A Day of Remembering

On this day fifty years ago, Clem joined the marchers in Washington DC for the March on Washington. It was an event that changed both of our lives.

I asked him to be my guest essayist on my blog essays from the heart. Put this phrase in Google (or any other search engine that you use) and/or go to essaysbyecnagel.blogspot.com and see what he has to say!

NOTICED FROM MILES ABOVE THE EARTH'S CRUST

                               Call them          what you will
             Absorka, Bitter Root,         Big Belt, Cascades.
                                      From          an airplane window
             ranges of the Rockies         blend into
                                         one.

                                 From the         lingering blue sky below
                       a wisp of cloud         scuttles past -
                            soon to melt         away.
                                     Others         follow.

                  Serpentine streams         crawl from beneath
             melting drifts of snow         to congregate within
                          distant waters.        Slowed and captured by
                     walls of concrete,        reservoirs lay in wait
            to encourage farmland         to grow anew.
 
                                                        Recent snow on
       clear-cut mountain terrain         outlines curiously
                   unnatural patterns.        Perhaps,
                               from these         newly harvested slopes,
                  springtime streams         commence
                    their unhampered         rush
                                     to join         alpine lakes.

                  All, an emergence         of old and new.

                                    Waters         often appear pristine when
                               seen from         far above
                                                        earth's crust.

                       
                                                    -Written during an airplane flight
                                                      from Vancouver, BC to Minneapolis / St. Paul

What Is In Some People's Heads Anyway?

some folks must believe they are immortal
which means to live forever and a day
yet their behavior seems so contradictory

they speed down highways like the devil
was after them, tailgating the car in front and
weaving through traffic as if there is no tomorrow

if one is truly immortal, wouldn't that mean
they have all the time in the world - and more
to cruise along, breathe sweet air, enjoy the scenery

I guess they don't expect they will ever crash
endure crushed limbs and broken bones
or pass from this world into the next

if they weren't going so fast, I'd holler out
                          some of us are mortal and could die
the result of such "video-game" behavior

you know - games where the goal is to
beat the game, plowing through super-fast
to see how many other cars will flame out or

those TV shows full of high speed chases with
roadway violence to keep their audiences and ratings or
promises of impossible feats if you buy the latest models

as for me - I am far more comfortable when
cars stay in their own lanes, no texting please
and thank you, stay off my back bumper

I sometimes play the car-game, noting how often
their behavior gets them there no faster than me
and wonder how they can live so roiled up inside

meanwhile careful to yield to them, their claims
of entitlement their immortality seems to endow
this belief that all roads solely belong to them

I try not thinking bad thoughts such as
go ahead, crash and die some gruesome death
in order to discover they are mortal like me

So I think instead about lovely things, violets
blooming in the spring, the first soft snow
the love I receive and give away

and pray tiny prayers for safety
please God not today, I love life so much
and desire a few more sunshine-filled good days

A Falling Out

One week ago
while weeding
our organic flower garden
I met a nest of 
six-legged creatures.
Their angry buzzing wings
formed a swarm and
came in for 

the sting.

And, sting they did.

I managed to return
armed with a special petroleum-based
wasp spray laced with strange-sounding
chemical ingredients. *

Grace with the luck to
have survived the mere
eleven bites, I retreated inside
to care for a painful, puffy,
swollen hand.

Now, one week later, as
I write this poem
I am gratefully aware I
remain mostly alive.

          *Chlorothane, Cresoils, Dibutylphthalate, Dimethylphthalate,
            Epichlohydrin, Isophorone, Napthalene, Phenol, and Toluene

                (One source notes that these inert products "can cause nausea, vomiting, 
                  stomach cramps, skin/eye irritations, pancreatitis, nervous system disruption,
                  dizziness, respiratory paralysis, comas, and a sundry assortment of maladies 
                  including death.")

                                                                                     -Clem J. Nagel   7/29/2013
                 

                                                                                                  

Road Work Ahead

Every day another one of those diamond-shaped signs pops up.  With a sigh, I get out the city map to anticipate one more alternative route to some familiar place in this city where I have lived for over four decades.

In my imagination, I picture a factory somewhere - merrily turning out more signs for the highway department to pound into the side of the road. A factory run wild for which no one can find the
stop-button.

Then there are those more ominous orange barrels. I deny inner urges to mow down a section of them - deterred only by the possible damage they might inflict on the car. And ditto - another factory somewhere mass-producing these deterrents to smooth sailing down freeways and streets.

Most of these orange objects magically disappear when winter arrives. Which poses a serious question: what do they do with them all? Is there a large storage complex somewhere? Covering acreage that would be better served by living things like grass and trees and people?

In the national discussion about government storage of telephone data, some "in the know" types of ex-employees assert that there is a giant complex built in Utah to hold all of these records. It reminds of the first computer I ever met - taking up an entire room, floor to ceiling, carefully tended by specially trained people in white coats. A far cry from this nifty electronic miracle I now use, so thin there is not even an opening for discs loaded with software.

All our conversations to family and friends to arrange lunch and chatter about significant things like the weather forecast. Stored away in the hot desert sun

And preservation of my messages sent via my newly-learned skill of texting - of which I am so proud. Why yesterday, I texted a grandson that the purple string beans we planted are almost ready to pick - a culinary delight he has never experienced (when they are steamed, they turn a dark green and are the most succulent and tender green beans on the planet). Such significance that information is to our national security. I just hope that if some analysts somewhere listen in, they will jot a note to themselves to order these delights next January when the seed catalogs have arrived.

But back to the Road Work Ahead signs. Not even enough syllables to make the first line of a haiku poem. And muttering about them does not seem to have any effect on their reproduction rate.

I turn to another technique for coping with them. I repeat my mantra over and over: Jobs for Americans. Good for Cars. Jobs for Americans . . . At least I feel like I am doing my part to repair the faltering infrastructure in this country. Since Congress seems so incapable of doing anything constructive.

Perhaps I am too focused on staying out of danger on the road that I am missing the underlying theological premises here: Life is impermanent. Change is inevitable. Proceed carefully in life and remain in the present. Do not be distracted by memories of yesterday or last week - or projecting into the future as I try to remember what we need from the grocery store.

Perhaps these signs are REALLY telling me to slow down and smell the roses.