Fifteen

South of the bridge on Seventeenth
I found back of the willows one summer 
day a motorcycle with engine running 
as it lay on its side, ticking over 
slowly in the high grass. I was fifteen.
I admired all that pulsing gleam, the 
shiny flanks, the demure headlights 
fringed where it lay; I led it gently 
to the road, and stood with that 
companion, ready and friendly. I was fifteen.
We could find the end of a road; meet 
the sky on out Seventeenth. I thought about 
hills, and patting the handle got back a 
confident opinion.  On the bridge we indulged 
a forward feeling, a tremble. I was fifteen.
Thinking, back farther in the grass I found 
the owner, just coming to, where he had flipped 
over the rail. He had blood on his hand, was pale- 
I helped him walk to his machine. He ran his hand 
over it, called me good man, roared away.
I stood there, fifteen.

By William Stafford        


                                                                           

The Same Old Problems

"The impoverished always try to keep moving as if relocating might help.
They ignore the reality that a new version of the same old problem will be waiting at the end of the trip--
the relative you cringe to kiss."
From The Book Thief
by Markus Zusak

Grass

  

Antietam/Sharpsburg

Burnside's Bridge

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Shovel them under and let me work—

                                          I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg

And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.

Shovel them under and let me work.

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

                                          What place is this?

                                          Where are we now?

                                          I am the grass.

                                          Let me work.

Carl Sandburg

classification:  social commentary

Cure for Gossip

(commonly called Scandal)

Take one ounce of  “good nature”

One ounce of an herb called by the Mormons “mind your own business”

Add “oil of benevolence”

And two ounces of “brotherly love”

Mix with a little “charity for others”

And a few sprigs of “keep your tongue between your teeth”

Let this compound simmer for a short time in a vessel called “circumspection”

And it will be ready for use.

Symptoms:  A violent itching in the tongue and roof of the mouth when you are in the company of a species called “gossips”

Application:  When you feel a fit of the disorder coming on, take a teaspoonful of the mixture, and hold it in your mouth which you must keep closely shut until you get home.

classification:  humour

Excerpt from "Days"

What are days for?

Days are where we live

They come, they wake us,

Time, and time over.

They re to be happy in:

Where can we live but days?

by Phillip Larkin
photo from "That Tree" Mark Hirsch

Are You in My Story?

Don Quixote makes us wonder if people are part of our story?  or are we part of their story?
Also:  it's not over until it's over.

Some People Actually Talk Like This

"In a village of Estramadura there was a shepherd–no, I mean a goatherd–which shepherd or goatherd as my story says, was called Lope Ruiz–and this Lope Ruiz was in love with a shepherdess called Torralva, who was daughter to a rich herdsman, and this rich herdsman—"

"If this be thy story, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "thou wilt not have done these two days. Tell it concisely, like a man of sense, or else say no more."
"I tell it in the manner they tell all stories in my country," answered Sancho, "and I cannot tell it otherwise, nor ought your Worship to require me to make new customs."

"Tell it as thou wilt, then," said Don Quixote, "since it is the will of fate that I should hear it, go on."

Sancho continued:
"He looked about him until he espied a fisherman with a boat near him, but so small that it could only hold one person and one goat. The fisherman got into the boat and carried over one goat; he returned and carried another; he came back again and carried another. Pray, sir, keep an account of the goats which the fisherman is carrying over, for if you lose count of a single one, the story ends, and it will be impossible to tell a word more. . . . I go on, then. . . . He returned for another goat, and another, and another and another—"

"Suppose them all carried over," said Don Quixote, "or thou wilt not have finished carrying them this twelve months!"

"Tell me, how many have passed already?" said Sancho.

"How should I know?" answered Don Quixote.

"See there, now! Did I not tell thee to keep an exact account? There is an end of the story. I can go no further."

"How can this be?" said Don Quixote. "Is it so essential to the story to know the exact number of goats that passed over, that if one error be made the story can proceed no further?"

"Even so," said Sancho Panza.

From Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Painting by Geli Korzhev, "Don Quixote and Sancho Panza" 1977-1984, oil on canvas
Museum of Russian Art, private american collection