In such small space
so great a brightness
in such simple corner
so vast a rightness
not just because it’s Christmas
Christmas comes and goes
but because it speaks of home
which warms the heart and toes.
With thanks again to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives
and to the D.J. Berg Christmas Panorama.
“You have a hole in your heart.”
This was a comeuppance; my heart and I had been together for 73 years, with me smugly assuming it was in one piece. But not to worry, said the doctor: this kind of hole (in doctorspeak, a PFO) happens to lots of people around the time they’re born and it is no big deal. My friend Bill, who knows about such things, explained it as “vagaries in gestation.”
Many years ago, my otherwise staid and sensible Aunt Jean paid actual money for some kind of documents about the O’Hern family history. Suddenly we had a crest and a motto. I thought the O’Hern motto was “Pass the pierogi.” Meanwhile, my mother was hard at work on the Mauck side, where the motto surely should have been “In ironing we trust.”
So, dear reader, when my friend Bill explained the PFOs as “vagaries in gestation,” I thought A) what a wonderful-sounding phrase, B) boy, does that explain my family, and — thus — C) hey, our true family motto!
As I mentioned recently, autumn is a good time for beginnings and I’m now beginning — and returning to — an occasional blog reflection on family and on me, vagaries all. My blog will then be part “Connections” and part “Vagaries.” Oddments indeed.
As ever, in search of story —
A gardener’s life is muddied
with setbacks and travails
calloused knees and splinters
blackened fingernails
but then there is the heart-stop
electric, luminous
when something perfect happens
golden, numinous.
Symmetry
mere line and arc
utterly still
no eye, no heart
imperious
simple
as vesper bell
summons to quiet
the daily
groundswell.
More thanks to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives,
Vernon Hill Gallery.
Winter grey
Cassius-lean, persistent
racks the eye
hollows the heart.
Spring peridot
damp, plump, insistent
declares a lush Heigh!
in gladsome
Puckish
impart.
Ode to My Computer
Oh, thou dastard mystery!
Flat rectangle of doom!
With monotoned duplicity
you dominate the room.
My memory card inserted
with photos fresh and current —
you just sit here humming
defiant and obscurant.
What happened to that SD thing
or whatever hapless part?
You’re just the modern tin man
and you really need a heart!
