know the last name on that list. But to me he was the most important. He’s the man in the picture above. He was my Grandpa. Now he didn’t go to some fancy dan college. And he had an accent too. But he was in my estimation one of the smartest men ever. He could grow anything. Fix anything. Build anything. He was born in 1913, and lived through the Dust Bowl, and the Great Depression. He picked cotton, lived in California and worked the orchards, rode the rails as a hobo, and did anything he had to do to survive. He had muscles like whipcord even in his 70s and could out work men half his age. He taught me to drive , barefooted in an old 1963 Ford Falcon pickup on a backroad with the windows down and the air so hot you felt you couldn’t even feel your lungs move anymore. He followed those rules that the crazy FREEDOM shouting man so callously ran over.

 

So I refuse to apologize. That man running down the 10 Commandments and the crazy nightclub shooters are not what the “average person ” is like here. The “average” person here is like my Grandpa , God rest him.  So, NO, I am not going to “flatten” my accent to make other people feel better about themselves, or to hide where I am from. I will straight up tell you, “Yes, I am from Arkansas. No, we are not ignorant hillbillies. I do not care that you think my accent is stupid. Yes, we talk slow. Maybe it’s so all of the REST of you people can understand , ’cause y’all are the ones a little bit ‘off’, did you ever think of that?”

I will leave you with the words of Ms. Maya Angelou herself ……..

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.