Downstream

One week in September

Swine flu confirmed on Wednesday.
Zebra mussels on Thursday.
Today?

Headin' home

For Jordy

And the Cantilevered Inference Shall Hold the Day

by Michael Blumenthal

Things are not as they seem: the innuendo of everything makes
itself felt and trembles towards meanings we never intuited
or dreamed. Take, for example, how the warbler, perched on a

mere branch, can kidnap the day from its tediums and send us
heavenwards, or how, held up by nothing we really see, our
spirits soar and then, in a mysterious series of twists and turns,

come to a safe landing in a field, encircled by greenery. Nothing
I can say to you here can possibly convince you that a man
as unreliable as I have been can smuggle in truths between tercets

and quatrains on scraps of paper, but the world as we know
is full of surprises, and the likelihood that here, in the shape
of this very bird, redemption awaits us should not be dismissed

so easily. Each year, days swivel and diminish along their inscrutable
axes, then lengthen again until we are bathed in light we were not
prepared for.

more.......

His and hers

Seriously Mrs. Sundberg...are you for real?

The View From Mrs. Sundberg's Window
In this feature, regular listener Mrs. Sundberg shares her thoughts about Saturday's show.

September 8, 2009

Come on in here and tell me

---

Listened to the show Saturday and it was not bad. I think I could listen to "Unchained Melody" all day and all night for a month of Saturdays. My gosh, what a lovely song. I feel like being quiet every time I hear it and I couldn't tell you why. Just do. Something about the whole notion of someone waiting for someone. They always do come back, but sometimes it takes a good long while and when they do they smell like a pool hall or they've dropped out of school and decided to grow apple trees instead or they have grass stains all the heck over their brand new jeans. There's always a story to hear.

The kids went off to school today, and I watched them go. I waved from the front porch like I always do, and they turned and waved back and blew a kiss or two. I watched them climb on up into the big yellow bus and watched the door close tight and then they were gone. I sat awhile on the porch and felt what it feels like to be alone. That took about fifteen minutes, and then I got going on all the things I pushed to the side over the summer. I wrote some thank you notes, cleaned under the stove and refrigerator, wiped down the pantry, sorted through the books in the library (which consists of a few shelves in the living room) and put about half of 'em in a bag for the community library. I swept the sidewalk, and hosed down the trampoline just for the heck of it.

When I thought to look at the clock a few hours later it was nearly noon, and the kids would return in only three hours. Imagine that. Not even half a day had passed and I'd found myself wondering when they'd be coming home. It's like that, you know, when you love someone. They go away and you busy yourself with dusting and such, and you might even get a notion to paint the hallway or start writing that book you've envisioned yourself publishing one day. But whatever you come up with, part of you is listening for footsteps, for the rush of the door opening, for a voice calling out your name. "You'll never guess what happened today," the voice calls out. No, I won't, my Dear One, you whisper, and then you call back, Why don't you come on in here and tell me.

In My Next Life

I will own a sailboat sleek
as fingers of wind
and ply the green islands
of the gulf of Maine.
In my next life I will pilot a plane,
and enjoy the light artillery
of the air as I fly to our island
and set down with aplomb
on its grass runway.
I'll be a whiz at math, master five or six
of the world's languages, write poems
strong as Frost and Milosz.
In my next life I won't wonder why
I lie awake from four till daybreak.
I'll be amiable, mostly, but large
and formidable.

I'll insist you be present
in my next life—and the one after that.

from Waiting for the Alchemist by Mark Perlberg

Late August in Maplewood State Park

How did we get here?

Friendly flamingos and bags of books

We are selling the flamingos donated by Wes Schierman at a silent auction next week at the library and on line. People can find them all photographed and listed at http://flamingosforfriends.blogspot.com

End of the Season Used Book Sale for Friends of the Library
Tuesday, Sept. 1 from 9 – noon at the Book Truck in Trinity Church parking lot
We provide the bags; buyer fills them!
$5/bag – adult books $3/bag – children’s books

....or a tree frog?

Growing up in a small town,
we didn't notice
the background figures of our lives,
gray men, gnarled women,
dropping from us silently
like straightpins to a dressmaker's floor.
The old did not die
but simply vanished
like discs of snow on our tongues.
We knew nothing then of nothingness
or pain or loss—
our days filled with open fields,
football,
turtles and cows.

One day we noticed
Death has a musty breath,
that some we loved
died dreadfully,
that dying
sometimes takes time.
Now, standing in a supermarket line
or easing out of a parking lot,
we realize
we've become the hazy backgrounds
of younger lives.
How long has it been,
we ask no one in particular,
since we've seen a turtle
or a cow?

"Straightpins" by Jo McDougall, from Satisfied with Havoc.

Concours des courgettes

Lida Farm stand now open

How to get there? How much longer for the sweet corn?

The Hallaway Hill Lighthouse

"They tell me you don't love me anymore?"

 

Summer is a hummin' right along

Gristle

"The ads and lobbyists seek new mandates, tax breaks and subsidies. Wind promoters want to quiet opponents long enough to get energy and climate legislation enacted — before Americans realize how it would drive the price of energy still higher, kill jobs, curtail living standards and liberties, and raise the cost of everything we eat, drive, heat, cool, grow, make and do."

Paul Driessen in Investors Business Daily

"If Obama can't do this, nobody can. If Obama can't do this, America's poor are screwed. Sure, America's got talent, but it's also got some of the most unpleasant, uncompassionate, unerringly ruthless people on the face of this planet. Boy will that boy need some luck."

Christina Patterson in The Independent

Thanks Harry

In memory of Harry

On Sept. 22, 1917, Patch was wounded in an explosion that killed three of his friends, said the London Daily Telegraph. “By the time he was fully fit again, the Armistice had been declared and he only wanted to forget.” A plumber in civilian life, Patch began talking about his experiences after his 100th birthday, at the request of historians. Although proud of his service, he hated everything the war stood for. “At the end, the peace was settled round a table, so why the hell couldn’t they do that at the start without losing millions of men?”

"I am the only one that got through
The others died where ever they fell
It was an ambush
They came up from all sides
Give your leaders each a gun and then let them fight it out themselves
I've seen devils coming up from the ground
I've seen hell upon this earth
The next will be chemical but they will never learn."

Libro de las Preguntas

Dónde está el niño que yo fui,

Sigue adentro de mí o se fue?

To learning much inclined

"The Blind Men and the Elephant" by John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)

It was 6 men from Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
May satisfy his mind.
.
The 1st approach'd the elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! But the elephant
Is very like a wall!"
.
The 2nd, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, - "Ho, what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp
To me 'tis mighty clear.
This wonder of an elephant
Is very like a spear!"
.
The 3rd approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the elephant
Is very like a snake!"
.
The 4th reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this might beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he,
"'Tis clear enough the elephant
Is very like a tree!"
.
The 5th, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an elephant
Is very like a fan!"
.
The 6th no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, siezing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the elephant
Is very like a rope!"
.
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each of his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and long,
Though each was partly in the right
And all were in the wrong!
.
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an elephant
Not one of them has seen!

The bleating from Underwood

From the Facebook Album 365 friends by Mike Hazard

Marguerite Andrews loves history and knows everyone. She greeted one and all at the door of the Unitarian Church of Underwood who came to hear her husband Budd tell “Life Stories.”

Every story in Budd’s World has a wise smile in it. Here’s one about bleating.

“We heard a bleat, and another. Something was wrong with the lambs. We followed the call. The bleating stopped, then bleat bleat bleat, farther away. We followed the sound to where it had been. Again, the bleating began, far off. This went on, and on. Forty acres is a lot of land. The brush was thick, the bleating urgent. Finally, there. A fawn was caught in the wire of the fence. The doe stood near. The bleating was a deer.”

A buddy held the fawn while Budd untangled the legs and wire. “The legs were rubbed raw but not broken, not bleeding. The doe watched, waiting. Even mother sheep get excited when you are near their lambs, stamping the ground. This doe waited, watching. Freed, the fawn stood. Then we stepped back and the doe nudged the fawn. Off they went.

Animals are smarter than we know.”

Roger's latest

Reefer Moon

By ROGER PINCKNEY
Fiction - Southern novel
208 pages (Hardcover with jacket)
ISBN: 978-0-98-187358-9

Yancey Yarboro is home from the war and growing tomatoes on his father's ground. Susan Drake, married, beautiful and neglected, lives in a beach house not far away. They have never met, at least not yet. When real estate developers come looking for land to expand a golf course, Yancey wonders if he is about to lose everything. But Yancey has four hundred pounds of marijuana salvaged from a dope run gone awry. And he has Gator Brown, near-sighted hoodoo doctor, whose spiritual machinations sometimes fly wide of the mark.

It's the Lowcountry of South Carolina. The jasmine is blooming and the moon and the magic are working overtime.

"I was encouraged by a friend to write this. She said, 'Roger you've been writing all these wring-your-hands-and-weep environmental essays. Why don't you write a trashy book that women would read around the pool?' I wrote some chapters and ran it by her and she said, 'Not that trashy.' " - islandpacket.com

What language is this?

An even dozen

The schedule of events is bound to change. Keep checking on the IFF12 website for updates.

Down but not out

The Pelican Rapids Vikings beat the Warroad Warriors 5-4 this afternoon. They then beat the Fergus Falls Otters 4-1 to force a Game Seven- winner goes to State - Friday afternoon at 3:00 p.m.in Perham. With many locals at the Shada Shootout PR will need all the fans they can muster. Can you muster? Game is on KBRF 1250AM.