No, you fool, this is not a sink. It's my bed.

Lightening: 1
Pecan Tree:  0

followers

There's a dog following this blog.  I'm glad I'm not doing this
for my ego because I would be totally  crushed right now.
So why am I doing this blog?  Well, mostly something to help
occupy my time when I can't sleep.
Maybe more on that another time.

Comics

Probably the most brilliant and creative comics ever written, and most
intellectually stimulating:  Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, and Bloom
County.
Doonesbury is so over-rated and very shallow.

The train trestle

The trestle, once a powerful symbol
Of the irrepressible expansion
         of a young country,
Remains but a strange monument
Cut off from the railway system:
No tracks leading to it
And its span abruptly ending
As a dream upon one's awakening.

Wednesday, the fifth...concerning the 27th

Wednesday happened along in a somewhat pre-arranged way,

            not necessarily happy about it.

The sun stumbled, like a drunk with a hangover, across the cluttered sky.

And a man, perplexed, looked around and wondered why...

A squirrel pranced in front of an on-coming van, failing to grasp

            the physics of the moment.

The radio blathered mind-numbing non-sensical noise

And I've given up trying to figure out if it means anything.

Trouble arrays itself, encompassing one's life---gone is the laugh.

"Maybe's" are never enough to hold onto, and I wonder what it means

            To hold onto Jesus when muddy tears replace the eyes' gleam.

Sorrow never leaves its old haunts'

And misery, though so gaunt, remains a stalwart foe.

Fear casts its cloak around my shoulders as I slog        

            through the foggy cypress swamp.

The stinking black mud imperils each footstep,

            as I furtively glance back for the coming alligators.

Exhaustion cuffs me upside my head, throwing me into the muck

            like a discarded rag doll.

The fear of what is behind drives me on as I grab for a log,

            dragging myself into a thicket of grass, hoping to

            hide from the assailants

            only to find that I have disturbed an alligator nest....

Get up.....Get up.....Get up!  I have to find my way back.

            They still need me.

Is that a lantern glowing  on the fern-dressed  ridge?

What!?  A beautiful lady in lively colors

            holding high the light? 

Her features are smooth and clear.

            (does she not know the dangers here?)

She fastens her eyes on me and now a smile appears.

Gasping through parched lips, I will my wearied muscles

            to ignore the pain of the cuts and bruises

            and drag my remnants amidst the tangled undergrowth,

            bringing my reviled self to her feet.

I weep as my wife kneels down and holds my swamp-encrusted

            body to her chest as she whispers,

And from her heart spill tears that wash my face....

To A Pearl on Her Seventeenth

The prevailing Georgia dust mushrooms up behind the Accord

            until a westerly seizes upon it and sweeps it on over the

            east side of the Habersham dirt road.

As we curl around a wooded bend, we see an old house, long

            ago left to itself.

            The sill plate grievously bows down between the rock

            pillars.  It seems that the years have played with the rocks

            just as a mischievous child might take  things from where

            they belong  and scatter them about. 

Oddly, the yard has been kept cut, even though there are stones

            tossed here and there and dead oak branches are littered

            about like battlefield casualties.

The house looks like it gave up on the idea of paint about the time

            I was born back in '59.  Only chards of glass occupy the

            windows and the tin roof, where it still clings to the trusses,

            has turned to a bitter shade of brown.

The early spring sky is brushed with a light blue,

Set against the fresh green of the leaves of oaks and poplars,

Hickorys and walnuts.

We pull up by the field fence that bars any from coming too close

To the memories.

My girl gets out and begins framing the scene for some pictures.

I love watching her and it's a time I will sorely miss when she gets

            all grown up and has to move on with her future.

We both make mention about the same time concerning the baby doll

            lying in the front yard, off the northwest corner of the house.

The doll is fairly new; it must be a recent addition of the years.

It has no clothes and is lying face up, staring at the open heavens.

Such a contrasting sight amid the rubble and hapless refuse strewn

            about by the years, now very silent.....

The back of the hundred year old house is nearly broken and its ribs

            show like that of an emaciated horse precipitously close to

            its own demise.

Yet, the doll lies quietly and seems to wait for some little girl to pick

            her up; but the fence keeps all out.

We finish and return to the Honda and trail behind us the cloud

            of Georgia dust.

I wonder," Who was the baby doll calling out to?"  A tear fights

            to make itself known, but I hide it from my Pearl, my

            dreamer, my once little girl.

I love you, Alyssa,

Dad                              August 3, 2005