Just outside our door
here in the heart of the city
there is a small woods.
It is space that has been allowed
to grow wild.
How great it is to pass it
carrying out the trash to the
waiting dumpsters.
Life and death enact themselves
for those who care to look -
peculiar eruptions of spring
and co-obtaining attacks by mushroooms
are left to happen by lack of weeding
(gardening)
or mycological preventions till
too late.
We cook and eat some mushrooms
thanks to teachings of good cooks.
^,^
And
SUNNY
Everything about Sunny was colorful:
She lived in beauty, and was beauty
Her walk upon this earth was light,
Her voice was soft, and she was the brightness
Of the dome of stars on a northern cloudless night!
Set your garden sundial by her, and be right.
She did not tread, she glided,
Crushing nothing and no one
In her impish winged rounds
From flower to flower, ‘shroom to ‘shroom
And in her house from room to room
She barely disturbed dust with a broom.
It’s the kind of girl she was, no doubt,
‘tis the way her nature was; naught
But Norm would bawl her out,
And even curmudgeonly he
Had a love of her, choppy and deep
As the sea.
With woodland spirits she had some valuable
Clout!
I used to think she was witchen –
So many odd things were in her kitchen;
divining locations of hidden treats,
vaporizing in the the damp of deep woods weeds
and coming back with edibles
from her known bounds and metes.
She never lost in her labyrinthine heart and
mind,
Sunny was honey for Norm’s internment,
A particular grandma who brought discernment
While being extraordinarily – mystically – able
To set great food and such upon her table.
By David Zep Dix 4-9-1999
Her famous quote:
“You’re not going to throw away that
perfectly good snake,
are you?”
uttered graciously in Pembine WI 1973
She was given farmer Hertig’s dispatched
snake
hanging over a barb wife fence line
^,^
Gender Studies
by Michael Blumenthal
Listen Online
A cricket chirps in the grass.
Another cricket, all ears,
joins him. Now there are two.
Up above, birds shriek
like drunken gods, the air
is atizzy with the melodrama
of what is about to be.
The two crickets
eye each other
out of the corner
of their cricket eyes.
Each desires something
the other has, each
abhors its own desire.
After a brief silence,
there will be little
cricket mating, a little
cricket love. Soon,
the air will be abuzz
with the sounds
of heavy cricket breathing,
legs rubbing together,
the sound of war in the air
in crickatese,
a subject for specialists.
"Gender Studies" by Michael C. Blumenthal.
....................
Review:
In 1998 the pre-SRN writer ran a series
called 'Zepata's Adventures'
Synthesizing the famed name
of Mexican Robin Hood-style outlaw
ZAPATA
Today's Writers Almanac poem
about crickets (above)
reminded us of our prior work
on the subject:
zepata and the creekets
Instalment 6
Creekets in another instalment that may follow
The expected storm arrives
Just before dawn
Zepata and Irena
Pull the tarp down upon them
It was either that or have it blown away
So high were the winds
The red-bandana clad creekets
had long ago retired to
their stow-away saddle bag
and if their legs had been
fine instruments
which in a way they were
the creekets would have put
them away
in velvet-lined music cases;
as it was, to the little mariachi band,
they just blew them off
like smoke from fired
pistols
This weather pattern was a frik
Zepata say to Irena
He nevair see one like
Cyclonic winds seem to blow
Around and around the mountain
A stream-rinsed red union suit
Hanging on a makeshift line blew off
Only to return fifteen minutes later
From the opposite direction
It had traveled around the mountain
Daylight slowly comes
But the rain and crying wind does not let up
El Dayo appears at their active
Bundle of tarp and he sounds
His battle call
Zepata and Irena look out from inside
Their waterproof canvas
Cocoon of rest and love
Raising himself again and again
On his powerful hind legs
Dayo gives a primeval battle cry
At the sky, daring it to strike
Him with lightning
His bulging eyes blazing
Zeus himself might refrain
From hurling a bolt at such a
Dreadnaught
For fear El Dayo would perhaps
catch it
In his frothing gaping mouth
And hurl it back
Zepata calls out to the drenched
Beast:
Issy Boy issy
Go get Mare
We liff in half an hour
Soon Dayo and Mare
stand waiting
And the terrible storm
Relents
Zepata checks the dynamite
Eet is try he proclaims
And with Irena breaks camp
Vowing never to forget that storm
And the jump-started Mexican saviour
Ponders its portent
Now mud is their greatest danger
It is too risky to ride
So Zepata and Irena walk
Beside their mounts
All morning they descend
In this way
In the early afternoon
They discover that the storm
Did not happen at the lower
Altitude
It had been a mountaintop
Electric cyclone only
Like nobody ever saw before
Zepata thinks it must
Have been a sight to see
From down below
And indeed the compadres
Had looked up from their campsite
And thought of Zepata and Irena
And offered prayers
for their safekeeping
The waters that had rushed
Down the mountain
Were torrential
And the air had taken on
A charged crispness
Following the high winds
That had swirled through
The compadres' tentative
repose
Zepata who was a simple Indian
with cause and effect
thought patterns at root
Divined the storm had been
Stirred by the pro-creative
Madness
Exhibited by humans and horses
In the night
After all, he mused
If a little Zepata or Irena
Was being conceived
Or a foal to match or even
Exceed Dayo and Mare's
Powerful exhuberances
Should it not storm?
These were all natural things
To the mind of Zepata
For himself he knew
That the inflammations
Stirred by Irena
and her surfeit of oil
Produced energy that not even
He, ZEPATA, could fully combust
Try as he might
He thought as he watched
Her riding ahead of him:
Here was an exciting fuel
That could never be burned
Completely
Irena possessed a life force
That commenced as female
Gateway of life physiology
That which every woman has
But in Irena's instance
A bellows of only guessed-at origin
Had blown her womanly propensities
Into a conflagration whose
Raging flames licked
The highest clouds and
Changed weather patterns
The Indians knew
The northern lights were caused
By a woman such as this
In the north, it was said,
there was such a woman
And in other parts
Of the world
Rainmakers, storm-causers
Interacting with mighty men
Their powers are released
This is what Zepata believed
How could he not believe it
As he watched Irena's
Buttocks ahead of him
Nudging and shunting
The hand-tooled saddle
He had rubbed to smoothness
himself
And presented to his Real Woman
It must be time for siesta
He mused
Irena felt his eyes upon her
And she smiled without turning
[dzd 7-23-98
^,^
....and again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_izvAbhExY
^,^
Ray and Myrt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_izvAbhExY
^,^
Ray and Myrt
Myrtle and Ray (II) Bringing Cheer to Grandpa
Myrtle, loyal member of The Daughters
Of The American Revolution and
Something of a family
geneologist
Ruled the daily life
at 2009 Clay Street
She had a square face
and an upright
Posture and she took
purposeful steps
She was taller than Ray
But did not seem so
and fortunately
For Ray in those days
The 1930s and 1940s
When I was down there
in Cedar Falls Iowa
Taking mental images
of them as
My grandparents -
Hats with high crowns
were in
So Ray wore his hat alot
He had a few strands
of hair
In place over his
general baldness
Wore gold rim glasses
And his trouser legs
were baggy
He almost always wore
a white shirt
And necktie
And a tie clip from his company
For whom he sold
insurance
The Union Central of Cincinnati
His shirt sleeves
were always
Held up with rubber
bands
Above the elbow
That either was a sign of arms too short
For available sleeve
lengths
Or more likely from
his days as a
Bank officer and the
need - as might have
Been dictated by
Grandma - to keep his shirtcuffs
Away from dirty money
Ray was not a dude or a dandy
He kind of dressed
like Harry Truman
Straight and
unpretentious
And his character and
mien were the same
But he liked to
behead chickens
At his backyard
chopping block
And watch me scream
and run
Once a beheaded chicken chased me
Right up the
backporch steps
And against my
kicking legs as I struggled to
Open the screen door
I was
Terrified and
embarrassed -
Grandpa Ray was bent
over in laughter
That incident and another one
When my mother drove
a golf ball
Into my head account
It is said
For my variant
thought patterns
And disposition
I also see humor many
times
When others do not
Grandma Myrtle used to say
W-H-Y, R-A-A-Y !!!!
Whenever she thought
he was
Acting up like that
And she said it when
the bloody chicken
chased me
Gathering me in her
ever-present apron
Mostly Ray was given to black moods
And I never knew why
until many years later
When my Uncle Lee
told me
That once when Ray
was out driving his
Rural insurance
rounds
He struck and killed
a little girl
Although it was well documented
That the child darted
out in front of
Grandpa without
sufficient warning
For him to do
anything but hit her
And it was pronounced
not his fault
Ray never forgave
himself
The farmers who he served faithfully
And blessedly when
during the
Depression he went
around and made
Them aware they did
have money afterall;
They had the cash
value they could
Borrow against the
life insurance
He had sold them
The farmers tried to
uplift Ray
The man who delivered the goods for them
When they were down
The farmers his
friends and clients tried to uplift Ray
All I ever knew until
years later
Was that Grandpa
seemed very serious
Most of the time
Unless something like
a dead chicken
Briefly lifted his
spirits
It would have been good to know
And understand
[DZD, 1998]
Cedar Falls Iowa
------
Grandpa and the Rat:
