Redflame ~ My Take

Today’s Haiku:

Golden leaf
Whips wildly in the wind
Clinging for last goodbye.

On Being A Seven Times Grandfather

Tomorrow, my seventh grandchild, Alexander Enrico Vallecillo, will celebrate his two weeks birthday. He has made good progress in getting used to this old world. He has developeded the art of complaining, a sure sense of where his sustenance is to be found and he is now pooping on schedule. I bring this event up because I like being a grandfathr. Seven tmes I have been lavished with congratualations. The parents are lauded too, of cousrse, but they are so taken up with the wonderful new responsibility thrust upon them, they have little time to savor the plaudits. Three of these grandchildren are no more than two so my chances of seeing them to maturity are somewhat slim given that I am almost 92. The teenagers are already trying to sort out colleges so the pleasure of seeing them grow up has been mine. But not to fret, I will see cuteness and fun from the little ones to brighten my old age.

On Impulse

How many times have each of us acted on impulse, sometimes not to our best interests. It happened eighty years ago and he was dead before I could open my mouth to shout. Although I have forgotten his name (Let’s say its Jim), I’ve never forgotten that awful gash in his head from the train wheel.
“She’s going too fast,” said the stationmaster, and Jim nodded in agreement. “Guess I won’t go to town today.” Then goaded by some hidden impulse he made a run and grabbed at a ladder rung. His foot missed the bottom step, the speed of the train flung his body in between the boxcars, tearing loose his grip, letting him fall to the rails below. The next day at lunch in our one-room school I was the center of questions as being the only school kid who saw the whole affair. Miss Tetrick was wiping her eyes and I said “Let’s go play some catch.” We used to tease her about him being her beau. I guess he was.

It happened so fast no one really could be sure how. The bicyclist speeding downgrade, whipped around the lowered gates. Someone shouted, “Stop! Stopl” The rider angled across the tracks to go round the opposite gate as if to taunt the oncoming train. The engine clipped the bike’s rear wheel, so close was the rider to making it across. The bike flipped around to the side of the engine slamming the rider’s head against it.

It was this second event that brought up the memory of the first. The fact each acted on a sudden impulse to challenge a train, though years apart, and that impulse lead to their death, a reminder how easy it is to be our own destructors.

Today’s Poem:

Moon’s Day

There were five angels sitting on my doorstep
This morning, none of whom could speak English
But then neither could I so we got along fine.
I mentioned I had just learned about my ancestor,
The flat worm, and how much I owed
Him/her for the invention of sex,
They told the phases of the moon for me
And how they affect women’s ovaries
And sometimes drive men mad.
This from five angels who couldn’t speak English.

TODAY’S HAIKU:

When sleep takes over
Dreams appear.
Why are you not in them?

_________________________

July 5, 2007 Last evening, after watching the fireworks from the vantage of our hilltop, we came home to find our Night Blooming Cereus about to bloom. We called our neighbors over to share the event. The four of us stood around, almost holding our breath. First, the slender outer green petals began to peel away from the white bulb of the tightly compacted petals. We waited. Finally one white petal snapped out. Then another. Then so quick that if you had blinked, you would have missed it, the entire blosson snapped almost fully open, white, pure and glowing. We all gave a shout as if it was a game score. Two more blossoms opened in sequence in the same manner. We just sat there watching. Finally one neighbor remarked, “The beauty of seeing these open outdid all the fireworks I’ve seen tonight!”

NIGHT BLOOMING CEREUS

Out of heaven came this flower
So white, precisely petaled, so perfumed,
There is about it no aspect of earth
Though, by heaven’s consent, of earth it bloomed;

In deference to lesser forms it stays aloof
Of sunlit hours and keeps a secret tryst
With those of us who seek at dark
This beauty, this fragrance none can resist:

For early risers keen of mind at dawn
It lags behind the going away of night
Granting one more glimpse of fleeting grace
Before it folds and bows its head contrite.

From Blue Flame ~ Selected Poems
by R. Dean Tribble
_______________

Let’s get political and talk about the Democrats. Just so you know where I’m coming from, I became old enough to vote for Franklin D. Roosevelt in his second term, and, with the exception of Dwight Eisenhoower, I have voted Democratic ever since. I think of myself as a moderate though I am by no means a locked-in-Democrat. If McCain had made it in his bid, I would have seriously considered him.

That said, perhaps you will allow me to express my disappointment with the Democratic members of Congress. They seem to be so busy being anti-Bush that they have not put forth any ideas pro-country. Surely they could see that Bush, for all his low-rating in the country, holds all the aces till end of his term, (short of impeachment). But what did they do? Push forward useless resolutions that got nowhere. It is my hope that now they will put their heads together and come up with real solutions to move this country forward.

Enough said. Dean