N’Orleans is brimming
I don’t want to be swimming
My dear Ponchartrain
Though steps are a strain

Worry not, my tribe
‘bout hotels, mud inside
(After five months - remote)
We’ll just rent a house boat!

He’s a Lumberjack. And He’s Okay.

Last weekend, I was supposed to get back into running. I’m feeling better. I am only occasionally experiencing the hacking cough that makes sweat pop out all over me and which causes me to nearly pass out, and it now seems brought on more frequently by eating than by physical exertion. The fitness gods have finally poked down a sweaty finger to nudge me in the proper direction.

But last week, one of my neighbors, a tree guy, mentioned to Tim that one of the huge elm trees on my property is beginning to split down the middle from the weight of its huge arching limbs. One of those limbs was hanging over my garage and its falling weight would surely crush the roof. I hadn’t noticed the split, but once it was pointed out, it could not be ignored that a good wind would be the end of my garage. Oklahoma is known for wind, as you may be aware.

OOOOOOOOK-LA-HO-MA, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains . . .

People love to expound upon the stars. They love to talk about the Grand Canyon. It doesn’t take something that remote to make you understand that you are insignificant. All it takes is that tree in your front yard.

The trees on my property are huge. I can’t wrap my arms completely around either of two elms, and Tim and I together can’t wrap our arms around my oak tree. Still, you just don’t realize how incredibly humongous the limbs are when they’re still attached to the tree. You think you do, but let me assure you that you don’t. When they come crashing out of the sky and shake the ground upon which you stand, and two strong people can’t move them even one inch without cutting them into three-foot-long sections, you begin to have an inkling.

Remember this: Trees aren’t benevolent. Trees can kill you. Trees can maim. They don’t understand nor apparently care that you’re trying to save them. They can swat you like the miniscule, bothersome fly that you truly are.

Last weekend, my dear, my love, my everything borrowed an extension ladder and became a lumberjack for two days. He saved my splitting elm. He trimmed another elm in my front yard that is in the throws of dying. He trimmed my oak, the final branch of which tried to kill us both by swinging down and striking the extension ladder upon which Tim was perched and I was steadying. I managed to jump out of the way and Tim managed to cling to the vibrating ladder while holding a chainsaw.

Then we cut up all that wood and hauled it into the backyard. We’re alive, barely. We're both sore, but able to work. Tim must have saved me $1,000 or more.

Yet again, as always, he’s my hero.

Writing Zen

When I write well, by which I mean when it comes easily, I go into what is almost a meditative state. I can feel my muscles relax and I can feel my body do a sort of electric Zing! I feel highly alert, yet completely relaxed. I am fully open to explore what I’m writing. If it is sad, I sometimes cry. If it is sexy, I get turned on. It seems to me as if an invisible river courses just above my head and all I have to do is to reach up and tap the flow.

Tim was talking to me last night about haikus and he told me something that I think can be applied to most writing, and all poetry. He said that one method of judging the poem is considering whether or not the poem assists the writer and reader in living in the moment, in recognizing and experiencing the world as it is. What has passed no longer exists. What is to come doesn’t exist, either. All that really exists is what is happening now.

I haven’t been running lately. I’ve instead been trying to keep this virus from smothering me in the night. This marathon is bad for living in the moment. It looms. I worry. I wish I were doing anything but having a cold.

Writing seems to contain my only Zen moments these days.

Oh, okay, Tim, there may be a few others.

And the Nobel Prize for Limericks Goes To...

I give up. I know when I've been beaten. See Tim's submission below.

They had a grammatical go-round
about the gender of the pronoun
where the subject can
be a woman or man;
it was "he," "she" and "they" at the showdown.

Writing the traditional way,
it was "he" that would carry the day.
"She" was a non-starter,
"he" sounds so much smarter,
but the P. C. crowd is behind "they."

The singular subject was "each."
Their dilemma was really a peach.
They did not want to change it
but to rearrange it;
a solution they needed to reach.

They fin'ly came to the conclusion
their problem was just an illusion.
They changed "each" to "all;"
"they" answered the call;
and the sentence was just as amusin'.

Boogerville

I have been sick with a chest cold since last Thursday. My running has been curtailed, because deep breaths result in hacking coughs and I'm so hopped up on seudoephedrine that I would probably have a heart attack if I ran around the block.

Fun stuff.

I owe Tim a debt of gratitude for taking care of me over the weekend.

Other than that, ain't got nuthin' to say. Don't get too close.

The Journey Continues . . .

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Come along.