To Blog or Not to Blog...

Data needs a base

In which to be organized

To Excel. Wrong shoe.

Suppose for a moment that you have been given an assignment: to hammer a 12-penny nail into the smooth plaster of a wall.

On your left is a steel, 22 oz., blue-handled Estwing hammer, ideal for pounding spikes, nails, and other such binding devices.

On your right is a gold, handcrafted, stiletto-heeled Evelina sandal with soft folded and braided kidskin mignons.

Meanwhile, the nail is calling, �Hammer me!�

So, I ask you, which direction would you reach to solve your thumping needs? Your right or your left?

Here in corporate America (i.e., Cadmus Communications), we reach to our left and the high-heel shoe, innovation (if you want to call a mallet innovative) is saved for others, and the hammer...

...well, the hammer is for middle management to bash our heads.

The sole difference

Between Man and Beast is found

In a whispered Word.

What makes humans so different than animals?

We can eliminate the basics because both have core instincts that drive toward continued life. Now, some would claim that animals lack emotion; but if you�ve ever seen a mourning calf wailing over his dead mother or a lonely dog welcoming her owner with wet tongue, one must suppose these creatures feel some sort of connection to their fellows.

Others may claim that it is the human�s ability to reason that separates us from the foraging beasts; but then I would have to question what it is these folks precisely mean by reason?

For, if you strip reason down to its bare essentials, you could say that reason is the ability to recognize cause and effect. By this definition, you could postulate that all trainable creatures can reason because, through training, these beasts �learn� cause and effect, i.e. a dog hears a bell and salivates because he has associated said bell with food. I grant, that such �reasoning� is quite rudimentary; nevertheless, I want to believe that humans are not simply human by a matter of degree (that is, some animals can in fact reason, but the human does it better in a more complex manner.)

Many say it�s the ability to communicate that separates us from the beasties. Again, this is faulty because animals do communicate. Perhaps, not with language, but at least nonverbally. Two male rams smash into each other. The stronger wins. These rams have communicated. And then there is the phenomenon of dolphin song, which some say is a language of sorts.

What about the specific thing called Human Language? Is that the difference?

What I�m trying to get at is that, while watching Ella grow and change, I am waiting for her to become a person. When will she become something slightly more than an �animal� struggling for survival by being so goddamn cute?

In my gut, I think that will happen when she articulates her first word, which no doubt will be a slurred and giggled: �da-da-wack-o�

                              xliv

There is a beat to Nature�s naked feet

Some say, a rhythmic dance—a waltz maybe

Or perhaps a swing—that they claim will heat

The breath to life with shouted words of glee.

A post-modern finger ballet, some see—

Random movements mapping a random world...

No choreography, chaos the key

That twists the digits into pretzels, curled.

With up-raised voice, these others tell of hurled

Limbs, undulating, that neither repeat

A ripple like a flag by gale unfurled

Nor sway patternly as stalks of blown wheat.

      But, as dance and chaos in sight compete,

      I stare flabbergasted...lost...incomplete.

A random sonnet filled with random words, seeking order in rhythm. And from that order, perhaps I touched on something I actually seek.

Sometimes, it�s strange how things work.

A butterfly moves

And the next thing we know, a

Hurricane comes

                              xliii

Music is perched on a pen�s pointed tip,

A nestling craving brav�ry�s feathered wing

To take flight. In black ink, a new quill dipped

Drips words to cool the season�s wintry sting.

Yet, friends leave to brave a cold far colder�

A chill of Artic wind blowing across

Foreign lands darkened by sudden dusk. Brrr...

My loss is their gain�their courage tosses

Them o�er seas churning with contentment�s hope

In a re-discovered country, despite

Snow (or because of it). What tattered rope

Will connect us as they brave this new night?

      But, for these friends is born a fresh day, bright.

      Dodge this chill! Heated Pen, take flight...and write.

The Hoggards are heading back to the frozen tundra, and I�m not talking about Green Bay�s Lambeau Field. Finland calls them back. I believe for the last time.

When I was first told, I have to say I was more than a bit perturbed by the whole situation. To move from country to country and back again like some twenty-something jet-setters bordered on absurd. Before they could even get settled in America, off they go too Findandia. The height of capriciousness.

After the initial and completely selfish anger passed, I began to feel guilty. We weren�t good enough friends. We didn�t see them often enough. For, if we had made the effort to welcome them back to America, the Hoggards would surely find us more appealing than the motley crew of morose drunks swilling watered-down anti-freeze in the back alleys of Helsinki.

But, the guilt has passed as well. All that is left is a hole vacated by the Hoggards warmth, which is being slowly filled with the memories of the past year�memories far too few.

Far too few indeed.

A jet cuts gray sky

With gray exhaust...with gray rope

Memories remain

Debates rage over

Intelligent Designers.

Levi's? Wrangler's? Guess?

I was speaking with a neurobiologist the other day, and the idea of intelligent design just happened to come up (or rather had been destined to come up since the birth of time). This scientist finds the whole idea of an intelligent designer absurd and diametrically opposed to the theory of evolution.

Being the person I am and naturally diametrically opposed to anything said with such passion, I affirmed the concept of an intelligent designer of Ralph Laurenian Proportions, who is constantly stitching creation into a whole that is very good. At this point, our scientist friend explained that evolution is a testable hypothesis while intelligent design is a tenant of faith and cannot be scientifically confirmed. End of discussion.

From my perspective, the scientific community has handled the whole creationist/intelligent design arguments completely in the wrong manner. First, they�ve allowed the Religious Right to hijack the concept of a prime mover from Aristotle, and therefore, have allowed Judeo-Christian mumbo jumbo to enter into the conversation. Second, these same scientists have forgotten that evolution is still but a theory (albeit a compelling one) and needs to be pounded by constant questioning. For it is only through questioning that Truth will be shucked from the Universe like monkeys peeling a bananas.

What I don�t understand is why scientists are so reluctant to test the theory of intelligent design. Study it. Probe it. Our scientist friend claimed it was non-testable. But, that�s crap. Every scientific discipline follows laws, whether they�re gravitational, mathematical, etc. So why can�t evolution? Why does it have to be random? Why couldn�t it be possible that there is an intelligent design behind creation?

I don�t mean some masculine hand pushing monkeys into men, dinosaurs into birds, cockroaches into rats. What I mean are some laws that govern the apparent randomness of evolution beyond the survival of the fittest. Suppose, for example, that DNA mutates in certain predictable ways. To test this, one could bombard simple organisms that have a short life-span with radiation to see if it would cause this organism to evolve into another organism that already exists. Such experiments would have to be more complex than radiation bombardment and may not support the theory of intelligent design but, at least, science explored the possibility.

And what if science affirms such a theory, one not based on chaos but rather order, one in which the Primer Mover still reigns supreme?

Silence. Silence. Sigh...

Lance-like, my quill trembles to

Joust with words. Drip. Drip.

The first words are always the most difficult. Aren't they?

Wearing Pascal's specs,

The infinite spaces spread...

Dancing, glasses slip

Peter Jennings has been dead since Sunday. The voices of my youth are becoming silent as time marches inexorably toward...

...the end.

Many fear this end, its black unknowable emptiness. If one peers long enough, that blackness spreads to wrap the heart in blankets of despair, beneath a comforter of loneliness, upon the bed of our own mortality.

But, I refuse to gaze too long at the hypnotizing emptiness.

Instead, I crank up an Ella Fitzgerald CD, grab my wife, and dance in the dining room while my daughter giggles.

Heaven, I'm in heaven

And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak

And I seem to find the happiness I seek

When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek

Heaven, I'm in heaven

And the cares that hung around me through the week

Seem to vanish like a gambler's lucky streak

When we're out together dancing (swinging) cheek to cheek

Oh I love to climb a mountain

And reach the highest peak

But it doesn't thrill (boot) me half as much

As dancing cheek to cheek

Oh I love to go out fishing

In a river or a creek

But I don't enjoy it half as much

As dancing cheek to cheek

Come on and) Dance with me

I want my arm(s) about you

That (Those) charm(s) about you

Will carry me through...

Right up) To heaven, I'm in heaven

And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak

And I seem to find the happiness I seek

When we're out together dancing, out together dancing (swinging)

Out together dancing cheek to cheek

A life colored with

Mountains from past adventures

Shakes stairs with boot treads

While pushing paper from one side of my desk to the other, a memory yanked me from my seat and dragged me into the past--to the gnarled toes of the Rocky Mountains, where Going-to-the-Sun Highway curls toward endless blue. The odors of Montana carressed me; swaying green pines blinded me; the joy of cycling across the country nearly up-ended me from my uncomfortable desk chair.

My legs itched for the pedals.

And so, I walked down the stairs insead of riding in the elevator.

I guess, sometimes we just need mountains, even small ones.

The air is heavy

Dripping with humidity

Got a cigarettes?

Yesterday, the temperature hit 100° with an accompanying humidity of nearly 100%. A few days ago in Phoenix, the mercury climbed to 117°. Of course, that was a dry heat, as we on the East Coast are so found of saying, so we---being of hardy East Coast stock---could easily handle such heat.

Who cares that if one had the inclination, one could set an oven at 115° and make beef jerky by drying out thinly sliced steaks? Who cares that a jellyfish would evaporate in about a minute if left to fry on a sidewalk under such scorching conditions? It�s a dry heat, see. It�s not humid like it is on this coast.

Because we as humans always need to feel that we suffer more than our comrades living in far harsher climates, the gods of meteorology have created such terms as heat index and wind chill, which supposedly accounts for the differences in temperature and humidity. It may be -53° in Alaska and here in Maryland only 23°, but with the wind chill, the temperature feels like -18°. Therefore, we suffer, too, and can relate to the plight of the Eskimos.

It�s the same with heat.

I went to eat outside at lunch yesterday (being a hardy New Englander) and noticed something very interesting. After leaving my air conditioned building and being slammed by a Mike Tyson uppercut of heat, I saw from between the dazed slits that had become my eyes another hardy East Coast gentlemen sitting in his parked car with his windows rolled down.. His vehicle lolled in the hot afternoon sun like my dog on our deck. And from within the confines of that car, this hardy individual chain-smoked...

...because, you know, when its hot enough to steal the breath from your chest, you might as well inhale hot smoke into your lungs.

It dries out the heat.

An empty bottle

Of brown-tinted glass enchants

Inspiring language

Today was my third day at work, and I have yet to melt.

While I�ve been toiling in a cubical, Ella has become quite the talker and lover of bottles.

Observe.

I wake to actors

Performing radio plays

I am the speakers

After a few false starts, I have started my first novel. Never having penned a long work of fiction, I don�t know what to expect. In my head, I see (as clearly as any fiction writer does) the shape of the first chapter, how the story wants to feel, how the narrator narrates. Where it will take me, though, is another thing altogether.

When I close my eyes and ears, I hear the story like a 30s radio play that is using my internal organs as speakers. I think this is a good sign. In the past, finding the necessary motivation and excitement energizing the activity of scribbling fiction was difficult. The initial burst fueled my pen for a day or a week, but soon the story would die, buried in a half-empty notebook.

How many partial stories I have stashed beneath childhood trinkets in unpacked boxes or have hidden within folders on the computer desktop I can�t say. But, that is irrelevant now.

For, from the death of past tales is born this new yarn�a story that may be only a few paragraphs old but is definitely growing...

...and growing...

Pressed against my chest

Is my daughter limp�milk-drunk�

A burp rumbles deep

When Ella finishes nursing, I frequently take her from Mary for a burp. Limp with sweat, Ella adjusts to my arms like a sack of potatoes.

She is pliable but stiff, milk-drunk but alert, strong but weak. She is a boneless bag of contradictions, my little girl. And beneath it all, life pulses...

...While my heart bleeds tenderness.

Drawing pictures in

White sand, we outline our lives

And then Time exhales

Yesterday, I asked, �Who cares?�

Who cares that we as individuals are nothing to Time? Who cares that the struggles that seem so important to us today are but drawings in sand? Who cares that our lives are like cells in a body�replaced at our death by other cells taking over the tasks we have left unfinished?

I want to answer that it doesn�t matter. Life is about the Now. Life is living and acting. It matters not how Time and History shape our deeds for the archeologists and anthropologists of the future. More than likely, those acts and deeds will be forgotten anyway.

Who remembers why Matilda ran off with Amos in 1843? Who can say why Harold marched on the Capital in 1924? Who knows why Asher left the Jerusalem in 15 BC? Or why Leopold fled to Rome after borrowing Fredrick the shoemaker�s third best vice in 1212?

The problem is that I do indeed care. I want to remember and be remembered. My fire craves immortality. I don�t want to burn out and be forgotten. I don�t want to be an insignificant player on the stage of History. I want Time to know me.

Yet, I know that�s impossible.

And so, I just try to live.

Each generation

Peers backward, making judgments

They hear but echoes

I just finished The Handmaid�s Tale by Margaret Atwood. She is quite the bard. She has a way of taking a simple story and turning it upside down and inside out. With a brief epilogue, she transforms a tale, which on the surface appears to be a harsh polemic exposing the plight of women in a futurist society ruled by religious fundamentalists, into something deeper, something more profound, something far more disturbing�a story of hope broken by History�s Eye, rendering the individual insignificant.

To marching Time and his scribbling, far-sighted biographer History, the acts of the individual are nothing but footprints in dust that fade as wind blows or rain falls. Our deeds will be fogged by misunderstanding and misinterpretation; the people we are (or were) will be lost to Time, to our progeny, to our future. We will become shadows, echoes.

And, then I look to Miss Ella...and a tiny ray of optimism lights the harsh reality of things and whispers in the deepest cavern of my mind:

Who cares?

Whoooooooo? Caaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrres?

Wwwwwwwwhhhhhoooooooooo?

A Devil in an

Angel suit beckons with green

I watch my daughter

On July 11, I start working at Cadmus. Again. Returning to the Devil I know, supposedly, which I�ve been told is far better than the Devil you don�t know.

Perhaps, that�s true. But, there�s something to be said for the unknown�its mystery, its newness, the chance that this new Devil is no demon at all but rather an angel and, if not an angle, then at least something benign like a rock.

But, alas. I do indeed return to that old devil Cadmus, who over time has donned a halo and wings. Nevertheless, this devil does have its advantages: I am familiar with its more cruel practices and can dodge most of them with fleet feet; the workers under His corporate spell are generally friendly and enjoyable to be around; I will be joining a new team, whose members edit the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, so there will be some mystery. And besides, the work is easy enough, allowing my mind to draw pictures of Ella as she learns to be a person.

I think that is the biggest shame about working�being away from my daughter. But, after 8 hours lifting rock-like words and climbing mountainous prose, I know that when I return home Ella�s lips will peel with a grin and we will both laugh.

That is life.

Is it Thanksgiving?

For, in our nest grows a young

Turkey stuffed with love

After daily administration of 10 ounces of the mysterious, magical, overpriced ($32.00 per can) formula that our gut doctor prescribed, Miss Ella gained a pound in ten days. She now weighs 11 pounds, which is almost as big as the small turkey we ate during Thanksgiving last year.

She is grabbing at things, laughing at her mom, and becoming increasingly restless in the car seat. We went to Poughkeepsie this weekend to celebrate my youngest brother's graduation, and both Mary and I have concluded that trips lasting more than an hour or two are more difficult than they�re worth.

Whenever she is not eating, she craves to be entertained, whether by rattling keys, glowing cell phones, or bouncing dads. I have started holding her as if she is flying, which she seems to enjoy quite a bit. Of course, if she keeps devouring her formula, soon she will be larger than that bohemoth of a Thanksgiving turkey the President pardons each year.

I guess, then, I better start working out.

Grass, sticks, and cool air

Have been balanced in a new

Food pyramid. Yum.

Last Thursday, Mary, Ella, and I found ourselves in various states of frustration at the doctor�s office. Ella�s cause of discomfort was perfectly understandable: she had a shallow biopsy of the colon, which, I imagine, would make even Mike Tyson squirm in his chair. Because infants lack mature nerve endings in their lower intestine, the gastroenterologist claimed she wouldn�t experience pain, just a bit of pressure.

Perhaps, he told the truth. Even though we weren�t able to watch the procedure, we didn�t hear her shrieking except when the nurse tried to put a diaper on her. On some days, Ella hates diapers; when we try covering her nakedness, she wriggles like a greased frog with one leg glued to a lily pad. She is becoming quite the nudist.

Our frustration was far more benign than a shallow butt biopsy. Our appointment was scheduled for 9:15. We arrived at 9:13. We saw Ms. Lindsey Wilson, our doctor�s nurse, at 10:23. The doctor strolled in at about 11:00. Because we wanted to arrange to have the biopsy the same day, we sat around for another few hours.

We didn�t get home until about 4:45. Talk about a full-time job.

We did learn that the doctor suspects Ella has a severe food allergy. Mary has to cut all dairy, soy, shellfish, and nuts from her diet. For the next few months, my wife will be subsisting on grass, twigs, and air.

Which means I will be as well.

There once was a lady from B-more

Who sold us cheap health care at our door.

With a nod and a smile,

She ran off with our file,

And now we�re caught in a red-tape war.

Insurance companies employ the most incompetent and inefficient bums on the planet. The organizational structure seems designed by banana-drunk apes. Such companies are where successful businesses send their inept middle managers to push paper. Never have I experienced such a colossal waste of human potential...

...Except, that is, when I�m called for jury duty.

To waste precious time

Is the American Way:

Fill out this form please.

Six-feet of cool soil

Covers a small pine coffin

The box is empty

Ella is shrinking...

...and for the past week, Mary and I have been haunted by thoughts of buzzing hospital rooms, chronic wasting illnesses, and small pine coffins.

In the past month, Ella has only gained 6 oz., which has caused her to plummet from the 75th percentile of weight to the 5th. After a series of genetic and metabolic tests, the doctors have ruled out the more heart-breaking genetic maladies like cystic fibrosis.

When the pediatric geneticist told us she thought Miss Ella had CF, she made us promise not to do any research about the disease online until we knew the results of the Sweat Test. As Mary said, that�s like saying, �Don�t think of a red-faced monkey.�

So, after a few hours hitting the Google Button on the Internet machine, we came to two conclusions:

1. Because 30 years is the average life span of someone plagued by the rising tides of mucus symptomatic CF, Ella Bella would have the most amazing 31 years of life possible; we would travel the globe; we would climb the tallest mountains; we would show her what a magnificent place this world is.

and

2. Despite our own reluctance about the prospect of being buried beneath six feet of cold earth upon our death, we could not cremate her body. We would make a pine coffin, carved with the love that she would never again feel.

With a three-month-old daughter, who the hell would ever think you would have to contemplate such horror? We should be worried about whether she could roll over off the bed, whether her diaper is soiled and needs changing, whether those tears are because she has painful gas or is just hungry. But, no, for the past week, Mary and I were plagued by nightmare scenarios.

The tests were negative, however.

Which, on one hand is reassuring because Ella will not be cursed with a shortened life beset with pulmonary issues. Yet, the doctors still have no idea why she is shrinking, why she is pale and anemic, why our daughter is not gaining weight. We see a pediatric gastroenterologist next week, and hopefully, he�ll have some theories�theories more realistic than mine�

�I think she has a tapeworm.

In her evening gown

Love poses before a mirror

War is reflected

In the past few weeks, I�ve read McEwan�s Atonement, Hemingway�s Farewell to Arms, and Nabokov�s Mary. Each of these novels contain stories of love found in war time, which got me to thinking about the relationship between the heart�s passion and the sword�s might.

If there is a connection (which I think there is), I wonder how our modern method of battle reveals how we love today. Have we changed? Does our more impersonal methods of killing each other mirror the modern romance? Just as the heroics of WWI and WWII point to a larger more passionate love affair, does this computerized age of smart bombs and remote-controlled slaughter expose the apathy of contemporary love?

Does war without empathy uncover love without passion?

Perhaps, my first novel will answer that question.

Water like clear glass

Reflects the blue sky singing

Music of the spheres

Last night, American Idol ended with the crowning of country diva Carrie Underwood. According to the producers of the show, over 500 million votes were collected over the length of the season. During the last Presidential Election, approximately 121 million citizens cast ballots, which either means this country is filled with far more hip teenagers and music-loving illegal aliens than we think or the show stimulates something deeper in the human condition.

Because of the show�s format with its live broadcast, average talent who many people feel they could out-sing in a duel, sporting event-like competition where the loser is voted home, Simon�s acid wit, and the possibility of a contestant tanking in front of a studio audience, the show has become a ratings monster. It�s easy to say that a perfect combination of publicity and a ravenous under-twenty-one population with money to burn has made the show a commercial success. I think there may be more to it than that, however.

A program like Top Model or Extreme Makeovers or even Law and Order will never have the ratings of American Idol because of the power of music. Music is telepathy; it is memory. Song, especially familiar song, has a power to peel away time and transport us into the singer�s or composer�s state of mind. When played with passion, we feel passion. When sung with soul, soul is revealed.

Even if its just a glimpse, I�ll always come back for more.

                              xlii

Is the Word struck dumb by action speaking?

Or are pens far mightier than these swords?

Does prose gain potency from scribes seeking...

Enough.

Scribbling sonnets has become a crutch, and now its time to walk. Or, in the case, write. That is not to say I won�t ever compose another sonnet, leaving the above, unfinished stanza as my swan song. Rather, my pen craves to travel across new paper, confined by the struggle inherent with a different form, perhaps the novel.

Sonnets are wonderful exercises but frequently require an extreme amount of resources�time and energy that will be needed to tell my next story. But, more importantly, over the past few weeks, I began to notice my brain forcing lines, struggling against the river of words sung by my Muse. When done right, nothing can beat the joy of constructing a sonnet; the ideas seem expertly transcribed from ethereal inspiration, pulled from the wrinkled landscape of my mind by a delicate flick of a pencil just as silk is drawn from a worm.

Lately, however, there has been little of that joy and ease. Sonneteering has become a chore; when writing seems as tedious as washing the gravy-encrusted plates after Thanksgiving Dinner, it is time to change or else Dread Writers� Block will strike.

My own construct for this Blog has become a prison, and now it�s time to free myself and change its character. For as my good friend Heraclitus once said, it is in changing that things find purpose.

A river of words

Carries me East, toward dawn

Heraclitus smiles

                              xli

With inked quill trembling above white paper,

The Poets scribe stories that expose soul,

Capturing from our internal vapor

That ghost caught in glass reflecting the whole.

But, this phantom shrinks from words as shadow

From noon sun. With pen rooted as an oak,

Heaven�s angles alter, setting aglow

Parchment with dark scrip curling like wood smoke.

Such smoldering prose seers shabby pulp black

And brings sunlight to inward-looking eyes

With a magnifying glass that attacks

Our hidden ailments with songs spirit wise.

   So, give Poets their due. Read their tales

   And by that act will we discard our veils.

A couple of my friends have started a book club. We call it Read It Or Not because, upon its inception, an issue developed. Certain individuals decided they don�t like being told what to read because they don�t want to waste time forcing through bad books.

Of course, such thinking defeats the whole purpose of reading something as a group, which raises some very interesting questions like:

Why read anything for discussion when reading is such a solitary activity? Who is trustworthy when recommending books, your friends who have similar tastes or some arrogant reviewer? Does a book club perpetuate the tyranny of bad fiction or does it rather expose one to work that would have remained dusty on the shelf otherwise? Are all books, from John Grisham to John Locke, worthy of discussion or do only certain books (i.e. the good ones) warrant conversation? Who decides what the good ones are? Is it possible to waste time while reading or rather is the very act worthwhile (no matter what is being read)? At its root, what is the purpose of reading?

But, these questions will have to remain unanswered because those with the most interesting answers to these questions are silenced by their unwillingness to even make an attempt at reading the damn book.

High on the top shelf

Dust flocks to pages, rusting

Imagination

                              xl

Gentle Muse, on this the second of May�

This your thirtieth birthday�my heart swells

With memories that time cannot decay

As long as light casts in your eyes love�s spell.

Lost within those deep green wells, I�m found,

Reborn a father, a husband, a man�

The gifts of your strength and courage surround

And expand as only a lover�s can.

With passion fanning fast my every word,

The mouth trips; I stutter with tongue love-drunk,

Striving to speak the feelings you have stirred

Yet can�t; for how do leaves praise the tree trunk?

   Just know, my oak, I am because of you.

   For thirty more birthdays, this will be true.

Happy birthday, Miss Mary.

Thirty candles glow

Atop strawberry shortcake

Our wish has come true

                              xxxix

Upon the tumbled tunnel of my mind,

Memory and imagination breed

Unicorns, pirates, and princes that find

Breath. And with breath...life. Sustaining my need.

Mythical beasts from long-forgotten times

Carry Neverland dreams of childhood lost,

And if remembered, shatter�like wind chimes

Blown by Spring breeze�adulthood�s quiet cost.

Maturity leeches with grave glances

And serious speech the soul's suppleness.

But, stretch! Lighten to see as she prances

A princess after her very first kiss.

   Within the mind steps our most private hopes.

   Don�t be afraid. Wake them. Unbind your ropes.

Inside my secret heart, I am stretched by a serious contradiction.

On one hand, there is the gravity and seriousness that the responsibility of fatherhood demands. Yet, on the other, I feel like I�m eleven and want to put on Army fatigues. The wilds of Maryland wait to be explored. Behind the flat petals of dogwoods sleep imprisoned fairies dreaming of freedom. If only I can tame those rampaging bison possessed by the spirit of a hook-handed pirate, I will be called Max, Lord of the Wild Things.

But, the cries of my daughter pull me to reality.

The solution, I suppose, is to go to Sonny�s Surplus and buy some infant camouflage.

Flattened pink petals

Reveals a world that blooms bright

Despite furrowed brows

                              xxxviii

It is said that Nature�s Way is the best.

Whether with childbirth or green vegetables,

One hundred percent natural is the test

That all things must pass or we�re in trouble.

Man-made creations cause dreaded cancer.

Avoid microwaves, hot dogs, and cell phones.

Return to the Garden; that�s the answer.

Or so it�s said in the most reverent tones.

Yet, Nature gave man knowledge and reason

Just as She drew white stars across heaven.

Who knows, but She, if we commit treason

By eating lunch at 7-Eleven?

   Following Nature�s Way seems fantastic;

   But, what if that means: man making plastic?

Breastfeeding is the ultimate natural act, but I have to wonder why it�s so damn hard.

Many newborns lack the sucking instinct making the so-called natural way impossibly difficult because milk production is based on sucking power. That�s why there exist special Haberman plastic nipples to teach proper sucking technique, vacuum cleaner-like pumps that make women into cows to increase milk flow, silicon shields to protect raw and chapped nipples, and even synthetic chemicals that will jump start lactation.

It�s a wonder more people don�t use formula because the sheer number of contraptions to aid the breastfeeding mother seems rather unnatural.

Perhaps man's purpose

Is to make plastic pieces

For God's new chess set

                              xxxvii

When we were young, Time flowed like a river

Of dark molasses pooling in sweet ponds.

There, lilies rippled just as boys shiver,

Surprised by cool breeze from the great beyond.

Beneath those pads, turtles drifted to sleep.

Then, terrapins shatter their wat�ry shells,

Dimpling further youthful Time�s honeyed deep

With sudden movement�breaking childhood�s spell.

All action brings responsibility,

And before long, time is gone; the pond drains,

Leaving the eggs of our fertility

To find their own ponds, flooded by new rain.

   Perhaps, it�s true�that for no man, Time waits�

   But, that�s why all turtles seek their shell mates.

Time flies.

What else is there to say?

A passing minute turns to an hour...then a day...a week...a month...then years. Life is but pearls on a string�balls of clouded white moments lighting the chain of our individual memories.

I look back and remember hunting turtles as a kid. I smell the spring grass of my youth. I hear the rustle of the huge oak spreading its limbs in my front yard. It was goalie to my soccer balls. It was catcher to my pitching. That oak was my partner in youthful crime. I don�t see the leaves, however, but rather the space between them.

That is what time has become...the space between leaves.

Shapes paint the mind�s eye

With memories of what was:

Turtles, leaves, a pond

                              xxxvi

Where, O Muse, has all the poetry fled?

Ripe words hang from my tongue as grapes on vines.

Yet, without your breath blowing through my head,

Our fruits�unpicked�rot, soaking soil with sour wine.

As thoughts without reason or sublime rhyme

Plump and swell within my dry mouth�s vineyard,

I dream what might be penned if plucked in time:

Songs sugared by the brix beneath peeled words.

But, the rains come too soon, spoiling the crop;

Still, I hope for your gift of passion�s heat,

Changing pressed grape�aged under the corked top

Of my oak jaw�into a vintage sweet.

   Yet, �til the barrel is cracked, who can know

   Whether will pour vinegar or Pinot.

Since Ella Bella was born, words have come my mind in clusters, ripe and purple, ready to be harvested and pressed into a sonnet or haiku or general prose. I want to immortalize her newness, paint a picture of a young face twisting with first-time expressions: the frown, the grin, the cocked eyebrow.

Yet, when I sit down to scribble something to paper, I realize that these phrases will not sustain the fourteen lines of a sonnet or even the fourteen syllables of a haiku.

Of course, I could simply discard my self-imposed rule of beginning and ending each post with a poem, allowing my grape-like words to burst free from my mouth. But, who knows what I might write?

There would be no form, no meter, no reason, behind the posts, and I would surely wind up jumping from topic to topic in the same way I flick from channel to channel when watching TV. For me, that is the difference between a diarist and the activity I�m striving for: crushing my free flowing prose with the discipline and patience of a writer making wine.

Ripe words swell in Spring

With such speed and vigor that

My tongue trips, a drunk

                              xxxiv

Many miles from the last telephone poles

Lies an overgrown grotto safe from view;

Nestled between rounded hills and humped knolls,

Here silence reigns with the softness of dew.

Overhead, not a single plane trips the sky

With unnaturally reflected sunlight.

Rather a bowl of unbroken blue ties

Earth to Heaven�the horizon sealed tight.

Nature�s calm radiates from grass to bloom,

Pregnant with what frenetic progress lacks:

A peaceful moment like a mother�s womb

Protecting from our brave new world�s attacks.

   In naked Nature is the peace we seek;

   Yet, she is being clothed by hi-tech freaks.

I began writing this sonnet before Ella was born, and reading it now, I can�t recall where my words were carrying me. Talk of peace and quiet is impossible as my sleep-deprived mind is awash with fatherly concerns: how much weight has Ella gained? Does her diaper need changing? Has she pooped? Is her leaky eye a cause for concern? Why does she seem hungry all the time?

The problem with parenthood is that there is nothing to measure it against. Sure, you can talk to friends or parents or doctors, but this strange insatiable uncertainty found in every cough and every whimper is impossible to quench.

Secret gardens and hidden grottos are hazy in the distance, clouded by that curse of first-time parenthood: inadequacy.

Should we try this or

Will our child be as tarnished

As Eden trampled?

                              xxxv

Crimson-fingered Dawn paints fresh skin maroon�

As red as o�er-whelming passion�s hue

Mixed with blue streaming from Night�s naked moon;

With a shriek, such color proclaims life new.

Then a snip...the shade shifts to petaled rose

And fades to pink as Summer blanches Spring�

This vibrant blush like the wind as it blows

Before a storm and settles�stillness king.

From that quiet, green fear becomes alive;

For, sickly yellow spreads from head to toe,

Dying mustard a body milk-deprived

With jaundiced flesh, stealing a young soul�s glow.

   Yet, beneath violet lights, her light rebounds,

   And within her eyes is a rainbow found.

Looking back at the seventeen hours of labor it took to push you into the world, Miss Ella, I have to marvel. I gaze at you now, curled in a sling around my chest, and am amazed that such a beautiful girl wiggled her way from Mary�s womb.

That is not to suggest that we doubted in anyway your perfect cuteness (for all parents must feel and see their child as the ideal combination of their better selves). Rather, I am flabbergasted by the whole process�it�s like watching summer clouds gather to burst open in rain; if the rain wasn�t landing on your nose, you wouldn�t believe that these delicate-seeming puffs could produce such fierce streams of water.

I stare at your goofy faces�your huge yawns, your gassy smiles, your sideways open-mouthed rooting maneuver, your frustrated frowns, your furrowed brow as you contemplate the divide between crying or curiosity�and am captivated. You are my daughter�Mary�s daughter�our child.

Nevertheless, the work and pain of labor does not correlate with your soft skin, your finger-like toes, your big lips�this new mystery that is your life. I now understand the fable of finding babies under cabbage leaves and the myth of storks carrying infants home�swaddled tight and ready to nurse. In some ways, these images seem more appropriate, more genuine, closer to the miracle that seems so unreal at this moment.

Labor did occur, however, and despite the tiny stork bites above your eyebrow and at your nape, your mom, my wife, pushed you into the light. It began in the dark, Ella, as all labors should...

March 20, 2005. Palm Sunday. The Vernal Equinox. The day you were born.

Originally, I had predicted that your mom would go into labor while we were watching Le nozza di Figaro (Marriage of Figaro) at the Lyric Opera House. I imagined Mozart filling you with such overwhelming passion for life that you would leap from the womb and sing�or at least shriek. Before this occurred, though, I would have the opportunity to jump from my seat, interrupting Cherubino before he dives from the Countess�s boudoir, and shout: �Is there a doctor in the house?�

But, alas! Such a fantasy did not come true and you decided to wait a few days. After the opera, I told your mom that I thought you�d be coming on the Equinox. During your gestation, we (your parents and their wacky friends) made all sorts of forecasts about your future. As time passes, those grand predictions have begun to fade from memory: that you�d be a boy named Wallace (Allen�s choice) or that you�d be born with teeth ready to eat steak or that because you were so active in the womb and carrying low, you�d be a future sports star (of course, that may yet come to pass).

Needless to say, everyone we know had a theory explaining your arrival�whether derived from a supposedly prophetic dream, proverbs from their long dead great grandmother, a feeling boiling in their guts, or simply a beer-induced vision. But, no one could have predicted what began at 3:53 early Sunday morning...

Perhaps, you were upset at the spicy, orange beef and curried shrimp your mom had for dinner and you decided to kick with extreme feistiness. Maybe, the alignment of Earth with Orion caused you to punch too vigorously. Whatever the case, though, you broke the bag of waters protecting from the jostling world outside the womb, causing that fluid shield to flow from your mom like an April rain. At this point, I believe your mom�s contractions were spaced eleven minutes apart.

I can�t say for sure, however, because�as you will soon learn, Ella�I love sleep and was out like Casey as he swung for the fences. But, that is neither here nor there. What is important is that you were ready to taste air.

Before I continue, Ella, there are a few things you need to know about labor so that you can understand our state-of-mind at 3:53 in the morning. First, labor has many stages, and each phase has certain emotional signposts. In the first stage, for example, many expectant moms get an uncontrollable urge to bake bread or clean the entire house. Sometimes during first-stage labor, these soon-to-be moms are so washed with adrenaline that they put on their fanciest maternity wear, apply a bit of lipstick and rouge, and demand to go to the hospital immediately. This first period of contractions, however, can last for days, depending on whether the laboring woman is a speedster or a putterer.

Being a first pregnancy, your mom and I supposed that she would be a putterer, with at least twelve hours (but more likely an entire day) of contractions ten to twenty minutes apart. She planned to bake a cake�angel food, I think. Instead she cleaned the bathroom in about twenty minutes, and soon contractions clinched her womb every ten. Then eight. Then six. And then five.

Damn, this was happening fast.

By 7 AM, the contractions had been 5 minutes apart for an hour; so I called our Special Beginnings midwife, Jessica from Minnesota. Because she didn�t want us to arrive at the birth center too early, she said call back in 45 minutes.

To this point, these were the most excruciating 45 minutes of my life; the only thing I can compare it to is being stranded on my bike somewhere in the middle of Illinois on a melting highway with hot tar creeping up my legs and the hot sun beating my brow. The main difference, however, was that I had some semblance of control in Illinois. As your were squished and squeezed in your mom�s womb, I could do nothing. I was helpless. Each moan jabbed my heart. Each gasp for breath ignited my frustration.

But, your mom, she had this mantra: �Okay. Okay. Ooookay. Ooookaaaaaaayyyy!� which she repeated as the pain increased. It was a shortened form, I think, of �I�m okay, despite the agony. I am okay. This will end. I�m okay.� As the contractions increased in frequency (coming every 4 minutes), visions of delivering you along Route 2 in a Dunkin� Donuts parking lot clouded the dial of our clock.

Time seemed to speed up and slow down simultaneously. While I measured the minutes between the contractions, ever-fleet Chronos sprinted; it seemed as if some devious miscreant widened the neck of the Universe�s hourglass, causing the sands to tumble free like a Californian mudslide. At the same time, however, 7:45 seemed and eternity away�like Achilles throwing a spear at Hector that must travel half the distance to the target and half again and again ad infinitum, never to strike. Yet, your mom�s contractions still pulsed at 4-minute intervals, despite our perception, and the clock did flip to 7:45.

By 8:16, we and all our birthing gear had piled into the car, heading south to Annapolis.

Why Annapolis, you ask, when Baltimore is overflowing with hospitals?

Well, Ella, the short answer is that neither your mother nor I much care for hospitals�they�re for sick people, dying people. And despite what some may say, pregnancy is not a handicap or disease; it�s a natural process. Why at the very beginning of life should you be so close to death and illness? Why shouldn�t you squirm your way from the womb in a place that feels more like home?

For months, I dreaded the drive to Annapolis. The heaved Baltimore streets would exacerbate labor, increasing your mom�s misery. Our car would run out of gas. I�d make a wrong turn. We�d be forced to deliver you on a gravel shoulder in the �Hood, or even worse Dundalk. All these worries concealed my real fear: the car drive meant there was no turning back. I would be a father. And according to everyone, my life would be changed forever. Birth is one of the few events that, once started, cannot be stopped. And the car drive south, for me, signaled the beginning of your birth.

There was no speeding, no squealing tires, no wild left turns. Our final ride as an unencumbered married couple was subdued. Even your mom�s contractions lessened in intensity. To me, the trip was like the expectant pause just before the sun rises with a riot of color and bird song. But just as Dawn snaps into a new day, so must labor progress...

We arrived at Special Beginnings Birth Center at about 9 AM, and your mom immediately discovered the joy of the wooden, birthing rocking chair. She settled into that chair like molasses into the well of a spoon. Relaxation, once an impossible dream, seemed right around the bend, albeit an incredibly long and curvy bend.

Then we got the good news. Your mom was 6 centimeters dilated. At 1 centimeter an hour, I calculated that by 1 PM your mom would be 10 centimeters and ready to push. The pushing stage of labor can last anywhere from 20 minutes to 5 hours; so using the most conservative estimate, Ella, your mom and I figured we would be home in our own bed by 10 PM and if fortune was smiling, possibly even in time for dinner.

For the next hour or so, your mom labored in the rocking chair while I putzed around, fetching juice or water, getting the bags from the car, and doing whatever else was necessary. Eventually, she made it to the whirlpool and was able to soak in warm water for a bit. At this point, your mom had dilated to 8 centimeters. Things were moving along rather nicely.

From this moment forward, the day begins to get a bit fuzzy.

The first indication that this labor wasn�t going as planned occurred when Jessica said that although the cervix had dilated to 8, your head wasn�t dropping. So, to speed things along, your mom, Aunt Jessica Anduiza (Jessikita is a good friend, Ella; you know, the blonde lass who works at Duke and speaks with a funny Washingtonian accent. Not to be confused with Jessica the Midwife), and I began walking in the rain.

I feel like I should talk a bit about the pain. But, I can�t. I have no compass for the physical sensations your mom suffered. It is beyond anything I know or can relate with words. So, I�ll let your mom tell you all about it when you get pregnant. In forty years. Just know that your mom hurt. Real bad.

But, your mom is incredibly strong and has an absurd tolerance for agony. Every three minutes or so during our stroll, she would grab my shoulder and whisper �Okay...Okay...Okay...� Sometimes, there were tears, sometimes crippling doubts, but your mom fought through it all.

We walked and walked and walked.

We climbed stairs. Your mom did lunges. She tried various acrobatic laboring postures. Our midwife pressed numerous acupressure points, suggested homeopathic herbs, prescribed more walking.

And your mom�well, she became Mary Dealmaker. �Okay,� she would say. �I�ll walk more stairs or contort myself into that extremely excruciating posture, if I can be in the rocker for this one contraction. Please.�

She would always say please...despite being stalled at 8 centimeters for almost 7 hours. Just so you know, Ella, when your mom says please in such a docile tone, she is either terribly sick or in real agony. Seven hours of hard labor�I can�t begin to imagine the pain.

At about 4:30, Jessica the Midwife checked your head position again. Not only had you not dropped but also she couldn�t figure out which direction you were facing. You were jammed in your mom�s pelvis like a Volkswagen Rabbit stuck wheel-well deep in mud during a torrential downpour.

That�s when Jessica called back-up. David, a Navy-trained nurse with ten years midwivery experience, arrived carrying new hope. One of only three male midwives in the state of Maryland, David is the gentlest person I�ve met. If he were Chinese, his name would be Lao-Tzu, and I�d call him Master. He has this Way about him; it radiates like a light bulb in a murky chamber. And by this point, your mom and I felt locked in a dungeon.

�I measure about 7.5 centimeters,� he said, �and the head appears caught.� Or course, he used more complex language like -1 station and left anterior ventricular posterior oppenclasure or some equally obtuse Latin words�basically meaning you hadn�t moved in hours and it didn�t look like were in the mood to wiggle free anytime soon.

At this point, we were given a choice. Your mom could continue laboring for a few more hours and hope the situation changed or take a shot of Staydal, which would supposedly allow both of us to rest and relax. See, Ella, by this point, your mom was precariously close to wearing herself out. Both midwives were concerned that if the time came to actually push, your mom wouldn�t have the energy, which would force us into an ambulance ride and a hospital room.

So, after negotiating for two contractions in the rocking chair, the nurse laid your mom on her side (the position causing her the most pain) and pricked her butt with 2 cc of that sweet narcotic. If you happen to be reading this during a period of intellectual difficulty (like studying for that big final in Non-Euclidian Geometry), please, Ella, don�t be upset with us. It�s highly unlikely that your inability to solve the mystery of how parallel lines meet is due to a little pain-killer during labor. More likely, it is because of all the bizarre experiments your mom and I tried out on you when you were a toddler. Look at it this way, though, both our parents smoked and did who knows what else while we were in utero, and although you may think otherwise now, we turned out mostly normal. Well, at least, your mom did.

And, remember Staydal is a quick acting narcotic that is flushed from the system in only a few hours; supposedly it makes you feel a bit tipsy and takes the edge off the contractions. It�s far less damaging than an epidural. And, we would have done almost anything to stay as far away from the hospital as possible.

For the next 90 minutes, I laid beside your mom in our dark room in the birth center listening to the rain. I drifted in an out of sleep. For your mom, though, the contractions worsened. The pain stole her voice. The �okay� mantra caught in her throat. She found little rest.

Part of the problem was that the midwives told her to lie on her right side. This posture caused your mom the most pain. Yet, such a position was necessary to help your head navigate any obstacles in the pelvis that prevented the dropping process. The Staydal should have cut the agony, but it didn�t. After an hour your mom began mumbling about a desire to push.

This was great news. The uncontrollable desire to push meant that the transition phase of labor had passed, her cervix had dilated, and you were finally ready to wiggle home.

I scurried off to get the midwives.

When your mom rolled on her back to be examined, everybody in the room (Nurse Laurel, Midwives Jessica and David, me and Jessica) noticed that you had shifted in your mom�s belly. Everything appeared more in-line, more conducive to dropping. Perhaps, the Staydal, the walking, the homeopathic medicines, the stair climbing, the acupressure points, the lunges�maybe it all had contributed to finally moving your labor forward.

David checked the cervix.

No change.

He felt for the position of your head.

No change. Still wedged at some crazy angle.

�Okay, Mary,� he began, his voice dropping with comfort and concern. �It looks like we�re going to have to go to the hospital.�

�But, I want to stay here. I like it here.�

�We want you to stay here, too, Mary, but we�re a little concerned. You haven�t progressed for 6 hours and if this continues you�re going to be too tired to push. So, we�ll get your medical records copied and prepare everything for you.�

�What will happen at the hospital?�

�Well, first thing is they�ll put you on an IV and give you an epidural. Then maybe a little pitocin. If things still don�t go as planned, you may need a C-section because your baby (this means you Ella) simply isn�t turning as she should.�

All that hope...gone.

At the word hospital, my heart fluttered and shrank. Inside, I began to lose my bearings. It�s not so much that I�m opposed to giving birth at hospitals�for many woman that�s the right path�but I knew that your mom would be crushed by the experience, defeated. She lived through so many horrible moments in hospitals. Your beginning could not�would not�be tainted so.

And, that�s when Mary Dealmaker took charge.

�But, David, I really feel like I can push. I really do. I know you�re not suppose to until fully dilated, but can�t I try without damaging anything important?�

David glanced at Jessica more than a tad dubious.

�Okay, Mary, you can try it. I�ll have keep a hand on your cervix to see if anything�s happening though. Let me know when you having a contraction and push. Push harder than you�ve ever pushed before.�

The contraction came. Your mom pushed. Still no change.

�Mary, I think it�s about time to head��

�But, that wasn�t a pushing contraction. I didn�t feel like really pushing.�

He shook his head. �Okay, Mary. Just let me know when you have on of those pushing contractions...We�ll see what happens.�

Then your mom pushed. Really pushed. The midwife said your cervix, although still only at about 8 centimeters, felt really stretchy. Then, Ella, your head moved at bit.

The whole room became bright.

At every contraction, we all shouted and encouraged your mom as she pushed you through whatever obstacle blocked your path. In twenty minutes, she dilated to 10, and you continued the journey through the pelvis into the world.

With your mom between my legs, back pressing hard against my chest, she bore down. Jessica the midwife held one leg, Nurse Laurel the other. Friend Jessikita kept a cool cloth on your mom's forehead. By 8:30, both your mom and I had reached down to touch your slimy head as it sought the light.

At 9:13 PM on March 20�the Vernal Equinox, Palm Sunday�you were born.

I even cut the cord. Crazy how life works.

There is more to this story, of course�much more pain and a delirious sort of joy that is hard to describe, the post-birth stitching of your mom, the struggles with you latching on, your vigorous throaty roar as you leaped into the world, your perfect fingers.

And, of course, let�s not forget the trip to the hospital a few days after you came home when your skin turned, first the hue of turmeric, then cheap mustard colored, and finally such a shade of sickly yellow that your mom became nauseous at the sight...The worried faces of doctors as they prepared us for the worst�days in the hospital under Bili lights, possible emergency blood transfusions, and the potential effects of severe jaundice.

But, that is a story for another day�a tale that began on Palm Sunday, reached fevered heights on Maundy Thursday, climaxed on Good Friday, and ended on Easter morn.

And yet, as I look at you sleeping, Ella, I hear more stories hidden within each gassy smirk and hungry frown.

Yellow skin turns pink

As new life�s relentless force

Drags Spring to Summer

                              xxxiii

Beneath the skin, there is a world unseen

Of forces gathering in hidden points�

Paths of power linking liver to spleen,

Gallbladder to fingers, kidneys to joints.

Vital essence flows on these secret roads�

Highways of energy too great to know.

Yet, with steel needles trembling fleshy nodes,

A body is healed of the pain it stows.

A hunchback straightens; perhaps, the blind see�

All with the prick of carefully placed pins.

Too much bile collecting behind the knee?

All you may need is a stab in the shin.

   Our bodies are mysterious machines

   Running on Spirit flowing East in streams.

Mary went to an acupuncturist last week. She went in with a uterus twisted, leaning heavily to the right; she left with a womb upright and straight�the head of Junior now able to engage the pelvis.

All caused by a few needles jabbed into secret points.

Some would call this 2,000-year-old Chinese art hogwash, others may call it magic. Whatever the case, Mary�s body seems more aligned, and now I�m looking for my own ailments to be cured by a few stainless steel pricks.

Of course, insurance companies won�t pay for such treatment, but perhaps someday they will hear Hamlet whisper:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

My poor shoulder aches

As I heft laundry upstairs

Goddamn gallbladder

                              xxxii

As with life, love�s heart lies with sweetened pain.

Within experience�s muddy soil,

Acorns crack, seeds split, and fibrous roots strain

Toward broken bedrock while green shoots uncoil.

From such toil, night-blooming jasmine unwraps;

A rose opens; the maples touch heaven.

Agony is sugared with life�s sweet sap

As Cupid�s barb is dulled by love�s leaven.

And that is how vegetable love labors�

With the passionate languor of ivy

Grinding bricks to dust under leafy fur,

Rippling our stone walls beneath verdant seas.

   Upon such an ocean, my bark does drift,

   And despite the pain, I savor the gift.

Last night, I dreamed of love. I have such dreams every few months. The plots of these fantasies twist and turn as most dreams do, but the difference is the emotion with which I wake up.

It is love pure�with all the agony and joy helixing like DNA upon my heart. As my eyes open, I realize that this feeling is at the core of everything�in the iris blooming, in the cow chewing grass, in the man waking beside his wife. That feeling will shape the letters of my next book.

Yet, as the sun climbs higher toward noon, I wonder if I will be able to properly convey such sentiment with words. To capture life with a pen is an almost impossible task. For my heart�s sake, I hope I�m up to it.

Emotion explodes

With Dawn climbing cloudy skies

White like blank paper

                              xxxi

O Muse, remember to me what I know.

Show me where I�ve been and where I�m to go.

The land is wide o�er which ambition blows

And often blanketed with blinding snow.

O Muse, remember to me what I seek.

Like swine greased, through grasping fingers it flees.

Seeing empty hands makes vacant hearts weak

And vacant lives lost like air as lungs wheeze.

Remember to me what I am, O Muse.

Guide me, carry me, lift my words to heights

Unknown to minds distracted with mundane hues

And hidden to souls shadowed by black night.

   As bleak Winter makes us forget ourselves,

   Spring arrives like a new book on bare shelves.

The disconnect between what we do at work and the shape we want our lives to take is incredible...and disturbing. In my romantic imagination, my hands would directly produce the fruits that sustained my family. Such physical struggle, I imagine, would emphasize the metaphysical struggle of living�hard labor reflecting hard life.

But, farming or carpentry or goat herding is damn tough, and I�m incredibly lazy. So despite my desires, I have a feeling I�ll find myself within the geometric prison of office cubicles.

I just have to remember: it�s not what is accomplished at work that matters; it�s how your life takes shape afterward.

Fluorescent lights buzz

Above a clothed cubed prison

An empty desk waits

                              xxx

Snow spills in early March to drape limbs white

During a night aglow with falling flakes.

Ice coats bark in delicate jackets tight�

At last, a cold covering Winter makes.

The dream of warmth is a season away;

On this eve, clinging to grass, King Frost reigns

With Queen Wind howling across the still Bay�

Rippled tides fixed like rusty weathervanes.

A stretched lattice of frozen fingers grasps

The earth within a temporary death

That will not outlast Night�s final puffed gasp�

Solidified air melted by hot breath.

   As the rested Sun on his throne does leap,

   Shadowed eaves see light and icicles weep.

I�m so ready to smell the cherry blossoms among those other first scents of Spring: mowed grass, heat-heavy breezes, and the yogurt aroma of breast-fed baby diapers.

Tiny pink blossoms

Sprout on limbs shaped by winter

A child cries: "Change me!"

                              xxix

Watching boxed celebrity drink flashed bulbs

And nibble the foamed heads of microphones,

We�re held captive by what we wish to hold:

Ravenous Fame glowing bright as hot stones.

Immortality�the allure of stars

Spelling our names in lights across the sky�

Pulls the hungry soul toward black pits of tar

That mimic Night�s promises gone awry.

The shine is an illusion, the darkness

Unbroken. Fame�s maw gobbles another

Life chasing life�s most glamorous excess,

Consumed by that whale like Jonah smothered.

   What appears eternal bright on this eve

   Will fade as fickle fashion changes weave.

I watched the 77th Academy Awards last night. It was fascinating�being both repulsed by the fawning and excess and, at the same time, being drawn to it like a fish to a hooked worm.

Rationally, I understand that fame is not an end�that it rarely makes one happy. On the other hand, there is a spark within me that wants to burn brighter than any sun�that wants to be seen and heard and remembered.

Once Mary asked me if, as a writer, I would want to scribble action-packed pulp that sells like the Da Vinci Code, which would give me enough money to fill four swimming pools, or rather, construct a piece of writerly perfection like Brighten the Corner Where You Are, a book that sings to those few who have read it long after it�s been returned to the shelf.

To be perfectly honest, I can�t answer.

Right now, I just want to be published.

On the red carpet

The brightest stars from the screen

Walk tall. They seem short

                              xxviii

If death is sleep, then what, pray tell, is dream?

Is it an afterlife filled with extremes�

A cartoon�a parody of life�s themes

Replayed on shut eyelids in endless streams?

And for those who cannot dream, iced in sleep,

What of them? Are these quiet souls condemned?

Is paradise lost or is it gained deep

In soundless slumber in silent soil hemmed?

Is dreaming Heaven or a curs�d Hell,

Invading Death�s rest with lively visions

Reflecting life lost to Time�s tolling bell?

Do dreams free or could they be a prison?

   Who can tell to what fancy we�ll be flown

   �Til that eternal instant of Sleep is known.

As sung in the immortal, four-part infinite canon arranged by Franz Josef Haydn:

      Tod ist ein l�nger Schlaf.

      Schlaf ist ein k�rzer, k�rzer Tod,

      der lindert dir, und jener tilgt des Lebens Not!

      Tod ist ein l�nger Schlaf.

While dreaming in sun

A butterfly balances

On red rose petals

                              xxvii

The American Dream of owning land,

Bought with hardship, struggle, and bloody sweat,

Is threatened by the Public Good�s demand

To cure blighted cities of rising debt.

The antique homestead of Grandpa Moses

Is slated for destruction tomorrow.

A new Gap, the government proposes

And forecloses on folk lost in escrow.

Cash governs the law, and big business rules

With green fists flinging green hope to and fro.

Muzzled and bridled and whipped as if mules,

The polity is sent to pasture, bowed.

   Private property is our sovereign right

   Unless, that is, you have not money�s might.

The Supreme Court is hearing a case testing whether local governments have the right to take land from private owners and sell it to private developers to squash blight and increase the tax base.

The Public Good is one thing, but to see my home turned into a Wal-Mart frightens me. If New Haven forces the owners of coveted land to sell and then, in turn, sells that property to Pfizer, how can anyone own anything?

Businesses will always produce more revenue than residential properties, so what will stop the government from handing my house over to Johns Hopkins or Barnes and Noble or MacDonald�s?

But the same could have been said about railroads versus farmland, family homes versus public utilities, even small settled communities versus the vast territories of the Mohawk or Chippewa Indians. The west was founded on the doctrine of Eminent domain, and our country spans two oceans because of it�from sea to shining sea.

What a sad land.

Blighted streets lead toward

Our urban hearts, encased in

Concrete wet with tears

                              xxvi

Seeking the day without a yesterday,

Both scientist and theologians peer

At the shrapnel of Creation�s decay

And theorize how that first bang appeared.

Whether by Breath commanded with Word�s power

Or random collision of hydrogen,

A still clock must strike that genesis hour

When molecules first spin and life begins.

So both say. On that, they agree. Mostly.

But, such bile flows between these warring camps

That brief words exchanged are followed closely

By curses, each claiming light from Truth�s lamp.

   Yet, if either opened their eyes to see,

   The world would blind them, and they could be free.

I wonder why it is on the extremes of things that we have trouble agreeing. Many Creationists wish to debate stories as if it were science, while Cosmologists and physicists hope to strip the myth from the world, making it some sort of Cartesian machine.

But, to me the universe contains both myth and machine, God and Science, chicken and steak.

Next time I run into a rocket scientist, I must remember to ask him about poetry and myth, and furthermore, at the next wedding I attend, I must make a note to ask the preacher man about the space/time continuum and the evolution of man.

Somewhere in that conversation, may I glimpse the beginning of things.

In that cold vastness

Of nothing, perhaps there is

A clock being wound

                              xxv

Deep in the Northern Wastes, small towns exist

Where miles separate neighbors and years

Part friends. In such a climate, to persist

Is a struggle against dark creeping fears.

Pine trees hang heavy beneath drapes of snow,

And instead of beauty, hearts feel alone.

Glass rattles in windows as fierce gusts blow;

Yet, we watch from the kitchen, frozen stone.

With the hope of Spring, we watch in Winter

For companionship, strolling down the lane�

A friendly ear, a smiling face, to stir

Mouths with words�greetings�a forgotten name.

   The human heart craves a mate more than life

   Just as Spring needs Winter as her midwife.

Last night, Mary and I watched a movie recommended to us by Markus, lover of poultry and all things fowl. It was a Swedish/Norwegian affair called Kitchen Stories.

The movie chronicles the life of lonely Norwegian bachelors after WWII while being observed by Swedish scientists studying their movements and habits so that the perfect kitchen can be designed. Once you get past the sing-song Swedish and the more guttural Norwegian (unless, that is, you speak those languages), the movie is hysterical in a soft, sad way.

It strips humanity to its basic materials and shows what we are�how we live�how we continue on�with such delicacy and humor. I can�t escape the images from the movie: a red tractor; a wooden, eight-foot tall, rickety observation chair; the bleeding nose of an old horse; a mangy cat scarf; the taste of chocolate; the smell of Swedish tobacco; two white tea cups with blue trim held in the fragile grip of porcelain saucers while water boils in Spring.

I wish I could see with such clarity�could feel with such purity�to tell a story so.

In a warm kitchen

The table is set for two

A kettle whistles

                              xxiv

With Dawn�s rising, I climb a mountain growing

Rounder with each passing day, expanding

Like a moon, swelling pale in May, showing

My image etched in smooth water standing.

Upon that unrippled surface, I see

What I have been�that which he will become.

Just as my father saw himself in me,

I glimpse the past in a future winsome.

But that is tomorrow. On this night,

I imagine that morning ascent made

With finger steps to the summit stretched white

And streaked purple, which only time can fade.

   Love has made a temporary mountain

   Shielding our past within our future kin.

The human body is an amazingly beautiful contraption. As I watch Mary sleep during those few minutes when she isn�t stumbling to the bathroom, I am baffled by what Nature can manage. I love every minute of it.

Reflected in glass

A growing mountain presses

On the poor bladder

                              xxiii

It�s the will of God, the believers say.

But, what that may mean, even Priests remain

Silent. I�ve heard it said, toward Judgment Day

All things point�by the Architect ordained.

To the nonbelievers, such talk of plans

Or destiny or heavenly decrees

Is but fancy, soothing the son of man

Tormented in the grove Gethsemane.

Between these extremes�blind faith and blind doubt�

There�s plenty room enough for mystery.

Nature hides miracles from the devout

And agnostic alike; neither are free.

   Whether divine fate or random event,

   It matters not; it�s how your life is spent.

Last night on American Idol, 20 of 44 contestants were cut from the competition. The fascinating aspect of the whole ordeal was the number of people who attributed their fate to the will of God.

Simon would say something like: "You sing like a caged baboon whose tongue has been calloused by years of licking his own ass. Stick with accounting."

Whereupon the aspiring singer would frequently respond along these lines: "This must be part of the Lord�s plan. This rejection is a test of my strength. Just as God giveth, he taketh away...blah...blah..blah..."

Paula may reassure with: "You�re just not right for this contest." (meaning: you sing like the chittering of a thousand one-legged crickets).

And again the plan of God will be invoked, shrouding the inconsolable within a blanket of order and reason and destiny. I don�t mean to impugn faith because I find such belief perfectly respectable. I sometimes wish I had such unshakable, unbreakable belief.

But, not having it�not ever experiencing it�I always wonder if these proclamations are told by idiots, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Or could these believers actually be touched by divine decree?

Could God care that much?

Within a garden

Surrounded by ripe olives,

A man prays. I watch.

                              xxii

There are no fireplaces anymore�

No campfires around which friends cluster

To shake the dark with stories restoring

Our humanity to its deep luster.

Instead, we sit before a flickering

Box, Listening to the electric hum

Of canned sound scripted by apes snickering

At their own clich�d jokes, penned with ink scum.

Bards simply cannot exist in this world;

Their words no longer duel with flamed twilight

To hold us captive�to reveal, unfurled,

Our most sacred shadows in shadowed Night.

   Imagination has been overcome

   By these modern times, rendering us numb.

When I was but a wee lad, I remember my grandfather�s white goatee shadowed with red while he spun spooky tales of wonder and mystery around the campfire. He told the adventures of his father�s father as he stumbled upon maraudering pirates, hidden silver mines, and even an escaped psychopath who desired to skewer him with a butcher knife.

We traveled with his voice as it traveled with dancing flames. We were taken to the places where only imagination can fly�the Shire, beyond the rainbow to Oz, across the seas where the wild things are, to the deepest places�those gardens that reflect Eden in its primal glory.

That is my grandfather�s goatee to me.

And, although there are no more campfires, just squawking TVs, I still can picture the shadowed face of the last true Bard�my grandfather.

Shadows paint faces

Red and yellow with burning

Words mingling with flame

                   &nb