canal haiku triptych

I.

two sunning turtles

abiding our twin footfalls

stone above water

II.

one regal heron

alert shoreline sentinel

tracking our chatter

 III.

shrieking blue jay cry

sweat in the small of the back

wood bridge, dusty shoes

sunset boulevard

As he drove on Onondaga Lake Parkway, seeing memorial crosses to his right, before the 10'9" warning signs for the rail overpass, where a Megabus crashed and four died several years ago, he saw what people term a picture-perfect sunset to his left, which would have to be west, would it not, because, after all, the sun sets in that direction, we are told. And, what, he wondered, is so great about this sunset? If he were forced to decide, he would report a litany of visual components (no aural elements came to mind, despite that "music of the spheres" stuff), including, but not limited to (as attorneys and regulators and bureaucrats like to say): backlit cumulus clouds, silhouetted rays of golden sunlight, lambent light off the lake, contrasting blue sky in the dusk, seagulls, rippling waves, willow branches swaying in the breeze. Not that a sunset shrouded in brooding purple storm clouds or pale wintry slate would be any less picturesque, nor would the sunset itself care one way or the other, he wondered parenthetically.

if you can read this...

You've probably seen the bumpersticker that says "IF YOU CAN READ THIS, THANK A TEACHER," or a variation on that. True enough. But also thank your parent(s) or step-parents or guardians; other relatives such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters; your peers; your culture; your heritage; your physical and mental capacities; your neighbors and friends; your place of worship; local and school libraries and librarians; literacy volunteers; local businesses; government agencies and people with them; nonprofits; teaching assistants; reading specialists; mentors; civic leaders; educational researchers and leaders; legislators; and on and on. Did I forget anyone? Perhaps. Not intended. The point is: it takes (and took) legions of people, close and far away, to make you a reader. As you were READING this, you might have taken for granted that you can read. You might also have taken for granted the silent and complex and sophisticated array of people, forces, and factors that culminated in your ability to read this word, the next word, and all that came before and will follow. And to do so with ease and enjoyment, as if it were second nature!

We have a literacy crisis.

We need to wake up.

It takes a whole community.

Today.

Tomorrow is too late.

sounds like . . .

Yesterday, an ad on the radio for "Lights on the Lake" declared something like "many new displays."


MANY NUDE DISPLAYS?

MANY NUDIST PLAYS?

Upon quick reflection while driving, those sound-alikes came to me, who likes to noodle with words.

A friend later pointed out he has a similar misfire when he hears an ad for a local restaurant (a very good one) named Laci's Tapas Bar.

LACI'S TOPLESS BAR?

In the Eighties, when I worked on audiovisual programs, a producer told me of working on a script for a kids' program about Paul Bunyan. The script said something like, "He dragged his axe around the country," but during recording they realized "ax" sounded like a posterior part of Bunyan's anatomy.

Is there a name for this phenomenon?
  

the light in their eyes

You hear the stories. You read them in the paper. You read them online. The gray blanket of negativity. The curtain of fear. The dead end of despair. Smudged icons from a dusty, dark church closed long ago. But look again. Stop. See the light in their eyes. Whose eyes? The eyes of children, boys and girls, first and second graders. They are trying to read. They sit with grown-ups, side by side, in a school library. The children sound out, scan, struggle, surmise, and smile with surprise and discovery and delight. The light in their eyes flickers like a votive candle. It is alive. It is a fire called Future. It will melt your heart if you let it.

counting crows

As I walked along the Creekwalk, I disturbed the countless crows. They hawed and screeched; they flustered and fluttered. One man, a rude intruder of the tree-limbed confab. What harm posed I? What threat? I kept walking, toying with the crowy sentinels, sneaking a smile but wondering who'd get the last laugh.

autumn adagio

Freedom of Espresso percolating

November sun stains

cumulus streets named Plum and Solar

lazy wind fans burning bush

branching scarlet melon peach burgundy bronze

emerald naked rain

heralding 

don't say it

snow

arrested

walking back on the Creekwalk after having gone to its terminus at Onondaga Lake after having seen 2 rats or muskrats a bunny that startled me a foot away still by the fence and a heron I was

arrested

by a goldfinch stopped in my tracks a double-take frozen stopping me halting me captivating me there in the setting-sun light iridescent in its yellow its black wings its blaclk eyes a bit of orange a hood of black around its beak still and bright and reverent allowing me to look letting me be present then flying a few feet to feast on queen ann's lace but it was something else with seeds and then farther down the path I followed it I walked toward my car the goldfinch having soared and swooped away

Manlius, On Tap

The Sunoco A Plus Mini-Market in Manlius, New York, at the corner of Route 92 and Seneca Turnpike, or Route 173, presents an odd sight, at least to my eyes. It has a counter with five or six taps for so-called craft beers and some plastic cups nearby. I remarked to the young fellows working there a day or two ago how it struck me as odd. I joked about Manlius's need to have artisanal craft beers made by organic elves. They chuckled. (Maybe the elves are imported from Marin County, NorCal.) Although I do not drink craft beers or working-class brews and confine my brewed beverages to coffee or tea, I am not a temperance snob. If Manliusans or Manliusites need this overt display of non-Stickley arts-and-craftsmanship, go for it. Is it possible that such fluids are requisite lubricants for loosening the square jaws of propriety?

Other queries arise:

• Do drivers do a grab and go with a beer in hand?
• Is that allowed?
• Should it be?
• Or is this merely for pedestrians?
• Are there sidewalks?
• Do sidewalks have handrails in case said pedestrians are tipsy?
• What do the Manlius swans think of this?
• Do locals hang out at the A Plus and stand around and indulge in bar-like chatter?
• What is the conversation about?
• Would it be against a local ordinance if the booze for sale were decidedly uncrafty, such as Budweiser or PBR or Keystone? (I'm rusty on what is in or out.)
• How would the military forebears of Manlius, New York, view this?
• Will this lead to an economic boom such as the ones that the Village of Manlius enjoyed in years past, making it a center of commerce?

Lake Effect Meditation

Windswept snow, coming from where or when we can only guess, just past the verge of light, on the other side of arid; the effect of the lake is fluff, moisture to moisture, lashes to lashes, spindrift spun, moody madness, baleful blizzard. Cause and effect, lake and effect, noun and noun, verve to verb, rippling through raptures of featherweight white affecting those who are showered by Ontario's halo by a lacustrine lustre. Lake effect: dust upon dust upon swirl upon silent upon crystal upon flake upon land upon hill and plain and dale and upon Onondaga upon stutter of wind and warp and weave. Lake effect.