Stain-glass Eyes

 What can you teach me, Francis? My dusty, neglected books say nothing. Philosophy, language, music, quotes,   Knot tying, origami folding Birds, fairies and…old journals. You! Play, eat, make music. Fight sleep, fall into hugs and love. You! Scooch toward specks on the wooden floor. Investigate, measure, Fill up with all that’s around you. You! Abruptly take me back on my heels with question and wonder. What are you here to tell me? I’m wise and old. You beg me to let go of all I know. To reach and toss and turn what is in front of me. You! Smile with curiosity, genuineness   and charm. Your hands turn, poke and push things over. What did I miss, Francis? Curiosity? Songs without words? Love without expectations?   Should I test gravity with my body? Are my food and everyday objects,   Worth a relook?  A retouch? The shadows on the wall move and play. I watch you  smile and try  to stop one. My heart leaps a t the moment. You! When you rock yours...

In Dresden-Holden Taking the Picture Germany recently greeted this stranger with open arms for almost a month. Well, actually no arms but I felt instantly connected and it certainly wasn’t because of my grasp of the language. It felt like I was a small, glass marble in a children’s toy being placed at the top of a downward maze with many other marbles-sliding my way down. Gravity responsible for where we all landed. My responsibility was to catch buses, trains or subways with hundreds of steps before and after. Yet, once I was in the right direction I was the marble again. I looked out windows, grasped and gripped the hand rails (sometimes for dear life). I’d count the stops and watch the digital monitor (if there was one) to see if I could figure out when to get off to go to a resale shop, to find a nice cafe, to browse a book store, check out children’s toys or German-made pens and naturally a museum or two.   Just one of the Screenshots  I needed in case my phone died! I st...

    Some communication between people is straight forward. Much isn’t. There are SO many factors in the mix:   assumptions by speaker and listener   mind-reading fantasy   body language   outside interruptions   word choices   tone/volume of voice speaker interrupted by listener   silence I’d like to listen more, clarify more and forget the thought “I know what they mean”. Better to think, “I hope I understand” and ask if what I heard is what they intended. I believe there are times when no clarification is needed because the speaker needs to speak period. I don’t really put that in the category of communication. To me when two people communicate it’s to get an idea or thoughts across. Sounds simple. (Heeehhheee, not so much) A few days ago I started to type my blog-post from Marquette, Michigan in a hotel. I had just seen a father with his four-year-old child in the breakfast area while I drank my coffee in the corner of the room. “Do you wa...

Her spongy, rubber soles spoke as she walked. “Pluosh, Pluosh”. Old trees heard her pass but said nothing. Tilted on a wire   far, far above her a lone crow shrieked. “Not my message”, she thought. And it wasn’t.   Just a voice out there in the cool, early morning. It made her think about thoughts. Like a stream of ramble.   Between the brain and the tongue. So much, so very much lost in apathy. Thoughts suspended without the shape of words. She pictured a meteorite as it plunged down. Crushing her as it fell. Her thoughts disseminated. It didn’t concern her to lose her life. But her thoughts……? She was careful to pass over the railroad tracks. Slowed around the corner cafe. Under the canopy of trees. “If I write them down…” She realized they would no longer be thoughts. But words in sentences. She opened the cranky lock to her apartment. Set down her jangle of keys. And sat. She searched out the window on her comforting couch.   She tried to force silence to her th...

A few days ago on a dark, cloudy morning as I walked in the rain, I met (at nose-level) a fragrant, light-purple blossom. It was so weighed down by water that had settled on the grape-shaped flower it caused the whole branch to lean unnaturally across the sidewalk. I knew if I touched it I would get a head full of rain like I’d turned on a sprinkler. Instead, I leaned forward and gently touched the bloom to lift it to my nose. I sucked in the rich, sweet smell and could almost taste the fragrance. I wasn’t sure why I immediately closed my eyes until I saw a screen of memories gently pass behind my eyelids. Smell connected to all my other brain senses and insisted I fully pull in its power. The first rush of memory was me with my head back so I l could look up at huge, gnarly lilac trees covered in soft-violet shades of color. They surrounded my childhood home with a burst of color. I saw the old rickety, back shed, door wide open with the screen already serving its purpose to air out t...