The Solar Express

Christmastime in Texas means short-sleeves and shorts. Our golf courses are still green, even though we choose to put up brown wreaths of barbed wire tied with a bow. Although, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day here were somewhat chilly this year, the week warmed up real fast. Almost immediately, the front stalled and tropical breezes from the gulf pushed the cold air mass on eastward  for our Dixie friends to enjoy. I rushed to protect the outside plants, only to have to uncover them just as quickly, so they didn't go sun starved! With the unusual autumn drought we've been having in Central Texas, watering them on a regular basis is pretty much the routine around these parts.
Why, I found myself out working in the garage and yard the other day, rather than curled up in my Lazy Boy next to the fire with a good book, like you think one would be doing this time of year. Talking to my friend, we even considered the idea of going fishing...unheard of in December here in Texas! In the Sun Belt while peeling off the jackets and sweaters, we turn down the A/C for fear the poinsettias will wilt. With requests like "I'll have some ice tea," instead of hot cocoa, we celebrate the Season and toast the New Year to come!          

sonnet 2

Cautious is she and cooler as she's loved;

Her fore brow frowns, else her eyes flash bright,

With words warming despite emotions moved

And indifference cuts, though it feels right.

Though to most women, her world's a wonder,

A classy style, showing just enough grace;

Worthy of worship and of wanting her, 

Adored, elusive, pursued at a pace.

Temptation--Discipline, conflicting throes

Dwell delicate about her to inspire;

Her dammed-up passions and as feeling goes,

Serve to stoke these pleas issued of desire.

Had she not been for sure and so impart,

Remain no reason to reveal my heart.

2009/2010

Better Off (Not) Dead

Nobody wants to be dead, especially on Fridays, their birthday, the start of vacation, or Christmas morning and New Year's Eve. Without sounding so nihilistic, man's mortality is a sad play with a predictable ending. Pushing 60-years in part, I'm appearing in the 3rd Act. My immediate reaction and revolt in thought is "I'd rather be Red than dead." Actually, I'd had rather be a rock. The elements and minerals have the edge on us humans, it seems. The mountains melt down into boulders...rocks...pebbles...grains of sand that dissolve to minerals enduring forever. Like the earth, the wind and water remain. No one really knows where they go or flow; when they start or end. Theirs is a world of no worry or cares; no effort or achievement. Elements are not alive in the sense of flesh and blood and chloroplasts, yet they have a life of their own. And like sunlight, are essential to our living, energizing our existence, otherwise, all would be dark, cold, and calm--a dead void. I would want to be one of them. 

All our times have come
Here, but now there, gone
Seasons don't fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain
(We can be like they are)
Come on baby
(Don't fear the reaper)
                         - Blue Oyster Cult
      

A Difference

Iron sharpens iron. -an old Hebrew proverb

The feeling's mutual. So is the whole of our relationships with others, especially our closest friends and loved ones. I may complement you, but you equally complement me. My making a difference in your life means that you have the same effect on mine alike. If we can compare our emotional investments to money, it is a better return than any bank can give. View it as a sort of "self-control." We maintain some semblance of order, sanity, and purpose in our own lives, when we witness it first-hand working effectively in others--a discipline to do what's right and true and a desire to be the best at what you are, that which you love most. I need this motivation in its strongest sense. You're good for me. 

Ghosts of Christmases Past

Last night about 12:30 pm, I was suddenly awakened! It wasn't our dog Kiya outside howling with the nearby coyotes, nor indigestion from the spicy soup we had for supper. I was visited by thoughts of Christmases past...

"Use Christmas Seals this Season and breathe easier." was the American Lung Association's annual fundraiser.

The riveting adventures of "Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer" and "Frosty, the Snowman" brought to us in living Claymation!

Breaking open that 600-ct. pack of foil icicles

"Get a Chia Pet!" advertised all over TV.

That lighted big fat plastic smiling Santa Claus always on the end table by the ash tray

White spun (Fiberglas) Angel Hair we kids helped stretch out with no fear!

Bubble lights plugged in, awaiting their wonderful magic!

Dolls that wet and cowboy holsters holding cap pistolsMother's recycled nylons lying under the tree Christmas mornings filled with nuts, fruits, and swirls of red-green-white hard candy

Boxes of a dozen glass ball ornaments like Christmas eggs

Play kitchen appliances and erector sets

Strings of big bulb red, green, blue, yellow, and orange Christmas lights

Homemade sugar cookies and Nestle Quick's hot chocolate

Artificial snow out of a aerosol can full of fluorocarbons that we kids got carried away and sprayed on our windows to give us an appearance of a Texas White Christmas. Dad would spend the next month or two scraping it all off!

Mother's unforgettable Christmas albums featuring Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, and Burl Ives, that she played on the living room phonograph over and over and over.

Stonewalled

I have this private place to which I often come. I like it here, it's where I long to be. Some reason, I can't capture Christmas this year--I'm trying. I suppose it's sad about son...feel this year's been a failure...imagining me in another place and time...know it's not love like I could.

Can't think of any reason
Don't know exactly why
Must be it's out of season
Give it another try...

Faith internal carries one only so far. I can always count on what's natural for comfort when others things let me down--disappoint. It is in ourselves an urgent urge to create, to be remembered on paper or cemetery stone. Our life works must mean more than the usual gain and regret. 

Some things are left unspoken
Some things are handed down
The circle stands unbroken
Sending it back around...


If these grey stones could speak, what would they say? All these ages long they've lain here, now mostly in repose. We're built-up so to serve, intending to last, but become an abandoned obscurity over a span, until mostly forgotten in purpose and again left for good after great. 


I'm out here in the meadow
Part of an old stone wall
Stand here because you said so
Waitin' around to fall
                                  - Joe Walsh

I Should Have Said

I regret that I am so reserved. I've missed many opportunities to say the things I needed to say, instead of suppressing those feelings I actually possess at the moment. Although, I always run the risk of responding too spontaneous, or appearing forward and foolish, it's best that others know just how you are with regard to reactions. Relationships are best based on honesty and trust in every way. Say what you mean and mean what you say holds a great amount of truth. I should have said how the beautiful necklace you wore that time seemed so appropriate on you and special; and on another occasion, the way your words made me feel comfortable and encouraged; now, I long that we alone share something more than is already ours to have, but won't say it to you true.     

Pickin' Up Pecans

Like a lone penny, I'm in the habit of picking up a single pecan when I see one on the ground. I've been doing this since I was a kid. Dad would drive us out of Dallas late autumn to a place he knew of off the roadway where stood a groove of majestic pecan trees about stripped of their leaves and branches left full of ripen pecans (meaning the now blackened hulls had peeled back to reveal brown hulls). He'd throw a 2-ft 2X4 board up into their arms to thrash the nuts free fall to the ground. Us kids and my stepmother eagerly went about with our paper sacks to collect the large paper hull pecans, knowing we would be cracking and shelling them later in the warm kitchen, along with hot chocolate. The crop we harvested today would go for nutmeats to feed our pies and fruitcakes for the Christmas Season.
Around the workplace here, I pause and let the pecans lie, reminded on the city squirrels who depend on them for forage and year-round storage. Back at home and over at the elementary school surrounding the playground, I've picked up a bag at-a-time of the native pecans that are left lying there on the ground. No one seems to want to take the trouble to shell for so little reward of fruit inside. I take them home and bust them gently for a snack and dump the rest in the elevated backyard feeder for the few squirrels who dare to venture into the forest there and endure the barks and yaps of my two dogs! I've observed that they eat some right on the spot, but mostly carry the small pecans off to stash when winter's here good. I'd like to think they will have pecans, too, come Christmas morning, as I remember a family tradition of finding my stocking full of nuts and fruits under the tree.