One of the most challenging things for humans to learn is to not-think. It's a skill we have as infants, and rapidly lose as we learn to understand word sounds, to match those sounds to objects and actions. Much of our mind's activity becomes linked to language, which is intricately marvelous and fascinating. However, something is lost in the process. In one of the Catholic Schools I went to as a kid, we had meditation practice. Sometimes, this was time set aside to think about certain aspects of our behavior and beliefs, or about stories from the Bible, but sometimes it was practice to let go of worldly thoughts and just be aware. Be empty. Listen. We were taught this was a good way to experience the presence of God.

incidental instruments

When I was a kid, our aunt wrapped a paper tissue around a hair comb. 'Hold this to your lips and hum,' she said. A pleasing buzz issued forth. Humming a melody into the comb produced instrumental sound - perhaps like a kazoo.

We had small electric fans in our house. Calling 'ahhhh' into the whirling blades also produced amusing vibrations of sound.

A friend put dry beans - like pintos - in an empty beer can and used it for percussive sound in a local band.

There's an old tradition of using a washboard for rhythm. Kids run along wood fences making rattling rhythm with sticks, and as grownup musicians recreate such effects on stage running a stick, thimble, or wooden spoon against a washboard.

Central Texas, where I live, is known for its fields of bluebonnets in spring. Bluebonnets are such a lovely local icon. How many paintings have I seen with a field of bluebonnets and a weathered wood windmill in the background? Quite a few.

Certain plants and trees mark other places I've lived or visited in the past. In early March in Paris around 1996, Forsythia was in full bloom - shrubs laden with shades of cheerful yellow abounded. Around June, 1976, Scottish Broom lined the highway parallel to the Straits of Juan de Fuca in northwest Washington State. In spring, 1965, south Louisiana had azaleas, mounds of pink, some shrubs as big as a Volkswagen Beetle. Around that year, there was such an azalea bush one noonday alive with hummingbirds, two or three dozen, darting in and out among the flowers. Their fluorescent feathers sparkled in the sunlight. In Abuquerque, New Mexico, September 1987, Pyracantha shrubs were weighted with berries, a fiery display of little orange spheres. That same fall, the Colorado Rockies shimmered in gold, robed with the graceful white-barked Aspen Trees.

sometimes
i think about
lawn mowers
and those
(mostly men)
who are close to them
who know them well

we complain
but some of us
are a bit compulsive
manning the mowers
at very regular intervals
and feeling satisfied
at the helm

do lawn mowers
have souls?
why do some mowers purr
and others sound 
agitated or angry 
and roar?

some people mow
small sections at a time
others go round and round
the circumference of a large lot
and work their way to the middle

i worry about mowers.
we may never know
what trees and grasses
might grow around us
if mowers weren't around
keeping things so trim

and i remember grasshoppers
leaping in all directions
to avoid the blades and noise

but even as i worry
i too have a fondness
for lawn mowers
i confess

Twelfthnight

This year's
Twelfthnight
is marked
by old thin man
crescent moon
meeting Venus -
quite a conjunction
a pre-dawn brightness
in the East
that shows the way
to 3 Wise Travelers

'old moon'

'old moon' rises
in the eastern after-midnight sky
crumple-edged
like a bright croissant
a pleasure with a cup of coffee at dawn.

sacred spaces

There are landmarks and special museums, mountains and lakes I have visited in my six decades that bring me much pleasure to remember. There are also places I remember for no apparent reason. I've given this some thought. I don't mention these locations because what made them so large in experience, the air so sweetly mind-expanding, may have been that relatively few humans lived, worked, or visited there. The balance of nature, the experience of life - even in the stones and in leaves already shed for the winter - safe, calming, exhilerating, sacred balance was to be found where man had not dominated, where nature was not subordinate to human progress and experiments.

That said, such an experience can still be experienced, in tiny spaces, when encountered, not hunted down.