SNOWY DAY

Snowy day. Wet day.
Me inside with chicken pox, and you
Outside in the frosty air.

Garbage day. Trash-burning day.
Me watching through the frosted window, and you
Outside in your big fireman’s boots.

Sick day. Surprise day.
Me waiting and watching, and you
Out there signaling for me to be patient.

Fireworks day! Fourth-of-July day!
Me watching the meteor rise to the sky, and you
Smiling back at my amazement.

Beautiful Wisdom | Nancy Grisel

Keeping peace is a constant battle.

Cool Verbs

plumb
interpolate
inculcate
assuage
salve
hold sway
prettify
abscond
inveigle
percolate
bemoan
bemuse
circumvent
circumnavigate
belch (pollution)
bask
corroborate
precipitate
forestall
foreswear
preempt
prognosticate
prophesy
stipulate
abhor
acquiesce
perambulate
reify
condone
deify
exemplify
indemnify
postulate
edify
castigate
defer
wail
proscribe
circumscribe
crater
cave
objectify
elicit
marginalize
evoke
cleave
cleft

On Aging

I walk the gardens of my days where rav'nous weeds are few
and even they are dying as I pass.
But neither do the flowers bloom as bright. Still, they smell as sweet
and sweeter and as strong. There's comfort in not being seen.
So sit with me awhile and hear my tale of summers past
and fragrance lingers with you when you leave.

I walk the forests of my years where empty branches line
the lower parts of trees, where brown ones tinkling, fall.
The green ones sit aloft on piney bough. Still, dead ones form
a bed so soft and safe. There's comfort in not being new.
So lay with me awhile and feel safe in autumn rain
and such a rest rejuvenates your soul.

I walk the canyons of my life where earthquakes' tremblings passed
and served to form the ridge and grassy hill,
their jagged edges distant and obscure. Still, the path is smooth
and easier to trod. There's wisdom gained in being worn.
So walk with me awhile and eye mountains' winter coat
and contemplate your place within the world.

Fired Lake

The lake is situated at the foot of the hill where runoff pisses in the water, leaving its brown spreading trail of waste. Every time it rains the lake gets more polluted, less clear, until the muck reaches critical mass and, globbing together in microscopic islands suspended, sinks, disappearing to the bottom. Atlantis in miniature. Yesterday on the top of the hill, today a colony lost, buried alive beneath the dregs, to spend eternity in oblivion, never to see the light of day again. Its fate is sealed by nature, by gravity. The lake's bright mirror only shrouds the pain beneath.

Barn in Love

Yesterday the barn was old and weathered. The roof sagged in a permanent grimace and looked about to collapse under its own weight. The paint, red-brown chips flaking to the ground sprinkled about like so many scabs was only slightly more appealing than the broken teeth of windows' long-gone glass, shards scattered. The ground was muck bristled with coarse, hewn hay, about a three-day growth. It was a lifeless place, a hopeless place, the crumbs left from an era of prosperity and plenty.

Today that building gleams in the sun, the sagging roof resembling a comfortable hammock, a relaxing place to spend a summer day cradled in tender arms. The lack of paint gives an antique look with a polished sheen almost silver like fine hair in the sunlight. The diamond glass glints and reflects the beauty of the world around it like a picture in a picture. The barn sits full of life, full of economy, a promise of prosperity for the farm. The ground prepares itself for planting. Vestiges from last year's crop decay to fertilize the new one. Moisture is soaked in slowly, finding its resevoir below, ready to be called upon at a moment's notice, a hedge against drought. Today is new life.

The Flying Squirrel

It was a damp, gray, February day in Detroit, exactly like the twenty-one days before it and the sky hung heavy, somewhere between sleet and snow. The city bus pulled in front of Immaculata High School and Barb Cunningham and I stepped out over the blackened slush onto the sidewalk. It was definitely a Monday, but Barb's wired smile glinted beneath her hood. I'd seen that smile before. It would be a day to remember.

The principal was an older nun of the order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Her office was filled with dead animals--stuffed wildlife contorted in quasi-natural poses provided courtesy of her father, a dismally mediocre taxidermist. A henna fox with a toothy grin stood guard over the outer office. A glass wall with a centered oak half-door divided the public space of the outer office from the inner sanctum. Through the glass wall, Sister Marguerita's desk was visible--a neat pile of papers and record books, a public address microphone and a stuffed snowy owl whose face was frozen forever in distorted mid-screech. A smallish badger with disproportionately huge curved claws, a snarling wolverine--the state animal--and a red flying squirrel whose arms and legs were outstretched as if in midair, but who was actually perched on a log, monitored the comings and goings of students from the window ledge. The two of us entered the building beneath their dead gazes.

Barb and I shared a locker and much of the same class schedule, but she was inexplicably absent from Calculus. Likewise, in Chemistry she was nowhere to be found. I excused myself to get a drink of water and caught a glimpse of her down the hall, in the principal's outer office. Suddenly, her head disappeared and I ran toward the office, impelled as much by fear as by curiosity. There was Barb, on the floor, crawling into the inner sanctum like a foot soldier crawls through enemy fields. To my horror, Sister Marguerita sat at her desk, not six feet from the crawling Barb, writing in one of her record books, obviously oblivious to the invasion. Like a rocket, Barb's arm shot up through the air, snatching the squirrel and the log to which it was eternally attached and brought them to her flattened chest. Fear and disbelief shot through me and I weighed for an instant whether I wanted to be even a witness to this crime.

Almost as stealthily as she came in, Barb wriggled out of the inner office and back into public space, which was surprising considering the bulk of her heist. She rolled her body up to a stand and nonchalantly tried to hide the quarry under her uniform blazer, which, frankly, didn't work very well. She walked briskly past me as if I were invisible, but I swear I could hear her heart beating from where I stood. Then she disappeared down the hall.

I returned to Chemistry, having been gone long enough to have imbibed twenty gallons of water. But Sister Rodriga, about four feet tall and four feet wide, faced the chalkboard and was engrossed in her explanation of covalent solutions and the atomic number of sodium and didn't even notice me. Not five minutes later Barb rushed in, out of breath.

"Sister, there's a squirrel in the chapel!"

Sister Rodriga's eyes grew wide for a moment as the realization of the words dawned on her. She flew into a flurry of navy and white, ranting something about those "pesky rascals" and how they're so difficult to catch and how they'll surely shred the new chapel curtains, and it took over two years to get the requisition for them through the archdiocese, and she whirlwinded from the classroom. Stunned silence was all that was left in the vacuum of her wake.

Incredibly, nothing more was ever heard or mentioned of the incident--it was as if it never happened. The only evidence was unveiled to us insiders three days later when we saw Barb, scrubbing three floors of stairs in four different stairwells with a toothbrush--a wired smile glinting beneath her hair.