The Infinity Coil

“The Infinity Coil” sounds cool

but it really only extends as

far as my imagination lets it.

Like all adequate SciFi ideas

it functions as a metaphor that

mines for a deeper meaning as 

the curious eye skitters along the 

surface of the paperback’s cover 

reveling in the exoticized illustration.

Aliens are never really alien, btw.

They are aspects of ourselves

that we project onto the universe.

This projection returns to land

in an empty field and thrill us with 

mysterious means and motives,

fascination with their inscrutability

reflecting our own lack of insight

into the problem of being human

as we see through a glass darkly.

***

Grace Abounds

So many of us making 

such terrible decisions 

with negative effects 

that ripple through 

our families, our friends, 

and our communities.

  

Yet grace abounds 

and healing is offered 

at every turn.  

May we be open 

and humble enough 

to accept it.

***

Airport Limbo

sifting among strangers

timing the sips of coffee

to coincide with boarding

standing in lines, lines,

lines, and even more lines

switching from iPhone to 

iPad to paperback to nap

obsessing about transfers

running like OJ Simpson

through unfamiliar airports

"Leapin' Luggage!"

(exclaims the little redhead)

with no rest on the horizon

until that final dramatic flop 

onto the waiting hotel bed

***

Goodbye, Bluey

Animals can be unwitting receptacles of our thoughts and emotions.  We animate them in this way and if they are intelligent enough, they receive and reflect it back to us.  In the case of our fish, Bluey, he was incapable of such a feat in such a small bowl and with such restricted facial features, but there it is.  

He died last night and after almost five years of daily care my children flushed him down the toilet for a Midwestern burial at sea.  They insisted to depress the toilet handle together and at the same time in order to share in the momentous occasion.  I cleaned the fish bowl and stored it in the basement.  

How strange to have not had to ask Elias last night "have you fed your fish?" though the words sat on my tongue and had to be swallowed back down.  There is something sad about saying words nightly for years as part of a routine and to hear Anya's occasional declaration that there are "six people in our family" and listen to her rattle off our names to include our dog and then, rather dramatically, our fish and know that that is gone now.

The Cemetery

When I was in kindergarten my father was the pastor of the Wesleyan Church in our town.  Thelma Roberts was an elderly member that took me under her wing as a kind of godmother at that time, though there was no such tradition in our church per se.  When my mother was in the hospital to give birth to my sister I stayed with Thelma and her husband.  

Thelma had a routine that she included me in while I was there which involved walking to a large cemetery where she would visit her family and old friends.  I remember running along in front of her on the sidewalk to find a space between a brick column and the wrought iron fence that I could squeeze through.  We would then rendezvous at the cemetery entrance.

This morning I dropped my son off at a camp that is situated out in the country about a thirty minute drive north from our house.  Somewhere along those twists and turns through farmland and forests I saw a sign for Fargo Wesleyan Church.  I made a point to check it out on my way back home and found an old cemetery behind it, so I stopped.

Walking through a cemetery seems like such an old person thing to do, but I am getting on in years I guess.  It was quiet and a bit foggy as I wandered between the tombstones and markers, some dating back to the 19th century.  Two in particular intrigued me.  They were women who died in their mid-twenties and were identified as "consorts" of a particular named man.

I've had occasion to walk through cemeteries since those times with Thelma to include an old one hidden in a neighborhood that I stumbled upon in the town where I went to college.  I made a point to walk to it one evening while the sun was setting after having listened to "Eleanor Rigby" in my dorm room.  I sat on a tombstone and watched the sun sink below the horizon.

More recently I visited my grandfather's grave in the town where my parents and sisters live.  These kinds of visits are a sobering reminder of one's mortality and of the short time we have here on this planet.  I sung the Resurrection Tropar in English, then in Greek, before leaving and had the overwhelming feeling that those lying there were listening in quiet expectation.

Forbidden Words

There are some poems  

that will never find paper

perchance the pen find 

a vital organ and pierce it.

***

Green Glasses

Sometimes the brick road is not so yellow.

Sometimes it is not even brick, but more

of a muddy morass that impedes forward

progress to that Emerald City of childish

imagination and oh-so foolish expectations.

What if the road circles in on itself like

some weird movie twist that takes some

time to unfold, but then makes us gasp in

surprise at what should have been obvious?

There is that hindsight thing, but it is all

hindsight, is it not?  Time moves in only one 

direction and drags us along behind it in

our touristy clothes and green-tinted glasses.

***

The Pop Can Cannon

Of all the dangerous and ill-advised things concocted in the late 70's and early 80's, I have to say that my favorite was the pop can cannon. I don't remember what grade I was in at the time, but sixth seems about right. At that time we visited my aunt and uncle and their three kids in Columbus, Indiana which was an hour or two drive from our town. Their oldest was my cousin David and he was in High School. He had his own newspaper route and a moped which meant that he was practically an adult in my eyes. He is the one who initiated me into the secrets of the pop can cannon.

In those days pop cans were made out of a metal significantly heavier and stronger than aluminum. The cannon was comprised of four such cans connected end to end with duct tape, three of which had had their top and bottom removed with a can opener. The fourth can attached at the bottom only had holes punched into its top and a single hole punched into its side at the bottom. A tennis ball was loaded into the top and the tube shaken until the ball rested on the perforated top of the bottom can. The next step was to squirt lighter fluid into the single hole in the bottom and place your thumb over it to prevent any vapors from escaping. The metal tube was then shaken vigorously for a few seconds.

[At this point I simply need to pause and say that I was a fan of anything that involved lighter fluid when I was a kid.]

The moment of truth came in the form of a lit wooden match. The bottom of the tube was placed firmly on the ground and in coordinated fashion the thumb was removed as the match was put near the hole. It did not need to be right on it because the fumes were quickly escaping from the hole and the flame instantly combusted it making a tremendous booming sound sending the tennis ball rocketing into the sky out of sight for at least a few seconds. You had to have your hand to the side of the hole with the match held at its end or a column of expelled flame would find your fingers.

To reuse the cannon you had to blow into the hole after it cooled down and evacuate any lingering vapors that were left over from the burnt gas. Failure to do this would compromise the explosiveness of the next use. My cousin told me that he and an overweight friend had engaged in a cannon war. He assured me that one shot had hit his friend in the chest and knocked him clean off of his feet. I was duly impressed! Incidentally, he was the cousin whom I'd followed out into the woods for a bb gun war and gotten some welts for my troubles (he was a very good shot).

So of course when we returned back to my town I created my very own pop can cannon and introduced my friends to its wonders. Some time in the next few years pop cans transitioned to being made of light weight aluminum and the era of the pop can cannon went out not with a bang, but a whimper.



***