Dark Sparks Vision

August 27, 2017.  Hurricane Harvey has come to visit Texas, moving inland to squat over family land near Cuero.  My mind races back to youthful times when the Guadalupe River overflowed and those who lived out in the country could not get to town for days and days.  I worry for relatives still on the family land, as well as relatives in Houston. Houston, already flooded, is the projected target for Harvey’s meander away from Cuero.

Within Harvey’s outer rain bands (5+ inches measly compared to up-to-40 inches predicted for Houston),  I mourn the uprooted live oak next door and cringe as images of flooded Houston roadways pour across my computer screen.  Houston is the 4th largest city in the U.S.  To evacuate that many people is next-to-impossible.  Last time they tried (Hurricane Rita) more people died on the jammed roadways than in the city behind them.  I am oddly sympathetic with Houston’s mayor, now taking all sorts of flack for his earlier direction to hunker down vs. evacuate.   He saw only two imperfect options. Could there have been other choices?  Houston is a lesson-occurring – conclusions still beyond view.

With all this stirring my mind, I uncovered this 2013 poem in a pile on my desk. A spark of synchronicity!  The image is from recent camping near Cloudcroft NM.

 

Turquoise

August 19, 2017.  Home from summer travels, I am finally able to connect a poem written right before departure with images I did not have along on the trip.  This one’s been waiting for me to get home!

We lost our tabby Ziggy unexpectedly earlier this year.  I painted the back porch rocker turquoise, all that sanding and painting a way to deal with grief.  Since then, I keep seeing turquoise everywhere I turn.  And every time, Ziggy comes softly to mind.  One such encounter was an Eremos-sponsored day of Contemplative Poetry at St. Matthews Episcopal (in Austin) in June.  I did not yet know about the turquoise table movement to encourage neighbors to sit together and get to know one another.  The table pictured seemed just one more appearance of turquoise!  So I sat down and communed with Ziggy about turquoise.