Over the years, I’ve written many pieces that make use of the word cacophony. This is one I’d forgotten, but having reread it, it is my favorite. Written more than three years ago, I’d like to share it with you again. Go HERE to see it.
There are so many beautiful old trees in Sheridan, Wyoming, that it is hard to choose what to show next. Here are a handful! Click on any one to enlarge all.
I don’t know what these flowers are. If you do, please advise. Click on any flower to see them all in more detail.
When Is Enough Enough?
To want all or to want nothing are both dangerous. Those who want all are the conquerors and exploiters and power lords who have brought the world to the state it is in today. They will exploit the poor and the weak but get their feelings of the most power from exploiting those equal to them in power. The world is a game to these people and we are all pawns.
But to want nothing may lead to despair. True, in a few holy men, it has been the path to enlightenment; but for those living within the world and not to the side of it, to want nothing can lead to apathy and powerlessness.
I think the true enlightenment lies in wanting enough and then wanting enough for others as well. This doesn’t have to be done by charity. It can be done by the way we vote, the way we treat our neighbors, the way we invest our money and the way we conduct our own businesses. It can be done by the way we bargain for a trinket on the beach or handle wrong change.
Sylvia Plath was probably correct in her statement, “Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.” When the richest woman in the world commits suicide or the richest men in the world exploit those living hand-to-mouth, one has to wonder what great lack they are trying to fill and whether in fact they have ever discovered the secret of what the world is really about.
This is a rewrite of an essay written three years ago. The prompt today was enlighten.
After carrying around a pill to prevent migraines for over ten years, I for some reason left it behind when I came to the U.S., so of course this morning, for the first time in ten years, I started to feel a migraine coming on. As usual, it was triggered by a bright light —this time by a split between the blinds that allowed sunlight to reflect off the TV screen. Dizzy with the beginning of the headache, nauseous and a bit blind, I stumbled into bed, pulled a pillow over my head to block the light and lay for about an hour, willing the pain to descend from my forehead to my hands to warm them. When my hands warmed, I then became aware of icy feet and decided to see if I could warm them via migraine energy as well. I fell asleep in the act, but upon awakening six hours later, I am now noticing that my feet are warm as well—more likely due to blankets than to brainpower. Nonetheless, after the first half hour of trying to get myself regulated, this poem came into my head. I knew it would be lost if I didn’t record it and my computer was lying closed on my bed next to me, so I roused myself long enough to jot it down. Can’t control these rhymes even when bigger things are going on in my head. In this case, it started with mentally painting the image of a cat. Then the bowl appeared and he gazed into it. The goldfish came last and the poem grew out of the image. Wish I could paint or draw and I’d try to show you what I saw. Lacking this, here is the poem:
(Goldfish) Bowl Games
I watch them swim in graceful curves,
and though they’d make such fine hors d’oeuvres,
I wait and wait and wait and wait.
They have not served me one to date.
(By the way, this technique for ridding yourself of migraine headaches has worked for me three times now over a twenty year span. Prior to this, I just suffered for up to eight hours. Once I found there was a pill available to take in the first stages, I always carried one, but as noted above, had failed to bring it with me on this trip to the states, so my old mental remedy worked once again.)
Brown leaves caught in a tangle of drying flowers signal October as surely as pumpkins on porches and crisp autumn air.
Good news. I feel since a number of friends have requested news that I need to post that my results came in as benign. For those of you who haven’t done so yet, please celebrate National Breast Cancer Awareness Month by having mammograms.
Kittens reacting to Morrie and Diego, jealousy barking at the closed gate that separates them from their arch rivals, the cats.
Cat Napped
My dear little creatures, I did not expect
that your lives and mine would intersect.
I didn’t know in the hush of my life
your antics would make such a mush of my life.
I spout silly names like “kitty” and “baby.”
Have I gone dotty? I must admit, “Maybe.”
I’m given to lying prone on my bed
letting the boy kitten claw at my head,
combing my hair with his kittenish claws
as his sisters cavort without mercy or pause,
biting my fingers and licking my knees.
I let them assault me wherever they please.
I find them adorable and entertaining.
Besotted with kittens, my interest is waning
in matters less feline. I neglect the dogs.
Leave them to possums and squirrels and frogs.
I feed them and throw an occasional ball,
but lately, obsessions more easily fall
into matters of cat, I’m embarrassed to say
it’s entirely possible one day I may
turn into that cat lady, brunt of those jokes
told by low-lifes in bars and other brash blokes
making fun of those who, although different, perhaps,
get pleasure enough from cats on our laps!!!
The prompt word today is expect.
