wearynes

Stinking tar, roiling pitch and the relentless smell of dead fish hangs over the deck, augmented with pungent gusts of air from the galley below. As the bell for the second watch rings out, a tall figure slides with weary grace from the mast top, and crawls covertly along to the prow, grateful for the darkness, absence of moon and presence of star-obscuring clouds. Sleep perhaps will come, let fear and anxiety float for a while on the vast black ocean. How many nights have passed in this manner? Raw red hands clasp the planking, splinters driving deep into the callused palms. He no longer felt the desire for adventures. He no longer felt young. Two years ago he had been new to the ways of sailors, unschooled in the ship arts, new to the sea…new to the now familiar longing for her…

For Eleanor Farjeon, One of Martin Pippin's Girls

Martin cocked his head to the side, squinting down his nose at Jocelyn.

She squinted back.

"No kiss but a right-handed one for you, dear Jo." He placed his lips against his palm, and lightly pressed her forehead. She wrinkled her forehead, then tossed her dark head and snorted, in what she hoped was a stiff and prim manner. "why thank you Martin."

Then he turned to Jeniffer, curled up small on a pillow in the corner.

"Do I get a right-handed kiss too, Martin?" Jennifer's pale skin looked rosy in the firelight, and for a moment Martin's eyes weren't periwinkle, but a sober blue.

"Ah, no Jennifer. For you all that is left is the left-hand." He delivered it.

"A left-handed kiss means you will walk cold miles under strange stars, alone and betrayed, Jen." She turned her face down to the kitten purring on her lap, and then looked up with puzzled eyes as Martin added softly, "But you will do some singing."

Done with her grand manner, the hint of pout lingering small by her red mouth, Joceyln chimed in, "And what of a right-handed kiss? Am I as cursed as Jenny?"

Martin laughed. "The bearer of a right handed kiss will swim in the blue water in a bright bay, and.."

"Alone?" Jenny cut in. "Martin, will I be alone?"

He walked over to the the fireplace and stretched his long arms from one end of the mantle to the other. He took the china shepardess and and placed her gently next to the curly-headed china shepard.

"You may be alone, Jo, but not for long. For someone must hold your left-hand, lest it work mischief abroad." Martin caught her eyes, and she met his gaze boldly until he whispered "There are enough lone wayfarers walking this earth Jo."

Then Martin put both hands together.

"What have you got there, Martin?" asked Jen. The kitten's claws were hopelessly entangled in her lace petticoat, but she had noticed the cup of his palms.

"What have I got?" Martin mumbled, looking down in surprise.
"Why, I've got peppermints!"

And so he had. He gave one to Jo and the other to Jen, and when Jo tried to break hers in two so he would not go without, Martin found a third mysteriously tucked into his upper vest-pocket.

(And that is the story of Martin Pippin in the Winter Parlor)

neocortex

the Alborz mountains loom, another Boulder, almost the seventh swan
ludicrous
and beautiful
This is Tehran? This is the hub of evil? Where are the groaning women? Where are the noosed necks & fanatic secret police?

walk into a coffee shop, rent a pair of skis, walk down main street & see:

They are wearing Ralph Lauren and throwing snowballs.

The eye cannot lie: propaganda & mass media are all lies - the eye cannot lie
and
i
haven't seen any pictures of suffering.

go

I’d noticed them on a few other trees near base camp, light pink rings of fungus decorating the bark, centered a darker crimson like a bulls-eye. Now as I hiked up the steep incline past the jutting bones of Buffalo Mountain, I noticed them again. Natural targets everywhere. A few of the trees appeared as if a woodpecker marksman had been practicing, which led me to wonder if the local Indians had ever thought to use them for archery practice. Working as a camp counselor all summer, I’d made up elaborate stories about the local Indians, the Shawnee Tribe. Tall men with fierce hawk faces and uncanny raccoons-tracking skill. Bold women who ate crawdads and knew how to make weapons out of daisy chains. Their skill with the bow had grown to mythical proportions yesterday, as I was running the archery range, and right now I had seventeen ten-year-olds hiking up Caleb’s Trace behind me. . . as soon as they caught up they would want another story. Hmmm. It ought to involve a bear. Or better yet, a whole posse of bears. Bright Otter was a young brave. . . but wait, I was supposed to be scouting out our campsite. This wasn’t the time to be distracted by Indian boys or tree-fungus, however pink.

Training.

"Come forth! I call you out and come!" And there you were standing in front of the toaster with your back out to me, summoning your poptarts out with all the eloquence of Sauruman or a some holy bloke from some ancient time. I had to laugh, y'see, because you've been doing that kind of stuff since you were weaned, and I'm not doubting you'll do great things, it's just i so enjoy watching you cut your teeth on everyday life. I'm glad I get to be part of the training. Not everyone is so lucky.

in progress

God spoke to Moses from a the middle of a burning bush in the boondocks of Midian, I recall hopefully. Maybe he'll speak to me from Joan's space heater out here in rural Virginia - there's sorta a flame at the top

Joan and Cheryl, two ex-hippies sitting on a porch with the fading green hills of October darkening in front of them, concerned with the small prayers and problems of homemakers. God has not called everyone to bleed and suffer and go without sleep and food and flushing toilets; he has allowed some to sit in rocking chairs with dogs and cats and homemade gingerbread warm from the oven. Joan talks constantly, forcefully. She gestures and tosses her short, chic hairstyle for emphasis. She tells informative stories. Around her is the brick-a-brack of 50 years of traveling- bright Jamaican magnets on the fridge, Ethiopian butterfly art on the walls,a mix of Mediterranean and home-style country clutter. In a calm chaos she grinds her Brazilian coffee and warns me not to follow the wisdom of the world. "Put both feet in Truth, in Christ."

kneel down and listen to them pray
feel the warmth through the ceramic
of a mug bought halfway around the world
and wonder
if
a porch and a kitchen
a dog and three cats
two sons
and an introverted husband upstairs reading
is fulfilling the Great Commission.

Blue Springs: after the history tour

Summer was thick upon the Thursby house. Spanish moss dripped motionless from the ponderous live oak by the porch, in whose shade sat a lone man in a rocking chair. His face was as creased as the bark of the tree, and he was quiet.

It was always this way by mid summer in Velusia. The town was enveloped in the July heat like an ant in amber. They say that after God finished laying out the Fifty States, he went back to smooth them over some. Alaska and its kin gave him no end of trouble, and the Carolinas and Virginias had some stubborn creases that wouldn't lay right. He got so all-fired frustrated with Tennessee and parts of Georgia that he went and heated up his iron again--stuck in right up next to the fire and let it set. It got red-hot and he came back. But he couldn't figure where to begin, the whole mess of 'em were so puckered and hillocked. While he was figuring, he done set that iron right flat on Florida and its been hot and steamy ever since.

His heels and the rocker, the infrequent red-throated flair of a basking lizard from the leaves of the camilla bush, the far-off gurgling of the head spring - for Walter, time hung in the air as a dusty haze. In the porch shade he sat and rocked and looked out on the yard, its sandy stretches tremulous with heat and waves of memory.

The freeze of 1895.
the manatee chasing of his childhood.
traveling to Ocala.
the new general store and Uncle Tyler's automobile.

"I've been beginning things all my life."