Magazines, papers and books...Oh My!

...
Too much stuff to read around here.
It's my mind that's full.
Stuffed like an over filled closet.
I can't even finish what's new today.
T.V. just adds to.

I read historical stories of dark ages wars and life.
I read One Day at a Time.
I read entertainment reviews.
Political cartoons.
Bird suet recipes.

I see videos of sandy soldiers single file tracking hunched down, rifles in hand.
It's 110 degrees.
The enemy is hidden.
The local government is corrupt.
Apathy lies dusty at home.
No one can simply state reason's we're there or there either.

I read that over medicating causes terrible things.
I read that some who won't take meds are in terrible trouble.

My internet home page shouts about home invasions, hoaxes, air quality, budget deficits, poverty next door to riches.

I read that stress causes terrible things to happen to the body.
Cholesterol and worse.

Memos.
They tell of pay cuts and furlough days.
They remind me to show up proving no T.B.

I read that ancient medicine has the answers.
It's new again.
Did the ancients have stress?

They didn't have T.V.s or computers.
They weren't wired every minute of every day.
Of course they didn't have convenience stores either
and those relieve stress when plastic diapers are needed.
Or milk.
Or jerky.

Maybe it balances out.
Some cure for stress will fix it all.

Breath
Posture
Relaxation.

Maybe.
...

Hot will End.

...
The amber/bright light sits hovering above,
pushing Autumn away.
Autumn that wants to be here.
It showed up last week or so,
but Summer doesn't move out so easily.

Summer sits right down in the backyard
and says, "Listen to me, you.
The sun's not done."

Heavy, like a forest fire without smoke,
as with too many blankets at night when
you're cold at first,
but later the breathing is thick,
and no windows open for a breeze,
and finally does the humid stink
drive you up and out
to the evening star layer.

Craning your neck just to the cool, glittering black,
the tilt just right for warm weather turning cooler,
the constellations tipping with the season.

Currently that tilting sun smothers in the sky.
Just for a few more days until
October finalizes the heat stroke.

Inevitable.


Teasing and joking sunlight,
in a Monty Python skit,
hints at goodbye.
We lose the light, the temperature,


the sweat,
the quiet,

ultimately to the snap sound
of cold damp Fall.

...

What is square?

...
If love is round, what is square?
...
Is square sort of an opposite thing
like esteem and disgust?
...
What is disapproval, anyway?
And what shape is shame?
...
Some minds see numbers in color;
letters, too.
Some special souls' emotions
have a special smell or light.
Somewhere in those brains
synapses for ideas pulse with shapes.
...
That square protestant glare,
that look,
that stare from over there to here,
has sharp edges and corners
like an old fashioned triangular ruler
before electronic scientific calculators,
before cell phones on silent/vibrate.

I wince, buckled this tight;
my eyes can't see through the smoke.
Smoke from the heat
or smoke from an over-fueled hot rod?
Ultimately, it's steamed, blurry wet eyes.
...
Get out,
go home,
drink coffee,
don't think, I think.
...
And I do.
Until he says, "How's work?"
It's that bad.
Thinking is the trap, so don't do it.
...
Robotically I push red barns across my table.

Cut out farm animals.
Color and cut.
Color and cut.
And write your name on the back.
...
Robotically repeat:
"Clean up and sit down."
"Clean up and line up."
...
It's lunch recess in the high 90's
so we'll all faint in the heat;
so line up and shut up
while smoke rises from the asphalt.

Will you not escape today?
...
More fool you.
...

Riding Light

...
Did she say to ride light?
My teacher? My mentor?

My trainer said to ride light and I did.
Relaxed my body
so the horse knew to jog slowly, softly, gently.
Press lightly with my heels,
lift his shoulders, pull in his chin and he gives.
We work together.

But what did my mentor say?
Ride light?
Ride to work light, easy, ready?
Present in the car for the 15 minutes.
Keep shoulders down
because up hints at tension
and tension in the car is too soon.
Rather I should wait for the classroom.

Ride the children light?
Teach them and mentor them.
Let them succeed, let them see.
Use my natural wisdom
to push them along.
Gently presenting learning.
Encouraging growth.
She hints:
Ride light.

Listen!
Write light, she tells me!
No more of your subterfuge.
I should write light.
That's the message.

Write and smile,
write with pride,
with humor,
write with generosity.

Write of skills.
Think of strength, built strong
by experience and work.

Write light, wife.
Write light, gardener.

Painter
Crafter
Designer
Reader
Writer
Photographer
Videographer
Birder
Homemaker
Recycler
Philosopher
Thinker
Teacher
Hostess
Present Wrapper
Knitter
Mother
Friend
Sister
Colleague

Write lightly.

Give credit.
Write lightly of my knowledge;
knowledge of Natural History
knowledge of Literature
knowledge of Art History
knowledge of Film
knowledge of
Child Development/Human Development
knowledge of
Domesticated Animals/Farm Animals/Working Animals

Capable in Mathematics
Capable in Science
Capable in History
Capable in Communication
Capable in Equitation
Capable in Self Improvement

Acceptable in Cooking
Acceptable in Collecting
Acceptable in Driving

And still learning.
Learning patience
Learning confidence
Learning acceptance
Learning assertiveness
Learning time management

Write of success:
An AA
An AS
A BA
A Blue Ribbon.
Supervisors' evaluations.

I won't be fired.
So. May I stop now?
I completed my assignment.
Is it good enough,
finally good enough?

May I now chastise my dark, heavy lagging self?
May I now default to self detesting?
My knee jerk reaction; it's cellular.
It's easier, and heaven knows,
I find comfort there.

Don't make me breathe.
Don't make me hear.
Don't see.
Don't feel.
This lightness leaves me craving isolated darkness.
There I'm asleep and safe.
May I resist your pull?

But you, dear friend!
You won't leave me to it;
rather forcing me to see these attributes of mine.
And choices, pushing me to see choices:
100 ways to get out of a room,
100 ways I am admired and loved.
Write lightly you say,
of courage, my longed for goal.

Alright!
I'll begin.
Where is that courage!

Help me begin, will you?
To step into the light in Him.
The lightness outside of me.
Away from reacting to them.
Help me leave them all be.
Cease the waiting.

Change me.
Stay by me.
Don't stop leading as I drag my feet.

Light should result, then,
tripping on the doorstep,
and starting to seep into my dark house.



...

all the talking in my head

...
I should be fired, so lowly do I work,
but evaluations say otherwise.
Raving praise drips down the page,
but too much talking twists the facts.
Too much talking presses down,
while crowning imagined failures with glory.

One step forward, seven steps back
while the pep talk fades.
I chant Our Father over and over softly sweet,
until a remembered faux pas sneaks between
Thy Kingdom Come and Thy Will be Done,
filling the pauses like water creeps,
puddle-like, over the river floor.

Between Give us Today our Daily Bread
and Forgive us our Trespasses as We Forgive,
I struggle against the crunch of my bones
wrapped in damp gauze with alum,
that will, while drying, pull taught my toes
under my arch closer to my heel
for a tiny 3" embroidered shoe.

Step on me I say.
Step on my broken foot, climb to my knee,
grab my head, your foot on my shoulder.
I'll stoop down.

Then bind tightly,
keeping appendages crunched,
keeping the will strangled,
keeping the privileges from my reach.

Awaking, I mouth,
Lead us not into Temptation,
knowing now I will not capitulate.
Whispering Deliver us from Evil,
I stop you and stand up.

"Find your own way, not on my back."
I'll kick off cloth rags and stride home.

And I won't step back
when a horse shakes his head.
I'll move into his face, his shoulder;
point my toes towards the legs.
"Move Over Horse."

Move over, I have a need to walk this way.

...

dentistry

...
Bridges are sure weird. Creepy as a matter of fact, but don't tell T. He's next and we'll let him rest in denial.

This time it's a night guard to protect my cracked teeth from more cracking.

How I CHEW! And clench! Like Atlas must have, placing all the worry into one heavy load. He held his weight upon his flexed muscles. I hold my weight crunching down with flexed jaw.

You'd think it was the end of the world!

We have the nicest, Mr Roger-est dentist ever. I've enjoyed taking care of my mouth with those wonderful people.

But now I'm tired of it.
What a terrible year of teeth!

I promise I'll be polite.
Is that what politeness is?
Pretending you're not ready to scream?

...

The day you were born.

...
Playing Roy Rogers and Dale Evans we gallop around until a soft, "whoaaa" in late afternoon when I have friends. We watch for Trigger and Buttermilk. Thinking who will we ride? That palomino is mine, we agree, or I say so, the longer blond hair must be Dale, it is understood.

Now the memory is gray like that descending summer evening. I could trot and lope like no tomorrow, hoping for no tomorrow, just now, this now. Up that driveway I go to untack, so I throw my leg over my horse and jump down and brush and feed, horse first, child second, if the fantasy lasts that long.

Reading took up lots of that time that loomed, summer, worrying, but reading could make it all go away in an adventure longed for. And coloring, too. Coloring and coloring and making construction paper things. Cut and glue and cut and cut, how I love cutting, still today.

But the most filling of all was playing. Playing house, playing school, playing library by crayoning someone's name on the inside cover, then stacking books in an order as we go. Playing work, even though we didn't know what went on in that grandfather's brick building where he went most days in a checked suit coat and tie, hair slicked, face smooth. So we answered phones and scribbled a message and promised to let him know.

Playing 45's. Her 45's of old crooners. Piling the shiny black grooved plates on that cylinder to drop and play one after the other. I almost could like them, but then the abrupt fear. But reading the center label with a hole punched in, could make it all go away. Reading was really good for that.

The day you were born was summer. I was the mother and you were the baby and the other kids were the older ones. I would wrap you up warm and close and tell you what to do and the older ones would play and play while I kept my eye out and bounced you up and down with an idea. "How about you guys go to the store!" while I would hold you and wait. Then we forgot and ran around outside in the sun.

Growing up wasn't all it had been touted. Angular legs too long, those skinny hands were done playing horse or house, it was gone for good. Confused in middle school, downright scared of algebra and history in high school until that last year. That's when I gave up and did what I could. That's when an artist came to school to teach. A world of wonder opened up, maybe even college, where reading and drawing would give back hope.

But no matter that repeating Spanish pressed me down, no matter English II writing lifted me up, it was done. Those days were done. Grown up, I studied, and I drew and painted and raged and craved and drove recklessly with reckless friends not interested in playing or coloring and I couldn't fix that.

My dream of cowboys and cowgirls seemed distant in that valley, maybe over that canyon, maybe later in the day, when the sun seemed to lower in apricot orange and gray. Maybe that day was ahead. Roy and Dale and coloring and playing house and playing work and library. More books, more darkening afternoons would get me there. Someone would ride up to play. Soon.

They had to.
...