Morning Symphony

 

Today, I woke

To the cheery chuckle of the chickadee;

The cawing of crows;

The cardinal’s chirp.

The starlings scrabbled in garrulous gaggles

The geese honked overhead

A bluejay scolded, flashing by,

As I lay in my bed.

Outside my window,

The finches chitted

The sparrows twitted

The titmice titted

The mockingbird perched regally

Rendering his rambling repertoire

Warblers added their piping voices

And I thought, “Damn, that’s loud.”

Image credit:  René Lussi 

https://www.pexels.com/photo/great-tit-on-branch-with-spring-foliage-37164030/

To Those Who Plan to Take Their Lives

 

I know sometimes that death is accidental

I know sometimes that death, like love, is planned

I know the world can be so damn judgmental

But please remember love, and stay your hand

I understand you’re in a place of torment

A place that’s filled with pain, regret, despair

But surely there are those who really love you

No matter if you say that no one cares

Don’t keep the feelings locked inside forever

You’ll only find the comfort if you seek

Talk to your friends, your family, or your lover

You’ll find your problems aren’t all that unique

We all go through the very bleakest moments

You’d be surprised how much we’ll understand

We’ll be there for you, giving strength and caring

To save your life now, just reach out your hand.

If you are feeling hopeless and considering suicide, please reach out to someone. Talk to a friend, a family member, a counselor, or call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.

Image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-in-black-shirt-and-gray-denim-pants-sitting-on-gray-padded-bench-1134204/

Promise Fulfilled: a haiku

 

Just one piece of mail

Today, but it’s the one that

I’ve been waiting for

Image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/crop-photographer-with-photos-and-camera-on-sofa-in-room-7014453/

My Low-Tech Laptop

I can take it anywhere

When I’m needing it, it’s there

It fits right in my pack

That I carry on my back

I can take it on a plane

With no dreaded scanner pain

I can use it on a bus

And nobody makes a fuss

I can drop it on the floor

And it springs right back for more

I can leave it in my car

It’s always safe from harm

Nobody tries to steal it

So light I barely feel it

It needs no source of power

Goes for hour after hour

All I really need’s a pen

And I’m set; alrighty, then!

Image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/notebook-in-sunlight-16404309/

Does It Matter?

 

My coworker’s girlfriend

Is such an enigma

“I’m never sure what she wants

I’m not sure she even knows”

The teen in my youth group

Has a crush on a boy at school

“I like him SO much, but

I don’t even know if he notices me”

We’ve all been there

Young love, first crush

Relationships we just can’t suss out

You know how it is

So, does it matter

That my coworker

With the problem girlfriend

Is a woman?

And does it matter

That the teenager

With the crush on a boy

Is a boy?

If it does matter

Why?

We all want the same things

We all feel the same things

Gay people are people

They aren’t any different

They laugh, love and give

Get pissed off and grieve

Just like “normal” people

Just like everybody

Who doesn’t want love?

Who doesn’t want love?

How can you hate someone who’s never hurt you?

Image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-couple-holding-hands-8732931/

Christmas Memory: Giving 'til it Hurts

It was the Last Reasonable Shopping Day before Christmas. That is to say, it was Christmas Eve Eve. You could certainly shop on actual Christmas Eve, if you were inclined to be desperate or insouciant; heck, the particularly intrepid might make a sport of finding gifts – however inappropriate – at the odd gas station open Christmas morning (“Look, Grandma! I got you a deck of cards and this month's issue of Custom Rides!”) But for most people, Christmas Eve Eve is it for Christmas shopping, and that's why Walmart was a madhouse.

But that's not why I was there. I take an extremely dim view of self-inflicted stress, which leads to my usually having the Christmas cards, decorating, and gifts dispensed with in an almost disturbingly prompt fashion. However, despite my reluctance to deal with the surging, spending masses, there I was, because I love animals.

I volunteer with a local animal rescue group that has a small shelter housing about a dozen cats. The shelter would be closed for almost 2 weeks over the Christmas holidays, and I volunteered to foster Paulie, a frantically affectionate Russian Blue, for the duration. I realized, though, since I was keeping Paulie separated from our own pets (the stress-aversion thing, remember), he would need some basic supplies of his own: food and water dishes, litter and scoop, etc. So: Walmart, on the last reasonable shopping day.

You can imagine the scene: parking lot jammed with lines of cars creeping toward the exits or hovering, vulture-like, for available spaces; shoppers, bundled and bustling, striding purposefully toward the entrance or exiting laden with purchases, and of course, the little red kettle of the Salvation Army, attended by a cherubic 50ish lady in a Santa hat.

It is very difficult to walk by one of those little red kettles without stopping to donate. You start to think as you approach, “If I stop to donate on the way in, will she remember when I have to walk back past on the way out? If I just walk past on the way in, will she think I'm a hopeless tightwad with no Christmas spirit, or will she assume I mean to donate on the way out?”

I reckoned that it's best to leave a favorable impression, so I decided to donate on the way out. Trying to look like I was definitely not skulking, I walked past the red kettle and the nice lady and into the store. After finding and purchasing the needed items with impressive ease (the folks at Walmart clearly saw the Last Reasonable Shopping Day coming and scheduled accordingly), I walked out the door and approached the kettle, whose motherly attendant smiled encouragingly as I groped in my pocket for a donation. I usually give loose change (because I actually am a hopeless tightwad), but today, full of the holiday spirit, I decided to pony up a dollar.

Unfortunately, my dollar bills were folded neatly inside my fives, tens, and twenties. My attempt to extricate them while still inside my pocket (to avoid showing the nice lady what I could be giving) resulted in several bucks fluttering to the ground underneath the kettle. Embarrassed, I joked with the lady about not being able to hold on to money while bending to snatch the bills before they became airborne in the winter breeze.

I retrieved the money lying underneath the little red kettle – which is made of metal, by the way – which is suspended from a red tripod, also made of metal – which is surmounted by a large Salvation Army sign that you probably don't even notice, because it's so well known who stands there ringing the bell. The sign, which you don't notice until you come up from beneath it after picking up your fallen money, is in a frame, also made of – imagine if you will – metal. I know for sure it was metal, because of the distinctive bonggg it made when colliding with my ascending skull. The sweet lady, aghast, put a comforting hand up to my head and murmured consolation. Making another lame joke about “giving till it hurts”, I stuffed all the bills in the little red kettle.

I can take a hint, after all.

Here's hoping you don't have to get the Christmas spirit knocked into your head this year!

Here's another story about when I was dumb: https://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2014/12/philadelphia-is-as-you-know-or-may-at.html

Image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-man-holding-bell-3428095/

 

A Pair o’ Dactyls about Pterodactyls

 

Flippety Flappety

Big flyin’ reptiles

Once dominated

The skies over Earth

Paleontologists

Dig up the fossils and

Museum curators

Give ‘em a berth!

A dactyl (DACK-till) is a type of “foot” in poetic meter, composed of a long (stressed) syllable followed by two short ones. A more famous example of dactyl poetry than my silly ones above are Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, although they were written in Greek, so translations may not have this rhythm.

Robert Browning's poem “The Lost Leader” uses the dactylic rhythm to great effect:

Just for a handful of silver he left us

Just for a riband to stick in his coat

This helpful info came from Wikipedia! 

If you'd like to read more about dactyl poetry, click here, and please support Wikipedia, a not-for-profit foundation.

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/pterodactyl-dinosaur-creature-8240037/