On Driving by Something Mysterious

The walker walked with the confidence of a man who knows much and has little to show for it. He wore a heavy black leather jacket, shoulder length hair and a thick beard. Thinness showed in the seat of his jeans and from his left back pocket there hung a red bandanna.

     

     At first glance, Steven figured the walker was probably some mechanic, or machinist, or welder, who, in better or even warmer times, drove a motorcycle to work. The bandanna made sense.

     But as he passed, Steven began to think the bandanna seemed a little too clean, too intentional, flaunted almost. That perhaps it might be part of some secret language: a code meant to notify other bikers that the walker had fallen on to hard times and was in need of a lift.

     He briefly considered turning back; asking. But then again, the bandanna could signify the walker’s status in some murderous gang, or that he was a prostitute of some sort, open for business. God, there was so little he knew and so much he feared to ask.  

       

After Sitting for a While Sunday Morning

At times, when the words wouldn’t come, he would search images of the great authors, as if, in those dark mannerisms and confident smiles he might find some common thread, a shared squint or folding of the hands, that, with practice, he could master and thus join their ranks.

           

'Can you hear that?'

It was rumored the world was going to be without incandescent light bulbs soon. We would be forced to buy fluorescents at twice the price. ‘Think of the big picture,’ they said, ‘of the energy you will save in the long run, the good you will do the planet.’

          Maybe it was all apocalyptic hype. I haven’t heard much about it lately. But, since I’m all for conserving energy, especially if it will close down a nuclear reactor or two (as if), I coughed up enough money to outfit my entire house in standard bulbs, and bought four fluorescents for the fixture in my bathroom.

          Is it just me, or are these not the noisiest light bulbs in the history of light bulbs? I can hear them buzzing over brushing my teeth! My beard trimmer, for crying out loud!

          Okay, maybe not my beard trimmer, but they are noisy, and I’m just wondering if any of these green geniuses stopped to calculate the additional noise pollution that was going to be generated when every socket is plugged with one of these beauties.

The Proximity of Fire

     Stirring the coals this morning, I wondered... If the World were smaller, would you visit? find flocks of sun-bound cardinals in the embers? ask who was first to choose the color dangerous?

      But I suppose you did, didn't you.     

Moms and Boys With No Savings Account

I was thinking about my mother,
About me,
The big dreamer,
And how she’s always been there,
Believing,
At the foot of every new cross I decided to bear.

I’ve been thinking, too,
About the burden I must be…
The burden Christ must have been
To his mother, Mary.
And wondering,
If maybe we both should have put a little something away…

You know…

Just in case.

Three People, Three Minutes and a Tragedy

“Ya’ll listen to this… You remember that little boy whose folks used to come and visit all the time and his daddy died a few weeks back.”

“No, I can’t quite…”

“His mamma brought that picture of him in. It was on wood. Like a memorial plaque or something. It was real big.”

“Oh yeah, I remember her. That was just last Tuesday wasn’t it? That plaque was beautiful.”

“Yep, Tuesday. Would you believe she died yesterday.”

“No.”

“Swear. She got killed riding a go-cart up at Beech Bend.”

“My. That can’t be. We just talked to her Tuesday.”

“It’s all over the news.”

“My stars.”

“Mmm Hmm. That boy’s lost both his parents while he was in here.”

“Poor dear.”

“Is he going to be able attend her funeral?”

“He made it to his daddies.”

“I’m sure they can work something out.”

“I hope so.”

“Beech Bend. That place has gotten expensive. Hasn’t it? I took Marshal up there not to long ago. Tickets were nearly fifteen dollars. Can you believe that?”

“It’s awful.”

“I remember when you could get in for a quarter.”

“And Krystals too, I remember when you could get a Krystals for a dime. I went in yesterday and got a burger, coke and fries and it cost me over four dollars.”

“We’re just getting old.”

“Oh stop, you two aren’t getting old. Hey, listen to this…”

Kudzu

Wouldn’t it be odd,

if we were like Japanese beetles,

brought to Earth by some prior-race

to eat up a previous error, 

like the rampant Kudzu,

and,

like the Japanese beetle,

we are eating everything but
Kudzu.

Watching

     the Johnson grass and Queen Anne’s Lace: long, overgrown, and wind-blown. Chin palmed, I feel my pulse, strong in my neck, and can’t help but marvel how we are all from seed, how we all strive only to cover the Earth, to be remembered.

The Baseball Game

"Steve, the ball game starts about six. I figured we'd leave about four, get there early so the boys can look around. Why don't you just come over to the house about that time. We'll load up and go."

"I... "

"What? You still want to go don't you?"

"I've got so much to do around here."

"It"ll wait until Sunday, won't it?"

"My house needs cleaned. And there's weeds everywhere."

"Ah, man come on. Take a little break."

"Nah, I can't. Really."

"The boys sure are going to be disappointed."

"Yeah. That's why I never had kids."

     They say not to keep anger bottled up inside of you, that it’s cancer to the soul, and it will claim some part, if not all of you, eventually.

     I wonder if the same is true of beautiful things, our mind’s and hand’s creations, things we are most proud of, the things that we hold in outstretched arms and say, “Look. See what I made”. I wonder, if these things are never shared—there’s no one to share them with—if some limb doesn’t wither and die; if the soul is defeated.