Category: Reflection

Posted on

Crisis in the Manhole

rarely do I ever

get to see true

hold my beer

moments as I

did last week

we’d just finished

dinner when a

dad waiting for

a table took his

baby on a shoulder

ride through the

parking lot,

stopping over the

grate to pretend

to dump the kid

in the hole

he didn’t dump the

kid, he lost his

air pods ~ the case

fell from his pocket,

one pod from his ear

he took the baby back

to the mama and

returned with a buddy

who set down his

beer and went

in the hole for

the retrieval

the old lady in me

was nervous so

I stood in the road

to warn oncoming

cars that there was

a crisis in the manhole

and just like that

the pods were back

in his ears and their

table was ready

Posted on

A Flickering

Photo by Anett Szekeres on Pexels.com

at 4:37 I heard

scrambling of paw

on wood floor

ticky-toe hurried

steps toward

the bedroom door

next the whining,

different from normal

pleas, like someone

stepping full weight

on my Boo Radley

then a return to

the bed, where he

turned in circles

bumping us with

his body to wake

us up, then lay

between our heads

trembling

panting

as if there were

a ghost.

I took them out,

all three,

in the light balmy

mist of the

pitch black

Georgia backwoods

starry skies

thought of the bits

of squirrel tail

over near the tree

line where violent

death hung in the

recent air

we came back

inside, and I turned

off the light to return

to bed.

A flicker after the

switch-off, and I

knew.

Hello, Mom!

Posted on

Reality

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

every few days

I have the urge

to sell everything

we own and move

into the camper with

two plates, two forks,

and two spoons

and share a knife~

to retire, take to

the highways, see

the changing landscape

of America, pulling

our flatware and

plates from

site to site

no particular place to be

no pressing deadline to meet

then I come to my senses

trying to reckon with the

reality of the silverware

drawer and all those

cabinets.

Posted on

Visual Vexations

Photo by Scott Webb on Pexels.com

Visual Vexations

my brother and I

wonder still: were

Mom’s Lewy Body Dementia

confusions visual

distortions or hallucinations?

She saw a little boy in an

orange shirt sitting all alone

at the storefront and worried

about his safety.

We saw a pumpkin.

She saw strange men with

bunches of bananas

under the carport.

We saw family members

building her a wheelchair

ramp with Dewalt power tools.

She heard voices playing

tricks on her. We heard

branches scratching

the shutters in the wind.

Still, we wonder what she

would see now.

Would she know we are

her children, making our

way through this carnival

funhouse with all these

distorting mirrors

of the complex

and the concave,

wondering, too,

what things are?

Posted on

Rabbit Rabbit

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

all this rabbit rabbit

of yesterday to have

good luck all month ~

a maddening superstition

bringing more stress about

the forgetting is bad luck

enough to forego the

continuation

to begin to ask why

we do this to ourselves

why rabbit, rabbit?

Posted on

Blue Eyes

Photo by Angela Roma on Pexels.com

they were getting

ready for an afternoon

wedding when the

husband stepped out

of the shower, kissed

his wife, said

I love you, Blue Eyes

laid down on the

bed and died of

a heart attack

leaving her and

their four sons

grieving

this is why when

my husband came

to my bedside

this morning before

stepping into his

shower and kissed

me I wondered:

should I give him

an aspirin?

should I take one?

Posted on

A Saga in Six Days of Life When You Live on a Farm: Featuring Boo Radley and the Unexpected, Day 6

All that matters to Boo in this world is his family (who speak his love language ~ food and attention)

Day 6

our Boo Radley

did a most

surprising thing ~

our Boo

forced a threatening

brown bull to retreat

to turn tail

and

take to the woods

or was that his intention?

was he a charger of bulls

or was he a shepherd

of cows?

was he herding them

back in their farm direction

because he knew they

were lost, drifters one

farm south of theirs,

needing a nudge?

this is, after all

the Funny Farm,

where you have

to be a little

sideways to end

up here in the

land of the

unexpected

where wrinkles in

perceptions become

realities like this:

Boo Radley is a

shepherding schnoodle

of lost herds, the

meanest bulls not

excluded, because

he knows how it feels

to be lost, looking

for home, aggressively

persuading them not

to give up a good thing

all this brings back

the day we were

on the beach

late afternoon

on a cloudy day

sipping wine

on a blanket

when two women

much further into

their bottle

walked by us too close

to our beach campout

according to Boo

Boo corrected

them

~not politely~

and in their swagger,

in their smirks,

their chuckles,

one taunted back:

oh, what a little badass!

fast forward

the years

to today and I

want to go back

to that moment

and say

yes ma’am,

he certainly is!

he fulfilled the

prophesy at the bottom

of your

wine bottle

you saw the future

of our little rescue

Schnoodle named

Boo Radley~

a champion badass

herder of bulls

you weren’t bullshitting

Posted on

A Saga in Six Days of Life When You Live on a Farm: Featuring Boo Radley and the Unexpected, Day 5

Boo Radley on intake at the rescue organization, so matted they had to shave him down

Day 5:

from the corner

of the house

I could see

the bull’s nostrils flare

I covered my eyes

and peeked through

two fingers

with one eye

our little rescue dog

the Schnoodle we

named Boo Radley

for his timid demeanor

the Schnauzer-Poodle mix

abandoned

in a duplex

by his former family

found by a landlord

matted and starving

thirsting to death

our Boo Radley

with more issues

than a decade of

Saturday Evening Posts

Boo, who trembles

when a cell phone dings

who drops his ears

when we pick him up

who has a nervous

breakdown when he

smells the heat

from the toaster

who sits and stares

down the driveway

when one of us

should be coming home

our Boo Radley

did a most

surprising thing

Boo the day we brought him home
Boo with zoomies on the farm
Posted on

A Saga in Six Days of Life When You Live on a Farm: Featuring Boo Radley and the Unexpected, Day 4

Cows in the herd Boo Radley chased off through the woods

Day 4:

the brown bull

dropped its head

ready to charge

I felt surely in my

soul I was about to

witness Boo Radley

being trampled

and killed

because

though he is small

he is tenacious

ten times the size

of that monstrous bull

in his inflated mind

what happened next

was a viral Tik Tok

never to be seen

except in my own memory reel

Boo Radley

charged the bull

zigzagging

cutting left to right

back and forth

front paws

low to the ground

cussing the bull

for all he was worth

edging up to the bull

its dropped head

meaning nothing to Boo

from the corner

of the house

I could see

its nostrils flare

I covered my eyes

and peeked through

two fingers

Posted on

A Saga in Six Days of Life When You Live on a Farm: Featuring Boo Radley and the Unexpected, Day 2

Day 2:

that one’ll make a lovely black and white

leather purse, I thought

of the bull grazing inches from my

bedroom window at midnight

on the Funny Farm

when our neighbor’s cows got loose

then I felt guilty

for thinking such a thought

next morning, my husband

called Wayne

turns out

another bull had gotten

into Wayne’s pasture

and their fighting

brought down the whole backside

of the fence bordering our farms

his entire herd was wandering

in the morning, cow poop

was everywhere

it’s just fertilizer

my husband reasoned

pointing to a

rounded one

the size of a dinner plate

that one’ll make a perfect

cow patty

Here are the two bulls ~ there were 8-10 cows in our front yard that night!