Oddments

In search of story

Monthly Archives: May 2019


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May 26.19

Words alone

beg,

gaunt and fleshless,

insensate.

Paintings,

entrapped in stillness,

hover,

inchoate.

But music

pulses,

quickens,

in soul’s vaults

resonates.

One red poppy,

one

lone

 soaring

 voice

Dulce et decorum est

exsanguinates.

 

More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.

And a salute to Symphonicity, the symphony orchestra of Virginia Beach, Virginia, for this poignant vignette, arranged for their 2018 performance of Ralph Vaughn Williams’ Pastoral Symphony, a solemn work commemorating World War I. Their guest conductor was Air Force veteran Daniel Boothe.

 

I wish us all a thoughtful Memorial Day.

 


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May 21.19

I grew up in northwest Indiana, just outside Chicago. “Da Region.” Steel mills and oil refineries, cinders and soot. And earthquaking freight trains. Charging, bellowing behemoths, lifeline of thriving industry, they snarled traffic with sadistic impunity.

Mindful that then our phones were back home, attached to a wall, you will understand that life stopped when those behemoths blocked our ways. So there was nothing like the excitement of spotting the caboose. Life could resume! What cheer to the soul! What revving of engines! Until it stopped in the middle of the crossing, taunting us with half a road.

The caboose had the power to make people happy or homicidal.

If you were a kid and lucky, you got to wave at the man in the caboose, and he would wave back. To be noticed by the genie in the caboose was high living tinged with envy: who wouldn’t want to live in a caboose?

Every once in a while, a caboose would show up in some incongruous place, like someone’s yard. Here was mystery. How did it get there? Is the genie still in it?

It was my early introduction to garden art. A caboose in a yard was never mundane. Nor was the occasional non-red caboose, like the jarring countercultural yellow.

As symbol of time and place, the caboose is nonpareil. And when the train is gone and the caboose stands alone in the quiet of clover and vine, what does the caboose tell of the old time and place? Since I am the caboose, I must ask and answer that question.

 

Many thanks to photographer D.J. Berg.

Part Three

 


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May 20.19

On Being The Caboose

Do you remember the words spoken of George Washington: “First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen”? With a trifling modification, they could be spoken of me: last at the table, last out the door, last to finish anything. I was considered the dawdler, the slowpoke, the Grand Pooh-Bah of Time Wasting. My father referred to me as “the late Maureen O’Hern.”

What nonsense. I was deliberate. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand the concept of the clock; it was that the clock didn’t understand the concept of me. I was– ahem — unrushed.

And thus did I become the family caboose. Always, always last.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately because now, in a new way, I am last. Of the family I grew up with, I am the only one left. Now no one remembers but me. I am hit hard by this, not least because of my desire to write combined with my amazing inability to tell a story.

Bringing up the rear gives one a certain perspective, perhaps not entirely flattering but in a way whole. Where do I go with that? What words do I give it? I know you understand, dear reader, because you are here. You know about words. We want for permanence; in some pauper’s way, our words give that.

 

PART TWO

 

 


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May 19.19

In matters of parenting

we have to admit

some things beyond

our control and our wit:

whether two or two hundred,

one will get loose,

another will always

be the caboose.

 

 

If you know me, dear reader, you know I do not love these geese.

However, I have to grant they are occasionally hilarious.

 

PART ONE

 


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May 12.19

I think they look huffy,

a bit high and mighty,

as though family life

is always this tidy.

I think it’s a ruse,

this complacent look,

a portrait for gloating

on their family Facebook.

Such serene air

is hardly the way

most parents spend

a usual day.

So here’s to reality,

mess by the ton:

a whole lot of work,

a whole lot of fun!

 

A happy day to all who mother!

(And, yes, some days the work:fun ratio is not stellar.)

 

 


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May 9.19

To me, walls were all but invisible

they merely made space divisible

it was my feeling

they just held up the ceiling

now I see that perspective as risible.

A wall has its own eloquence

bare, or with embellishments

art has perdured

lest we be immured

by blinders and old habits’ fence.

 

More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg

and to the unknown muralist who made us look.

Have you, dear reader, seen the new stamps commemorating Post Office murals?

I like them a lot.

Furthermore, I actually remember Post Office murals!

 


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May 4.19

The word of the year is GLUB

the world is a sloshing bathtub

I rant and complain

shake my trowel at the rain

but I can’t stop this merciless drub.

I’m tired of endless grey

I want it to go away

I miss sun and moon

I’m becoming a loon

I want to go out and play.

I’m tired of work half-begun

for want of a sky with a sun

it’s a dastardly plot:

spring comes to naught

and summer attacks like the Hun.

I would find it exceedingly rude

if you told me to adjust attitude

it isn’t my bad

Nature’s the cad

gardeners will grant my bad mood.

 

May the 4th

be with you, dear reader,

soggy though it may be.