The Little Words Mean the Most

The dragonfly on her perch

 

Which is a pointy thing

a defrocked garden stalk

she's seated on a stool at dragonfly diner

 

she's

still for minutes surrounded by

insurmountable food

 

then she springs to the sky

to nab a snack too small

for clumsy human eyes to see

 

munching

still again

atop her towering stalk

 

Debbie

 

tropical storm Debbie

became porch sprinkle Debbie

 

this may be the most beautiful place on earth

for me right now, this porch

 

racing above and wetting one shoulder

triple-decker squalls

and sharp gusts "What do you think, Bob?

30 miles an hour?" Bob was

a professional fisherman from way back. He could judge.

> "More."

 

the trees play a rough rugby match

power stays on though

always a blessing in the country

the "quit it" bird signals and scolds for an interval

then another tapestry jumps in: tree frogs and cicadas

 

I'm sitting on the porch

rain on my right shoulder

dry on my left

 

 

Visitors to PVD

 

Downtown Providence, RI is pretty interesting, actually.

You can see, via the merchants, the influence of the RI School of Design (aka RISD: Riz-Dee; also considered the world's greatest design school; and the resulting heavy concentration of artists) + the influence of Johnson & Wales (a global culinary institute; headquartered in Providence) + the strong ethnic influence: RI has always been an immigrant state; every wave hit here hard ... the latest are Latin-American and African and the occasional Ukrainian. Ethnic dining options abound, as a result.

Brown is on the top of a very steep hill. Your elders will be panting. Compulsive pickle-ball players will not.

There is a gentler way, though. Let me be your guide? I know the softer route.

And though I'm no academic, I'm probably slightly better than a new-ish cab driver (with all due respect). Maybe I can fill in some blanks. Since I've lived in RI since 1965. Since I read local history for pleasure. Since I've worked with all sorts of charities hereabouts ... including the state's foremost Indigenous-led museum (see case brochure attached; I wrote it ... and it only took a year and half to beat my white-man's preconceptions out of it).

I promise to stick to the truth, as I know it.

We'll take in downtown murals (big here). Wander across the new pedestrian bridge (named for a one-time client; lands you at Plant City, BTW). Up super-funky Wickenden Street; along the waterfront a bit maybe. Then into the Brown area, which is historic, vibrant, architectural, thought-provoking (some of the Brown family's wealth was built on the slave trade, which was legal at the time; it's gets complicated, since another Brown brother was a devote Quaker abolitionist). THEN downhill (the right direction for those who pant) through RISD.

Oh, yeah: America's industrial revolution started on these very rivers, the ones you'll be crossing. What are now pricey lofts and condominiums upstream were once factories making STUFF. A blatant, infamous act of industrial espionage got the whole thing rolling.

 

How to douse a fruit-fly infestation?

 

Step #1: Drink an open glass of chardonnay.

Step #2: Any fruit flies in the vicinity will dive-bomb into your glass.

Step #3: Drink them. They're protein.

 

Sim One & I run/ran global businesses off a small brown cable lying on the ground. Then a shovel severed it....

 

Wednesday: the incredible Sam was here, trying to turn some of our acreage into meadows (for bird and deer support and amusement) ... and so she excavated a pest shrub (wild fake-olive takes over if you don't control) ... and with one foot-propelled slice of her pest-popping shovel (a.k.a., the shovel of death) she severed my fiber-optic feed.

Sam knew about this danger. It was danger #1 for me/us to carry on a global consultancy from this obscure rural nest. But a momentary ... some lapse ... and I was done; machine says: "can't find the router" ... >>> [timing is everything] thank goodness this calamity happened an hour AFTER I'd presented a smokin' 40-minute webinar on cases to the Nashville AFP.

Sent a request for repair into Verizon immediately.

After navigating an hour's-worth of "customer service" artificial (QUITE artificial) intelligence, I finally reached a responsive human ... who scheduled a fix. And then that scheduled repair person never showed.

So another 24 hours without phones and Internet fluttered out the window. Tried again this morning (I'm learning how to play the artificial intelligence customer "not-real-service" game)  ... & miracles!!! (yes, prayers work) >>>

I once again reached a human! (Saint Sim One, resident in existentialist heaven, be praised) ... a superior being who checked on everything and rescheduled a repair visit. A visit that arrived early!!! And featured a genius.

And now I'm back online. Thank you, St. Sim One.

 

 

 

Power outage from this latest storm >>> The good news?

 

Estimated time of restoration is now 11:45 PM.

The BAD news?

TWO days from now, grid be cursed!!!

 

[cue screaming, descending violins]

However (sing along):

 

Don't cry for me, generator.

Many do not have you. But we do.

Thanks to you-know-who, you are ...

... humming, producing power. And I must say

Sim One brought you to our door!

So ... don't cry for me, generator.

You keep me warm.

You keep me fed.

You keep me soaped and showered.

And I love her ...

... even more!

 

Broken's good

 

Fly herding.

Thing?

Not at 12:49 PM this Saturday.

Nudged by John Haydon, starchy Buddhist

I hand-tried my second-best to sweep a

boing-boing confused fall fly

out around (yeah, almost!) past my office screen

 

instead dislodging Ashley's hanging by fishline

blown-glass Northern Cardinal trinket

which broke across my work desk like a junkyard of pointless adjectives

as I herded the fly to

no end I ever saw

tally: one blown-glass cardinal wing

now some feathers shorter than the other opposing

 

Broken's good, right?

 

Brush grooming in a blizzard

 

"Are your feet wet?" >dripping/swampy< "Are your feet cold?" >no<

 

How you know that you have good winter boots.

After a 3-hour brush-grooming session during a blizzard? All of the above: wet, not cold.

My winter boots are made from the same stuff as wet suits.

Window Open poems

 

there's so much to learn about patterns

you need to listen ~ I forget

crack a nearby window ~ I forget

a goose squadron transects the silence ~ I forget

a who-who will arrive and ask

a nudging wind will say breathe please

it's good for you