“The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit,—-not fossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic.”
                                                                                                Henry Thoreau, "Walden"

Sorry my blog is late. I just returned from Ontario, where I visited and visited and visited. Had loads of fun and interaction and the time spent was certainly important for keeping the bonds with my family and friends strong and true. But Whew!

I think I just wrote a poem...

Like most little kids, my two grandchildren have their battles, their jealousies and their competitions.  One evening, I was in their ‘WRECK’ room, where there are a zillion toys which I would have salivated over and died for when I was a child.  Standing fairly prominently in the room full of indestructible chairs, dinky toys, stuffed this and thats, zappers and clappers and whatnots, is one mother of a toy crane. Which I think was put together by my grandson, Carter. Carter could take a box of broken up corn flakes and put them together. And even if he couldn’t reassemble them into their original corn flake shape, he could invent a new cereal shape out of them.

This large, possibly Lego toy concoction even has a remote with it. The grandchildren like to get the crane swinging this way and that way and it can pick up objects and might even be able to break-dance to the music of Billy the Singing Lobster.

Anyway, what I’m saying is that it would have been a blow-my-mind toy if it had been in my boyish life. For that matter, it is now.

On one of my visits, my elder grandson, Carter, was playing with this crane. Meanwhile, his younger brother, Callum, was trying to find something to do. One choice he had in mind, I’m sure, was to disrupt whatever Carter was doing.

Anyway, during this Mayberry moment, I’d grabbed my son’s guitar. I began to tune it and then did a little amateurish finger picking. Which attracted Callum. Offered him a possible activity. So he took an interest in what I was doing. Even reached out and did some strumming of his own.

Obviously, the older grandson took note of this. Saw that I was taking an interest in his brother. Wasn’t possibly paying as much attention to him as I should be. So, it must have put him beyond the pale of self-control when Callum was allowed to strum the guitar all by himself, while receiving my total attention.

The attack came without warning. A Carter blitzkrieg. One minute Callum and I were talking and sharing a moment with the acoustic guitar and then, in the blink of an eye, I was in darkness.

Was I having a stroke? Was I going blind? No. What I was experiencing was having my head tucked nicely inside the confines of a wastepaper basket. Which Carter had expertly jammed over my head.

Thus sayeth the Lord, “Stop taking an interest in my younger brother and pay attention to me or there will be more to come.”  Brotherly love comes with its own dangers.

I’ll end this story with the observation that my son and daughter-in-law are two great parents. Why, the waste-paper basket was even empty when it was thunked down over my noggin. That was some sort of blessing.

            “There was a child went forth every day,
             And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became,
             And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,
             Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.”
                                Walter Whitman, There Was A Child Went Forth 

                                             “If you can sniff out danger and keep barking
                                     When those around you seem to doubt the cause
                                     And all they find to do is keep remarking
                                     Don’t track up the carpet with your paws!
                                     If you can lick the hand who needs you
                                     and realize it’s really no mistake
                                     When that hand that somehow failed to feed you
                                     Feeds itself the whole darn sirloin steak.”

                                                                                     Lily Tuck,  “Sniff”

                                             “A living room, the catholic area you
                                    (Thou rather) and I may enter
                                    without knocking, leave without a bow, confronts
                                    each visitor with a style,

                                    a secular faith: he compares its dogmas
                                    with his, and decides whether
                                    he would like to see more of us. Spotless rooms
                                    where nothing’s left lying about

                                    chill me, so do cups used for ashtrays or smeared
                                    with lipstick: the homes I warm to,
                                    though seldom wealthy, always convey a feeling
                                    of bills being promptly settled”

                                                                                            W.H. Auden, “The Common Life”