flagstone

the sidewalk and divider are repaired...
but the pattern is different from those
on the other blocks...
someone new?
a different mold?
a different supplier of dyes?
for whatever reason
we now have a neighborhood artifact
of the history of our street.
our flagstoned concrete differs
because some guy blew up
the sidewalk with a monkey wrench and
haste

cause?

I pass this "mistake"
every morning...
and every morning I am
puzzled... by what
string of by now non-apparent
circumstances
led to such a strange little
"mistake"...
such a long lived short cut

effect... and cause

the effect...


and the cause...

well... unless you want to call it
the city crew who strung the flags...
or the subcontractors who
turned the spiggot too fast
and lifted the sidewalk right up
out of the mud...
or whoever ordered the sewer relined
in the first place...
or circumstances which placed this
sidewalk above pipes buried over
60 years ago...
whatever the cause,
my sidewalk is gone
for awhile

poser

I suppose even a shrub
can have an identity crisis

rain soundtrack

it's raining hard...
I get out the seldom used rain poncho
and leggings...

I'm an unusual New Mexican
to possess such things

as I walk, I turn on the iPod
wondering what will be the first words out
on this very rainy day

dylan

if it keeps on rainin'
the levee gonna break

Watched a BBC special
hypothesizing drought as the cause
of the Mayan downfall
11 million people stuck around and died
trying to change the weather
with ever more bloody sacrifices
or so a Texas scientist posits

they are draining the campus duck pond
to clean out all the stuff kids slid across the ice last winter

took the ducks exactly one day to exit this drought

my iPod soundtracks this image with dylan...

"my sense of humanity has gone down the drain!"

I'm on two projects right now
both require me to animate
snakes
I'm seeing them everywhere ;-)

March 12 - Ants

spring
reminding me
others walk the underside
of my sidewalk

Old Scar -March 13

I first lived in this neighborhood
around 1971... moved here again in 1978...
been here ever since...

I walk through parallel universes on this street...
I still see the trees that grew here,
a pair of arbor vitae...
trimmed to form an arch...

now a pair of matching wooden curiosities.

drink

Just a little gutter irony...

hands

My husband's grandmother...
born late in the 19th century,
grew up on a Webster County Missouri farm.
Helping a careless brother chop firewood,
she lost the first joint
of her right index finger.
She had dainty little hands.
After she died, I found a dozen pair
of beautiful little kid gloves in
her top drawer.
I have very small hands too.
Thinking they might fit me,
I discovered
a tiny wad of cotton...
tucked into the right index finger
of each right hand glove.

trash day

walking through the historic district on the edge of campus... trash day, city cans on wheels, neat stacks of recycling, boxes from new shoe racks, organic milk, and FedEx evidence of online shopping... nothing in between the sequential driveways but dry leaves and the occasional twig...

my neighborhood, a mile further up the hill, is not a bad neighborhood, we've got the wheelie cans and stacks of bottles and cans and newspaper... but we're closer to Central Avenue... old Route 66... workin' girls and alley biz... and we've got a lot more stuff in between our trash cans...

stuff in categories...

discarded Bic lighter, rolling papers, butts, empty Skoal cans and American Spirit packs... Jack Daniels miniature, Smirnoff label, Bud can, Corona cap... bits of tail light reflectors, greasey bolts, squashed metal fittings, chromed plastic slivers, shimmering auto glass crumbs... spent condoms and rubber gloves in bright colors... chards of a Tom Waits song...

and this little cloud of cardboard butterflies... someone in a hurry to get to the contents...

time tick

iPod over ambience,
blues and campus bell tower
mingling in my left ear
I untangle
Westminster 9 o'clock
from the words of the song,
"time bomb tickin'"
damn! I'm late for work!

not

not.
do not.
barrier?
or jumping off point?

coil

at first
I thought maybe a can...
an empty tomato sauce can...
but it wasn't quite right...
the arch and ridges perfect and
beautiful...
maybe a roll of copper tubing
caught in a perfect squash...
every element in sync with
the final form