Nightmare on Urban streets

Summer road construction is nearing its end. Thank heavens!

All summer I have been chief navigator as we have gone from place to place in this city where we have lived for so many years. Clutching the street map in both hands, I have "re-routed" us to familiar places. Sometimes we even have gotten lost, adding more suspense to what usually are routine trips.

I must say the finished sections are smooth - and a huge improvement, especially on freeways. Dollars well spent on aging infrastructure has meant jobs for many. Hopefully going well beyond filling potholes, re-paving worn roadways will save the suspensions of numerous cars. And even prevent accidents in which attention to potholes rivals the risks of texting while driving.

A month or so ago, I had a terrible nightmare. You know those orange barrels that keep drivers from entering work sections? It has seemed as though they have been reproducing like rabbits in Australia.

 In my dream, I imagined they had become so numerous that there was no place large enough to store them until next summer. Therefore, the highway department workers busied themselves all winter long by continually loading them onto trucks and moving them to other sites, thus rotating their orange presence in our harried lives.

I think the source of my dream was a news article explaining that the summer's road construction was so complex this year, that it was too complicated for workers to remove barrels from finished stretches until the whole freeway was completed. The result? Cars restricted to one lane while passing lovely roadways still barricaded by those blessed orange barrels!

My dream indeed was a nightmare!

Farewell Summertime!

Perhaps it is because summer means T-shirts and shorts. Clothed just enough to be presentable in public. Leaving bare skin exposed and wind blowing through my hair, summer is the most sensual of the four seasons.

One of my favorites pieces of poetry reflects these times, repeated summer after summer. All I have to do is close my eyes and remember times past when my children were young. . .

embodied summertime 

hot sweaty body,
dirt between my toes,
smears from a grubby hand
brushing away mosquitoes
up one leg, down an arm 
and across my cheek, 
tired sore muscles and 
satisfaction of hard physical work
bring a garden of beauty to life

ahhh - body memories

cold clear water from
swimming pools, mountain streams,
blueberry picking time,
one eye alert for bears,
the other on ice cream buckets
slowly filling with blue fragrance, 
car trips and camping expeditions,
adventures with children,
backyard barbecues of chicken 
with secret sauce, 
fresh buttered ears of corn, 
big pitchers of minted tea  

evening loon calls
under star-studded skies,
full days of paddling a canoe,
flea market bargains
repaired and stripped of paint,
frosty tall glasses of lemonade,
nine months pregnant,
red ripe tomatoes, sweet basil,
yellow squash fried up with
onions and fresh dill

lazy summer days,
it seemed
they'd last forever
                      and forever

                                                          from one of my books of poetry
                                                                   Waiting for the Heat to Pass

The Wave Heard Around the World

The Grand Canal had slipped by. Our cruise ship was just leaving Venice.

The swells from the ship dwarfed the tiny ripples caused by the hosts of small boats that kept their safe distances. Their occupants looked upward and waved goodbye to all of us crowding the railings. Of course, we returned the gestures.  But, were we waving back and forth just to be waving? Something automatic. Being polite. After a few more waves, I stopped and simply watched. Did my wave really matter among all the waving? The ship left the harbor.

Later that evening, while at sea, an announcement came that Rosa Parks had died. That was October 24, 2005.

The thought washed over me of the unmistakable signal that a black seamstress had conveyed to a watching world. Hers was a seemingly simple gesture of defiance in refusing to relinquish her Alabama bus seat to a white man. Folklore has it that she was tired. Not true. Hers was a transformational act of bravery.

Hers was an intentionally dangerous move, born out of acts of imbedded cruelty and humiliation. I  remember standing by that very bus stop in Montgomery, reading the bronze commemorative plaque.

The gentle wave she began, watched by many - grew immense in size and intensity. Distant shores were rocked. Decent people around the world were being encouraged in their longings and efforts to be brave and daring risk-takers.  Rosa was the spark that set off the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Now - in each day that goes by,  grows the awareness of an irrepressible reality that people of the world are interwoven in a common fabric.

Always have been.

                                           - Dedicated to the legacy of Rosa Parks who died at home in
                                             Detroit, Michigan on October 24, 2005 at the age of 92. Rosa
                                             became the first woman to lie in state in Washington, D.C. 
                                             She is a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

CIMICIFUGA

A startling smell to be sure!
Fall wind from just the right direction.
An incredibly sweet pervasive
    odor that commands attention.
And, there it is. A garden plant, tall and
    with spikes of blooming white flowers.

I must visit the place again soon -
    before the gift wears away.

"BETTER LIFE THROUGH PLUMBING"

Driving north from Minneapolis proper, there used to be a large painted message
on the wall of a warehouse "better life through plumbing." The warehouse has long
since been demolished . . . but the overall thought still vibrates across the world. Years
ago I was part of a mission work team that was assigned to work with families living
in a poor part of the Cumberland Mountains in southeast United States. The home we
came to work with was owned by a quite elderly woman. She lived alone and made
quilts to sell. She didn't have an outhouse and explained that she never had one but
would love to have one like her neighbors. Not fancy. Tar paper on the roof and a nail
for a door handle. One of the youth workers asked her how she took care of herself and
she replied "across the field by the forest." The group took two days to build an outhouse
of her liking. She worked right along with us and when the outhouse was done, she
said that she would like it if all of us could crowd into the structure and together pray
The Lord's Prayer. We did.

Sometimes life can be better than it is . . .

W H E R E ?

Where does

     mountain water flow?

To the sea?

To a bottomless pit?

To nurture life-giving crops?

Into our souls to refresh?


                  Flow

                        carefully

                                   water.