Why not live where it's warm

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?

Fertile Spring

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Winter's white cloak leaves.
Silent truth makes fresh their mess,
Dead with muddied rot.



(Jumbled Haiku from Winter's Mess)

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Time passes. We're now
The product of past seasons,
Praying to see Spring.

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Green,
A pleasant thing, they say.
On leaves in trees at spring,

In low mountains with clean air,
By private meadows with flowers,
Far from city care;

Peaceful moss on tired logs,
In clear ponds during rain showers
Filled by small turtles, frogs.

The cool color that covers everything
Impossible to glean, fills the heart all day
With warm unpleasant envy.

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Black bark and vibrant
Spring leaves--this old wise tree with
No house to clutter.

Seeds

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Sunflowers love and dream of the sunlight
and follow the warm glow
and everything bright

Inches each day into sky is their breach,
With ups and outs they grow
to ambition they leach.

So quickly time passed with Heads wide and tall,
Wrinkled necks thin and bowed,
Tears are dry seeds, they bawl.

Sunlight has made heavy heads
and dry soil for final resting beds.

May #1, Still Unidentified

My friend Brandon and I are the coolest people in the neighborhood. His kid brother is the third, which is why we didn’t invite anyone else to our trampoline camping night. Also, experiences with gravity and giant trampolines has taught that more than three people sleeping on a trampoline results in too much unintentional and unconscious contact during unpleasant hours of cold mornings. Three is a good number for these things.

I spot another falling star. We've spotted hundreds during tonight’s meteor shower. This one shatters on its way to earth causing a silent cascade of sparkling light.

The back yard which houses the trampoline is fenced and private. The starlight makes the grass look mysterious. There is no moon and the air is still warm. A perfect night for star gazing.

A flash of light frightens us out of our dozing conversation. Seconds pass and I still can’t determine the source, and my eyes still haven’t adjusted back to the darkness. We’re all scared, and the adrenaline in our blood is making it difficult to speak evenly. Still, someone offers their theory: lightening. We search the sky but see nothing but stars. There isn’t a cloud in sight from horizon to horizon.

On the fifteenth second after the flash we hear a disturbing sound louder and deeper than thunder, but definitely not thunder.

We don’t say a thing. We sink ever so slightly more closely together in the trough of the trampoline canvas. Faces down and mostly covered, we wish we weren’t special enough to hear that, see that.

The air is cold now.

Finally, someone dares to speak while the other two scan the dark lining of the fence for fear of unknown eavesdropping predators. Anything is possible now.

Our hushed voices find enough confidence to spend the next few hours postulating the source of the mystery.

We all agreed that the entire sky was lit, so it was impossible for us to determine its location. The booming sound was so loud. Its delay in reaching our campsite suggested a location far away.

Brandon and his brother weren't Boy Scouts. So, being the only Boy Scout present, I offer my knowledge that thunder takes one second to travel a mile after a lightening strike. After speaking, I remember that I didn’t learn that from scouting adventures, but from an unpopular girl at school recess. I keep that part to myself. Not caring how wrong this theory could be, we use it to conclude that the sound originated from at least fifteen miles away, narrowing the location to somewhere in the city centre, in the suburbs, or on the other side of the foothills in the middle of nowhere.

Then Brandon’s kid brother offers a far more profound analysis on the history and evolution of sonic science and other dealings with physics, which he shouldn’t know at such a young age, confirming my earlier suspicions about the credibility of an education through the Boy Scout program.

Theories of aliens and UFOs, secret government projects of nuclear proportions, etc., keep me frenzied. I want to go inside the house now because it’s cold.

Repose

We’ll watch in time as life
Corrodes to crimson rust.
We’ll hide, but still sun’s light
Turns diamonds into dust.
We’ll save beasts two by two,
Then earth will eat, digest.

Nature paves her way.
She crumbles life
Consumes the light
Breaks everything in two.
Destruction is her play.

When all have tasted death
Some unheard song will sing.
When lights have turned to dark
Some unseen lights we’ll see,
And two shall mold to One
In Resurrection’s ring.

With Nature still preserved,
Her mark of death
Hides in the dark,
Still making two of one.
But power now reserved.

We’ll own her life in play.

April #3, Less Wind

Now a teenager, I'm finally old enough to drive. It's just a Ford Tempo, but it has air conditioning. On trips to the Mississippi, air conditioning is a must-have. The river is only miles away now. What will this new place look like? I don't know what to expect.

My viral distaste for the incessant Idaho wind led me to complain about every other aspect of Idaho life. The sage brush stinks, the cows are dumb, the houses are ugly, the farm equipment is rusty, and so on. I suppose Dad has had enough because he arranged this service vacation for me and my brother.

So far I'm surprised to learn that every other town between Idaho and the Mississippi looks exactly the same, minus the sage brush. Cows, paint-needy houses, and farm equipment weren't unique after all.

I'm excited to see the Mississippi River. Stories of Tom Sawyer grow thick in my memory the closer we get.

Then we arrive at our service site to find a stack of wood siding waiting to get nailed to a horse barn. A service vacation inconveniently includes service.

It's hot outside, and humid. Horse manure never had so many airborne flavors. I can't remember my nose ever feeling so warm and wet. The morning sun is still behind the trees, but I'm sweating already. When the sun finally peaks, it pays special attention to my black hat and black shoes by giving them extra heat. My wet skin attracts every insect in the county. This feels like work. Where's the vacation? I miss my paper route.

Hours go by, then days. At every heartbeat I swat a fly, the spare time is filled with smashing mosquitoes, but always too late. Their red mark is painful after scratching through my moist skin. They're buzzing in my ear, in my nose, in my eye. What happened to the adventure?

In desperate irritation I exclaim my profound annoyance.

Dad stops. He smiles. Then he says "makes you wish for a little wind."

I agree. With his seven calculated words he successfully ceases a lifetime of weather complaints.

April #2, Wind

My twelve year old body shivers against the winter wind. I ache from carrying the paperboy bag on my shoulders. The weight of the papers makes my bicycle feel unsteady, like the seat will break or the tires will pop. It's hard to get any momentum against the unrelenting wind. I should have worn gloves.

I'm the only living thing outdoors. How could it be dark at this time? A warm glow from a subscriber's living room window is offset by his cold scowl. His paper is late.

I take extra time to show him how much I care about his paper. Then a wind gust catches a Kmart ad and sends it to a wet gutter. I chase after it with fifty pounds on my shoulders testing my balance and spinal strength. The shoe souls feel mushy from the extra weight.

I bend down to get the ad from the gutter and wind takes advantage by throwing me to my knees. I catch myself with my left hand, but the ice-cold gravel draws blood. The paperboy bag breaks open and more papers take flight.

When against me, the wind blows in only one direction; against paper, it blows in seven. While it has me distracted, the wind throws some coarse dirt into my wet eyes.

By the time I'm composed, the subscriber on the warm side of the window is colder than ever. Now his paper is late and wet.

Who shops at Kmart anyway?

With more force than necessary, I cram his paper into the box, bending its hinges. I include the Kmart ad, colored with my blood as a bonus.

I mount my bicycle and press into the wind. I curse it audibly. The wind is criminally annoying. Every day it blows against me.