Pebbles & Bern

This morning I saw my dog

using my kitten as a pillow —

Bern’s massive head on Pebbles

who didn’t seem to mind.

Bern isn’t getting any younger,

he gets stiff hips in the morning

and has lighter hair around his eyes.

Science says one year for dogs

is seven years for us;

it also says their body systems

have factored in their own mortality.

But we haven’t. I haven’t.

One week for me, seven for Bern.

— it’s even worse for Pebbles:

twenty-one years taken the first two,

time is ruthless for a kitten.

I spend my days bummed out,

sometimes not even leaving the house,

just letting Bern out in the yard,

just letting time go by for lack

of knowing what to do with it.

While Pebbles sleeps all day long.

I have to get out of that rut,

not just for me, but for them too —

time passes differently for everyone,

but it matters for all of us.

Factoring in my own mortality.

So I’ll play with them. Go out, rain and shine.

Bern needs to go run after squirrels,

— he used to when he was a teen —

have Pebbles chase a fake mouse on a string,

make the day matter, make it unpredictable.

Get a tennis ball, grab a piece of yarn,

goof around, cuddle, nap in front of the telly,

make dinner for all three of us,

so that when we all go to sleep

our dreams make us twitch and bark,

paw and run, huff and purr.

Time that matters isn’t time anymore.

How are the five minutes of a mayfly’s like?

A day in the life of a Greenland shark?

Different, yet the same, I guess.

There’s no time in the life of a dog to get bored,

yet sometimes that’s we like doing

when boredom matters

more than time.

Pebbles just woke up.

Spheres

A second ago the air the same

now vaulted in a spherical film

wobbly, iridescent, tense

now two different airs

inbetween, the thin pellicle

clearcut yet transparent

slowly, as water drains out,

the black spots turn into a film

darker than closed-eyelid eigengrau

the tension surfacing rapidly

some symbol hanging there

love perhaps, life, death, whatnot.

perhaps someone’s ego

protected at all costs

until something runs out

then the air in, out, the same.

Hic Sunt Monstris

 
"Let me state for the record that I am second to none in decrying, loathing, and desiring to defeat those who wish to replace freedom with religious tyranny of the most brutal kind--and who have murdered countless innocent civilians in cold blood. Their acts are monstrous and barbaric. But I differ from Krauthammer by believing that monsters remain human beings. In fact, to reduce them to a subhuman level is to exonerate them of their acts of terrorism and mass murder--just as animals are not deemed morally responsible for killing. Insisting on the humanity of terrorists is, in fact, critical to maintaining their profound responsibility for the evil they commit.

And, if they are human, then they must necessarily not be treated in an inhuman fashion. You cannot lower the moral baseline of a terrorist to the subhuman without betraying a fundamental value."

Extract from the article "The Abolition of Slavery" in The New Republic (Dec. 19, 2005), by Andrew Sullivan (British-American author, editor, blogger).

Source for the quote

 

"What is the moon, what is the moon?"

 

Change is a constant

“We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.” in The Summing Up (1938), p. 306.

William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)

The Odyssei

 
Another bottom-shelf Odysseus thinking
having a lofty goal is all that matters,
that Ithaca is just the one place,
that the destination is everything.

Those Odyssei merit to feed the crabs,
or to rot on the shoreline in the sun,
kelp in their matted hair and beards.

The fool will get lost indeed, and drown
– manly him and his ignorant ideals –
he will only find gods and monsters,
marred plans and fleeting riches,
unmemorable deserted islands,
– not the Penelope his guts are yearning for,
the Ithaca of Ithacas, the journey of journeys.

Those tacky, fragile amphoras of Odyssei
praise the wine, the flagon, the cellar,
forget the vineyard, the soil, the sun,
that Penelope handpicked the grapes.

This Odysseus remembers her proud beauty,
everyone’s envy, her shimmering garment,
he trusts in the olive tree’s roots in his bed,
in his aura to ensure none replace him
– forgets Penelope is the weaver, the teller,
has ousted many of those brash Odyssei,
elects who will rule and who will fall.

In this Ithaca, as in all other Ithacas,
many an Odysseus ended up a beggar,
ignored, unsung, wishing he remembered
how Penelope smelt of tangerine,
how she used to own the night,
herself an Ithaca without a map,
the reason, bearing, quest, and deed.

 

Fragment #199

It is cold in my heart, and the blizzard rages, rages

yet turning around I see one long line of footsteps,

steady in the snow – the fact that it is fading

is irrelevant to the purpose which brought me here –

home awaits at the end of the journey,

warmth will come back and thaw.

Still, a long way to go yet.

Resilience

 
"Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Extract from Ulysses (written 1833, published 1842), by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892)

 

Missing

—

something

amiss

off

unthere

—

missing someone

is hard on the heart

—

guts twisted like a wet rag

with every single recollection

—

shivved in the chest

at the first memory

with a notched blade

grazing bones, tissues

exposing the flesh

so it cannot heal

—

every DNA monomer

branded, rewired, retranslated

so even the sense of smell

gets tricked into thinking

– the memories are real –

– the missing isn’t missed –

only to each time find out

– the heart heaving as

going down a steep slope –

that the missing is decohered

– neither here and – nor – there –

unable to freeze it into place

if one stares at it long enough

– love unaffected by

any law of physics –

—

the air unbreathable as

every pulmonary alveolus

collapses like a promise

when holding it fails

– the only option is to hold

– breath, attention, heart –

and sit still – so very still –

counting heartbeats to zero

until infinity hits

—

missing someone

is hard on the heart

– shattering its walls –

– supposedly denser

than the core

of a neutron star –

into absolute smithereens

– its ash to be repurposed

but for now, for what, for what

—

missing someone

is hard on the heart

– but missing someone

you’re never to see again

– that lays the heart

to unequivocal waste.

Pikakari Rand