nedful things

Unfamiliar territory

in the dark
The trees gesture
with blackened fingers
but reveal no secrets
The night conceals
clues of my path
Swallows corners
making speed my dare

Alone

yet over the crest
two red eyes
speed into the distance
under this prophetic sky
Spattered with stars
forming some new constellation

Divined

It looks like tomorrow
until the tiny star that anchors it
flashes red and green
and flies south to land
Eyes in the distance
Speeding under the sky
Tomorrow still

Unfamiliar territory

I hate chain email.  

That includes all the many varieties  of chain email.  I hate the danger email chains, the ones that warn you about things that have never happened (such as men lying under your car with knives waiting to slice your ankles or that you should not lick envelopes because spiders will hatch in your mouth).

These are just evil little missives hoping to whip people into a frenzy over imagined urban legends.  When I get this sort of email, I research it and email the true story back to the sender, relieving them of fear, encouraging them not to use the internet to disseminate such ridiculous falsehoods, and cautioning them against being so gullible.  Strangely, no one thanks me for this.

I hate the missing children email, they are almost always hoaxes.  There is never any real information given about where the child disappeared from and the contact emails may not even exist.  

Most of all I hate the good luck/bad luck chains.  The ones that promise wealth and riches if you follow instructions and sure death to you and all whom you love if you fail to pass it on in the specified time allotted or to fewer people than demanded.  

I got this email today.  I think I had different reactions to it than I was supposed to have.

Hope you can send the green dog back to ME!  Read Each One Carefully and Think About It a Second or Two.     
(a second or two doesn’t sound like reading carefully or thinking but perhaps for these sage words one or two seconds is at least one second longer than they deserve)

1.    I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.  (Smack anyone who tells you this.  It says, I love you not for yourself but for what you can do for me.  Yeah, just lovely.)
2.    No man or woman is worth your tears, and the one who is, won't make you cry.   (Does anyone think that tears are a sign of abuse?  Love can make you cry, even when you are happy.  Instead, be happy you love someone enough that you would shed tears for him or her, and be happier if they will take your tears and count them precious.)
3.    Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.   (This is a lovely excuse for all sorts of behavior.  I mean really, I could use this line and get away with anything. " Sorry honey that I sold your wedding rings for drug money. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you, just that this is the most I can manage to love". )  
4.    A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart.    (Well I can go with this alright as long as that reaching hand isn’t reaching for your wallet and the heart touching isn’t an excuse to pretend to miss and touch something else)
5.    The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting right beside them knowing you can't have them.   (Okay, this isn’t called missing.  This is called lust, longing, frustration and downright uncomfortable)    
6.    Never frown, even when you are sad, because you never know who is falling in love with your smile. (Yeah right.  I agree, if you are sad, don’t frown.  You go have a good cry, wail it out baby.  You are under no obligation to keep the world comfortable by being happy for them all the time.)
7.    Don't waste your time on a man/woman, who isn't willing to waste their time on you.    (First, if either of you are “wasting” your time on the other, then both need new partners.  If someone is worth your time, it isn’t wasted.)
8.    Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one, so that when we finally meet the person, we will know how to be grateful.   (This is too close to the “God is a vengeful God”thing for my taste.  Don’t blame everything on God, He didn’t make those decisions, you did.)
        REMEMBER: WHATEVER HAPPENS, HAPPENS FOR A REASON.      (rationalization, clearly)
  True friends: How many people actually have 8 true friends?        Hardly anyone I know ! But some of us have all right friends and good friends!!!        You have been Tagged by the Green Dog!  (insert large green dog made up of keyboard characters and say Ruff!!!  This is so cute.  Did I mention that the whole thing is in eye-straining neon colors? )

  You will Have Good Luck For Two Years if you send this to 8 people or more and if this is sent back to you then you are a true friend. (Okay, I am perfectly willing to admit that I don’t have 8 true friends, but apparently the one who sent it to me does not get validation as a true friend unless I burden her inbox with a reply in kind.  I decided that since this is my one true friend that I will just send this back to her 8 times.)
You must send it in 5 minutes or your good luck will run out.  (And just a minute ago, I had two years.  How time flies.  I missed the deadline, needless to say.)

I tried to write a Valentine's Day poem but I couldn't decide on a theme - should it be funny? romantic? historical? or perhaps, should I just write about the proliferation of pudgy, winged children with arrows and explore the possibility that this is a mutation brought about by environmental pollutants?  After a time spent in the eye-straining pink and red card stores, I finally ended up with this:


I searched the aisles and the rows
of hearts and flowers and pretty prose
For words that said just what I meant
amongst the Hallmark sentiments
There were I "heart" you's everywhere
But does that say I really care?
When a bumper sticker thinks it's grand
To proclaim to "heart" the high school band
And those that "heart" horses and quilting bees
Make the heart's song a wilting wheeze
I needed a card that says that I comprehend
how rarely an acquaintance becomes my friend
When finally I spied just the right emotion:
"Congratulations on your promotion!"

Then while searching through my document files, I ran across this unfinished thing:

Do you see?
I have painted the room in sun-
washed colors, red and gold
I have made your bed
in tranquil tones
I have bathed you in moonlight
and lain beside you  
I pulled the petals from the single rose
and made a halo on your pillow

Which reminded me of one of my favorite poems by Christopher Marlowe:

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant poises,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherds's swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

So, there you have a hodgepodge of Valentines, and you can choose from them.

I think I will just go eat some chocolate-covered cherries and wait for a real holiday, like National Quilting Bee Day or something.

Here do we sit
Here do we speak
of the life flowing on
outside these walls
Here does the ocean
come up to meet us
without a trace
of the world on the other side

Here do we speak
of dreams never dreamed
in this timeless prison
but remembered as restless nights
Here do we hold each other's
souls in our hands
and comfort them
soothing our spirits
and resting our minds

I love April. The signs of spring are all around me.  Daily, the sun creeps higher in the sky.  My morning drive no longer consists of hugging the bumper of the car ahead of me and hoping the driver of said vehicle knows where he is going as the slightly risen sun flashes between buildings and glares through bare branches obscuring the view.  

The sky changes rapidly, the wind carries it along tearing off pieces of clouds and depositing them in portents in the sky. Suddenly the sky becomes an open faucet, drenching with a rain that billows like a grey curtain whose departure is as quick as its arrival.  The sky then smiles in innocent blue, full of promises. No longer is the sun a cold light, but a fire whose warmth can be felt.  A lone bee ventures forth, too early to find food and seeks the baked interior of my car through a window I have opened to catch the freshness of the April breeze.  

The best thing about this April, of course, is that is has arrived in February.  Dusk settles and the temperature hovers at 50 degrees farenheit.  It's a gentle twilight that requires no layers of protection, winter seems to have forgotten to arrive.

I always say that what I like best about New England are the seasons, even the blustery and  bitter days of February.  I think what I like best about this February is that we are having so many seasons in rapid succession.  Before long we are sure to return to winter and learn again the art of dancing over icy parking lots and navigating our cars around slushy corners without fishtailing. In fact, I can feel spring slipping away already in these early morning temperatures.  But for now, I will take April for as long as it lasts.