This is such an important message. Especially if you live in L.A., but surely this is happening elsewhere as well. Why haven’t we heard this before? Remember the scene in The Clockwork Orange where the man’s eyes were taped open and he was forced to watch the horrible videos? I think this is a case where it might be appropriate for those opposing masks and insisting Covid is a hoax.
Non-inherited Tendencies
I am forty-three years old. Why is it that my mother still feels it is her purpose in life to educate me?
She stands in front of the junk drawer in my kitchen, “There is no excuse for anyone to have a drawer like this in their house,” she says. With one finger, she rifles through the drawer, moving a pair of pliers closer to fifty peso bills for the water vendor that are piled to its left, sending loose screws rolling across the bottom of the drawer.
I reach around her to hand her the pair of scissors she seeks. Then, once again, I careen into the precipice of self-doubt. Surely, others less-perfect than my mother have drawers such as this one.
My qualms deteriorate as I readjust my thoughts to coincide with the actual world, but as I restate mentally and silently my oft-repeated mantra. “What the eyes don’t see doesn’t matter,” my mother, briskly and methodically, starts arranging the drawer.
Word prompts for today are What the eyes don’t see doesn’t matter, deteriorate, educate and precipice.
Penumbra
My father the sun,
my mother the moon,
I was that edge
created by their union—
that category of child,
partially obscured,
who cast a lighter shadow.
Just as much of them
as either might have wished,
I learned to shed my own light
by tracing the patterns
of theirs.
Click on photos to enlarge and read captions.
For Cee’s FOTD
Click on photo to enlarge.
Isidro Xilonzóchitl and Greta McLain are painting this wonderful mural on a wall along the malecon in San Juan Cosala. If anyone else would like to help to contribute for the cost of paint and to recompense them a bit for their labor, I will match contributions up to the first $100 or 2,000 pesos. They’re working on it now, so come see the project as it happens!
This call for contributions is my idea, not theirs, as they have been funding the project themselves. If you have a venmo account, contribute at venmo@goodspacemurals or drop by the maelcon and drop your contributions off there.
I left my blog just before posting to go feed the dogs and cats. Then, an hour later:
(To read the story of why my poetry post was late today, click on photos to enlarge and read captions.)
For Cee’s Flower of the Day Challenge. See her post HERE.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 