You take my hand in yours
But I’m too cold to feel it.
When I was younger
You were what I always wanted
This moment
The culmination of my childhood dreams.
But life takes bites
With every swim past.
This hand, that eye, this leg
This heart
All lost
All replaced
With perfectly functioning
Automatics.
Now I have you.
You who were once so precious to me
But I can’t
For all that I am
Remember why.
Sorry I haven’t been too responsive lately. Things have gotten busy!
Today two friends and I cycled out to the Bur Oak
Locally celebrated as the oldest tree around.
We rested in its shade
Picnicked
Painted.
A frail old man with a cane arrived
Guided by a woman and a little boy.
It was evident his family adored him.
They spoke eagerly about what to show him next.
The old man saw my friend painting and was pleased.
He had gone to art school.
He was very honorable, soft spoken, knowledgeable and kind.
After they left,
Three carfuls of Chinese students showed up.
Amidst the clamor one of them said, without irony,
“It’s so peaceful!”
We got to talking.
Before we knew it
A beautiful slight thirty something woman
Was leading us all in a Tai Chi exercise.
She taught us Chinese words as we followed her movements.
Four motorcyclists arrived
In matching Harley Davidson jackets.
They found a spot amongst the roots
And made brash, cheerful gossip.
Of these very different people
Every one was here to see the tree.
Some casually leaned against it.
Some circled it.
Some squealed for a picture with it.
Some hugged it.
Some climbed among its roots.
Some solemnly sat and revered it.
How many people
Has this tree seen come and go?
What does time even mean
To something so ancient?
For most of its life
It had little significance
Growing up among peers.
Time passed
And all the trees around it fell.
Why did it remain standing?
A farmer’s passing fancy?
A fluke?
Or did it have value even then to someone
Beyond all other trees?
Now it takes our human adoration
Our traffic
Our abuse
All our attentions, for better or worse
And still it stands
Breathes
Drinks
Takes sun
Makes acorns
Towers.
Trees know something we don’t know.
We play at their ankles like children
Drawn to what they have
But never understanding why.
I had to comb through a lot of old FB posts to find this one! I probably could have rewritten it in that time…
Blacksnakes are oilslicks
Inky trails that slip uphill
And silently fade
Also, here is something random, but writer-related, which never fails to amuse me. Some writing tips can be gleaned from it. All I can say is, I’m glad Mark Twain isn’t around to review my book. Or maybe I wish he was. How could I get mad at someone this hilarious?
http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/rissetto/offense.html
O phone
You aren’t much of a muse.
You correct my spelling
To something I neither expect
Nor want.
You are too helpful
With your auto capitalization
And your flat, buttonless keyboard.
Yet I continue to use you
As my primary writing tool
Because it is so convenient
To lay on my back in bed
And hold you up
When I write.
That is
Until I drop you
On my face.
Molly caught a mouse in the garage.
Don and I watch her poke at it.
She is proud.
She sprawls happily on her side
The picture of feline contentment
Stretches one sharp little paw and give it a lazy push.
It twitches a little.
How do you think she killed it, Don asks.
It doesn’t have any visible wounds.
And although she is a fine mouser
She never learned to eat them.
Maybe she scared it to death, I say.
Maybe it had a heart attack.
Prey can sometimes panic themselves to death.
They are so close to panic already
Their nervous systems strung tight as harp wire.
How could he not break under the weight
Of the persistent cat’s killing intent?
I go into the garage and get the shovel
Scoop the mouse up
And take it outside.
It still twitches.
So I drop it onto a shady spot beneath the maple
And bash its brains out with the shovel.
I remember when killing was hard.
My first mouse in a mouse trap haunted me for three days
And intermittently again
For two more years.
My first roadkill made me nauseous with empathy
For about five minutes.
After a while
Killing didn’t bother me anymore.
What bothered me more than anything
Was the fact that I wasn’t bothered.
I butchered a rooster
To see if I really was what I suspected I might be.
It was easy.
My only regret
Was that the knife wasn’t sharp enough.
With this act
Came the dizzying knowledge
That I was capable of worse.
Of much, much worse.
Is it this way for farmer housewives
For butchers
For hunters
For soldiers?
How do you come to terms
With your own capacity for good or evil?
I thought a lot about it
(I did a lot of thinking then)
I decided that it was like driving.
At first, when driving, I was afraid
Of the weapon I controlled.
One impulsive wrench of the wheel into oncoming traffic
And how many people would die?
What was stopping me?
I waited for myself to do it
But I never did.
So it is with murder.
Knowing that I am capable
Does not change anything.
I trust myself not to do something awful for no reason.
Coming to terms with one’s own power
Is a test of ethics.
I haven’t hurt anybody.
I don’t plan on it.
But knowing that seed is in me
And embracing it
As part of myself
Means it has no need to grow.
I wipe off the shovel and go inside
With only a slight and transient wonder
At my lack of feeling.
I forget all about it
Until recounting my day in my journal.
What feelings did I have today? I write.
And I come up with seven other notable events in my day
Before I remember killing the mouse.
Sarah D. Silvey 