Too Soon Gone

Lyle Hill, aka goatman, died March 22, 2019, from complications of multiple myeloma. To all those who followed his blog postings and whose blogs provoked his grins, groans, growls, and laughter, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping to lighten his load as he dealt with his illness during the past nine years. He did consider you his friends.

-----Ginny

Leavings

This old piano in this old house of neighbors (wish I had known them, but I arrived late). One can only imagine the harsh acoustics and tinkling-sound of the old tunes' notes  -- I found no music sheets.  How  it must have been a great pleasure to family and neighbors, especially in the days before REA electric brightened the scene and the evenings.
House is now in disrepair.  Once the roof goes, the structure goes, eventually.  I haven't been back in several years so maybe the piano is still there.  Probably, as it is long abandoned and very heavy.

Usually not much left of old lives -- a tombstone and a memory, if you're lucky.

WW One (The Great War. The Last War)

 Asleep

Under his helmet, up against his pack,
After so many days of work and waking,
Sleep took him by the brow and laid him back.

There, in the happy no-time of his sleeping,
Death took him by the heart. There heaved a quaking
Of the aborted life within him leaping,
Then chest and sleepy arms once more fell slack.

And soon the slow, stray blood came creeping
From the intruding lead, like ants on track.

Whether his deeper sleep lie shaded by the shaking
Of great wings, and the thoughts that hung the stars,
High-pillowed on calm pillows of God's making,
Above these clouds, these rains, these sleets of lead,
And these winds' scimitars,
-Or whether yet his thin and sodden head
Confuses more and more with the low mould,
His hair being one with the grey grass
Of finished fields, and wire-scrags rusty-old,
Who knows? Who hopes? Who troubles? Let it pass!
He sleeps. He sleeps less tremulous, less cold,
Than we who wake, and waking say Alas! 

Wilfred Owen

Nine million dead here, hard to fathom compared to

the mere 54,000 dead of my peer conscripts in Viet Nam !

But I feel no less empty.

Demise

Elgie Tapp's barn.
  He was a neighbor down from Chicago to central Missouri in the 50's to purchase 200 acres to farm with mules and raise a family.  Refractory clay was found on the land,  and extracted to form four fish ponds (after) and at 20 cents a ton was enough to purchase a tractor and mechanized equipment.

The barn and he are gone now but the structure lasted as long as it could with a compromised roof.
Made of  local oak and nailed when oak was new and soft.  Over the years oak becomes very hard and must be drilled before a nail is possible.

Oddly enough I found a poem about barns:

Barns

What holds up
the toothless barns;
their sun-bleached beams
textured and warmed
to the touch;
alive with memories
and long forgotten hay?

Oh, those winds, do blow
howling through
each opening
trying to force open,
the resistance of owls-
eyes and feathers
softly occupying
rafters without pigeons

You’ve sloped,
here and there,
into the body
of the landscape,
surrounding you

You’ve sheltered
young lovers, vagrants,
and beer-drinking youth
in your senior years
Loyal and steadfastly
upholding your purpose-
refusing to retire

Your beautiful bleached bones
familiar etchings
across lines
where land meets
blue skies-

The sun
sets and rises
around you-
You, that
holds time

Dead Tree of Life

Turkeys can fly (at least this one which landed on our long-dead cottonwood did).  That limb has since fallen off making this tree even less stable.  For two seasons now bluebirds have nested in those holes near the top so it would be nice if tree could last one more season.  I have recently propped it up with a 2X4 at  45° to the ground . . . hope runs eternal.

I have since quit the facebook--- too addicting, and I guess that's the point. They pretend privacy is a priority, whereas the priority is selling information of the "friends" for commercial and political purposes.  More time to read and work on some blog posts.  Time better spent.

Spring be Here '18

Still Pond 2 Isabella Plantation, Richmond Park, London, UK

For my girl

A moment of happiness,
you and I sitting on the verandah,
apparently two, but one in soul, you and I.
We feel the flowing water of life here,
you and I, with the garden's beauty
and the birds singing.
The stars will be watching us,
and we will show them
what it is to be a thin crescent moon.
You and I unselfed, will be together,
indifferent to idle speculation, you and I.
The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar
as we laugh together, you and I.
In one form upon this earth,
and in another form in a timeless sweet land.                               

 Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi  (1207-1273)

was born to native Persian-speaking parents, orignally from the Balkh, in present-day Afghanistan.  He was born either in Waksh, a village on the Vakhsh River in presnt-day Tajkistan, or in the city of Balkh, in present day Afghanistan.

Breath

                                     I died from minerality and became vegetable;

                                   And From vegetativeness I died and became animal.

                                   I died from animality and became man.

                                  Then why fear disappearance through death?

                                  Next time I shall die

                                  Bringing forth wings and feathers like angels;

                                  After that, soaring higher than angels -

                                  What you cannot imagine,

                                   I shall be that.

                                  Rumi was a 13 century Persian poet and mystic.

Warmth and Wakey Nights

A fire still amuses as it must have through the ages past.  Since lightening first struck that tree they must have sought the warm and sights to behold. Floating color, as elements burn, allows pause and sleepy meditation.
This is temporary happy.  

"Seaport by Moonlight"   A 1771 painting by Claude-Joseph Vernet  in the Louvre in Paris.
A detailed presentation (he depicted many French ports and ships):  I wonder how he painted by moon and fire light.

  I use this as desktop background and only recently noticed the fellow asleep on the anchor behind the folks at the fire.

How did those sailors keep warm on those wooden ships?

Muse Sleeping

Why Not to Write Poems

“I’m a poet” makes for awkward social introductions.
No one reads poetry anymore. It’s old-fashioned,
irrelevant, and adolescent. 

You don’t see the universe in the heart of a lily.
It just spits orange pollen all over your black turtleneck
and makes you sneeze. 

Grammar is confusing. Poems are unnecessary.
They make nothing happen.* They don’t even 
rhyme anymore.

You are insufficiently weird. Only goth teens, 
hippies, queers, suicidal women, and old people 
write poems. 

Poets have to read poems. You read a poem once. 
You hated it. The only famous poets are dead poets. 
There are no rich poets. 

You have no talent. You’re the wrong ethnicity. 
You don’t know enough big words. You’ve got no 
rhythm. And WTF are “line breaks”?

You’ve read that it takes years of study and practice 
to write even one good poem. The only easy-to-write 
poems are list poems. And they’re boring.

(By Sharon Brogan written on VerseWrights)

Art by Henry Avignon, Buffalo, NY    https://www.facebook.com/henry.avignoniii?lst=1422499633%3A100002318747347%3A1513292513

What's Next . . .

Direction to me. 

It seems the blogs may be nearly on the way out . Too easy with FB to comment a quick retort or post a photo of your last meal than to really take some time, maybe research, and present a thoughtful presentation on the blog. 
Leaving my blog,  I fear loss of  my ability to stay with a project (may be aging but  not to the extent that I experience it) since attending other distractions -- FB, etc.  I will start something like repairing a lawn mower or sweeping up this lady bug infestation, and quit partway through vowing to return later.  Things get eventually done but only through attrition. I seem to have no staying power with a project, even reading.      Time for a change . . . .

  And  I see that poetry is still alive and well on the blogs:   withrealtoads.blogspot.com
or:       http://www.versewrights.com/

Old Metal Stuff

Girl and I on 1939 tractor which a neighbor and I restored from rusty condition on one of the wheels, and painted. Another close neighbor died and gave it to me 15 years ago.

One had to rotate the flywheel by hand there on the left to get the 2 cylinder to start.  It usually popped right off since there are petcock reliefs on the cylinders to allow  reduced pressure in the cylinders whilst starting.

We don't farm, so don't know what to do with it except maybe haul firewood, pull a dead tree, or drag someone out of a muddy/ snowy road.

Home Sweet Home

The Wind


I am done with everything but this business
of recalling what is human --
faint letterings insane, this burning leaf
or a curtain blooming in a still room --
all I know of eternity.  How it burns me, how borderless I become in the wind

Evaporating like the sweat on fingers
 and blown blindly over the blind ocean --
 no mark will tell the wind of my presence
 my feet will fail to remember you
dancing in a dark room
O my love how how the windows shudder.

 ( by Alison Croggon (I owe her a Quarter for this))


I hesitate writing about these old leavings:  sad  places now -- once filled with smells, sounds, livings, dyings, happiness, dancing, music, all of the living passed and over now.
 From a plat map I have seen, the land on which this house stands has been in the McCall family since 1856 Callaway County, central Missouri when  a lot of the population were black slaves and probably lived in a part of the house.  Hard to tell how long the house has stood without going through an abstract search.

This another leaving of a Doctor Offitt of Readsville, Missouri who practiced about the turn of the centeury and died  in 1903.  Going to rack and ruin-- a good roof helps keep it up.  I think that this was
the waiting/operating room since there was a drug room with shelves way in the back.  ( There are four structures still there)

This seems like the living quarters, still in pretty good shape with nice wood trim inside and a pump house out back.

This a newer place abandoned a few miles to the East of Readsvlle.  I am told the family raised 3 kids on 40 acres here probably in the 40's or 50's.  It is being kept up by, I guess, some of the kids or hired out (grass is kept cut).
In the past,  Sears sold house kits -- this may have been one of them:   http://www.searsarchives.com/homes/index.htm

Barn and out buildings across the road.

The old places still survive.

 People are gone, except in memories.

Beyond Normal

                      "The Kiss of the Muse"  by Paul Cezanne

Turns out there are nine Greek Muses, daughters of Zeus.  Each involved with a different aspect of inspiration as follows:   http://www.talesbeyondbelief.com/nymphs/muses.htm.  I suspect the muse depicted in the painting may be Calliope or Clio, patrons of epic poetry and writing.

Here they are frolicking about as muses are wont to do.
Sit down, stay quiet and one may visit you. 

The Big House

C

In Jefferson City, Missouri (1836-2004) open now for tours.   Not quite escape proof:  in April  1967 James Earl Ray escaped in a leaving bread truck and went to Canada for a year.
Then in April 1968 made his way to Memphis to shoot and kill Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Caught in London shortly after ( for an escapee he seemed to have adequate traveling cash !)   Back to the Big House.

Turns out that 1/4 of the worlds prisoners are held in US jails, some 2.4 million --  38% black and 34% white.  Of course, blacks are overrepresented compared to their percentage in society.  Through the processes of  "drug wars", "tough on crime",  "three strikes and your out", and tough law directives the cells are filling up, many innocent of the crime or charged with minor drug offenses.  It used to be that rehabilitation was the goal, but  now just basic housing seems to be considered adequate especially with the privatization of  many facilities; with solitary isolation being  used on unruly or gang-suspected prisoners.  Some 25,000 are in isolated  (6ft X 9ft) cells most in super max prisons, many mentally ill.  Cruel and  unusual punishment?   The record for solitary isolation is a fellow in Louisiana (Angola prison) who has been held for some 43 years :  https://medium.com/amnesty-international/solitary-review-albert-s-treatment-should-be-confined-to-history-e01a0d95bf1a  .
  It is hard to even imagine what effect this would have on a person . . .

Seems to me that a progressive society must attend to the needs of all of its citizens ,  even those who have gone wrong in the eyes of the courts. Fair play and dignity must lead ,otherwise it's just another ineffective and uncaring system bound for failure.

Time is in the Way

Exhale •

Going through it
The long duration of dark
The cold winter night
The silent day
When will I know my reason
When can I enter into peaceful solitude
Life is but a blink of the eye
A bat of the lash
If you want to know
I'm chasing the wind
And will soon be mown down
By the sharp blade
Come on spring
Make me new again
I set and wait for both

Anonymous


I wish I could attribute  the source of this 1 and 0 rendering, the magical woods, but no.  So much beauty presented in this vast digital world of possibility. .  But I appreciate the effort of whoever put finger to key for us to enjoy.

Far Away in Time and Space

It takes a little planning: design a spacecraft and attached lander which will travel 4 billion miles in space to a comet 2.5 miles across, 4.5 billlion years old, moving at 40,000 miles per hour. Plan on a 9 year trip to reach the comet from earth launch.

This is the comet orbiting the sun in a large elliptical path.  The Rosetta craft with its lander Philae reached the comet and launched the lander to the comet on November 11, 2014 by the European Space Agency at Darmstadt Germany.

Lander Philae took 7 hours to drop 14 miles to the comet surface.  The 220 pound lander weighed as much as a piece of paper due to the small gravity of the comet. Philae bounced thrice because devices which were to secure it to the surface failed to deploy.  First bounce took two hours to hit the surface again. Upon final bounce, the lander ended up in a partially shaded area which prevented solar panels from charging the battery system..  But it was able to complete about 80% of scientific tests (including finding carbon in the atmosphere) before the batteries ran down.  It may be a wait until spring before the lander is oriented such that the sun will reach the charging panels and re- invigorate Philae.  For sure when it nears our sun there should be sufficient light to recharge and continue testing and research on the comet.

These are the experiments that the lander is equipped with :

Lander Instrumentation

 First photo from the comet's surface.  One lander leg is visible sticking up since Philae landed on the other two legs in a shadowy place.  It was still able to perform experiments and relay the results to Rosetta, then a 30 minute trip to earth with the data.

 Mockup of what lander should have looked like upon landing.

Orbiting Rosetta

The equations for elliptical orbits  are fairly basic, even including the mass of the orbiting objects.  But to "slingshot" that object around earth, mars, and the sun, in order to build up the velocity necessary to reach an object 4 billion miles out in 9 years amazes me.  Bravo . . .

Deserts

    Having finished reading a book given me at Christmas  (slow reader)  about Thomas Edward Lawrence and his leadership of the Arab revolt during World War I, I wondered how Iraq was formed of Mesopotamia and Syrian lands after the war. The Arabs were promised Syria from the start   --- "To Damascus" was the battle cry ---   but, as it worked out, the French got Syria and Lebanon and the British formed Iraq and took Palestine as  "protectorates".  Arab Prince Faisal ibn Hussein was installed as King of Iraq in 1921 to placate the Arabs.

 

    Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell (1868-1926) was of English gentry (father was a steel magnate) with a degree from Oxford, explorer, mapper, archeologist, outlier of her time. Red hair, green eyes, chain smoker, she wandered the deserts of Syria and Mesopotamia (Iraq) mapping and photographing ancient ruins  SOME  PHOTOS.

    She was a British spy in the Iraq area under the guise of archeologist so that the enemy Turks (Ottomans) would allow her access to the areas.*  Her maps were of great value to Lawrence and others heading into Syria and Iraq.  She traveled the deserts with Arab guides and aides, knew the Arabic language along with Farsi and German, and was respected by the Arab tribal leaders  as she moved about. She helped draw up the western and southern boundaries of Iraq (some say disregarding 2,000 years of tribal sectarian and nomadic occupation of the areas to the west), and, living in Baghdad, helped install Faisal as King. It is said that she died chaste, although I don't see how anyone could know that. Her first male interest was rejected by father and her second killed at the British disaster at Gallipoli in the Dardanelles.

    While in Baghdad, where she later lived, she established the Iraqi Museum and collected  antiquities for preservation.  She died and is buried there after, some say, too many sleeping pills in1926 at 57 years. 

Churchill, Bell, and Lawrence at the  Arab bureau in Cairo in 1921.  Much fun was had as Churchill fell off of his camel. The maps of Iraq, Palestine, and Syria were being finalized to the advantage of French and British interests.

 

Bell and T.E. Lawrence after the war.

*  " In a 1920 letter home, she described her method of collecting information. She and a male colleague were invited by a leading figure in Baghdad to meet merchants and caravan drivers in a coffee house. 'I do them a good turn whenever I can and they respond by coming in to see me whenever they return from Syria or Arabia and telling me what they've heard and seen. The tea party was delightful. The walls of the diwan are mellow with decades of tobacco smoke, the furniture, benches around the room and one table for us at the upper end... We talked Arab polities with great gusto for an hour and a half... I do like them so much. They are to me an endless romance. They come and go through the wilderness as if it were a high road, and they all, most politely, treat me as a colleague, because I, too, have been in Arcadia (wilderness). When they talk of tribes or sheiks or watering places, I don't need to ask who and where they are. I know; and as they talk I see again the wide Arabian horizon.' "    Ref: "Gertrude Bell and Iraq" by Barbara Furst    READ MORE

    I am reminded of a statement given by Faisal to Lawrence in the David Lean film "Lawrence of Arabia : "No Arab likes the desert. There is nothing in the desert."  (Little did he know of the oil under the desert.) The film, by the way, follows the reality of the Arab revolt and the exploits of Lawrence pretty closely.

    Seems all of the chances for individual historical influence have been taken.  We are left with canoeing around the earth or walking backwards across Death Valley!  

    Where is a place where others have not trodden or seen before us?

The Six-Hundred Dollar Pill

                                

Bored

All those times I was bored
out of my mind. Holding the log
while he sawed it. Holding
the string while he measured, boards,
distances between things, or pounded
stakes into the ground for rows and rows
of lettuces and beets, which I then (bored)
weeded. Or sat in the back
of the car, or sat still in boats,
sat, sat, while at the prow, stern, wheel
he drove, steered, paddled. It
wasn't even boredom, it was looking,
looking hard and up close at the small
details. Myopia. The worn gunwales,
the intricate twill of the seat
cover. The acid crumbs of loam, the granular
pink rock, its igneous veins, the sea-fans
of dry moss, the blackish and then the graying
bristles on the back of his neck.
Sometimes he would whistle, sometimes
I would. The boring rhythm of doing
things over and over, carrying
the wood, drying
the dishes. Such minutiae. It's what
the animals spend most of their time at,
ferrying the sand, grain by grain, from their tunnels,
shuffling the leaves in their burrows. He pointed
such things out, and I would look
at the whorled texture of his square finger, earth under
the nail. Why do I remember it as sunnier
all the time then, although it more often
rained, and more birdsong?
I could hardly wait to get
the hell out of there to
anywhere else. Perhaps though
boredom is happier. It is for dogs or
groundhogs. Now I wouldn't be bored.
Now I would know too much.
Now I would know.

By Margaret Atwood

 (Her father was a Forest Entomologist who did a lot of research in Northern Quebec taking her along.)

I think I was bored all through high school but didn't put a name to it until a lot later. Seems you may have to remove yourself from a life for a while and include other experiences, in order to put a name to it.  Later, I considered boredom to be a failure of imagination -- inability to see possibility and inspiration all around me, to know too much as she says.  The older I get, the more there seems to be to know about.

 Enter The Pill:

 

This is Pomalyst from Celgene.  $13,000 for a 21 day course, probably repeated two or three times.

Fortunately VA pays for it (I hope.)  This is a formulation similar to thalidomide which some may remember was banned for use in pregnant women because it caused birth defects, but as it turns out is handy for killing cancer cells in bone marrow -- which is a help to me.

There is another new pill approved last December which goes for $1,000 a pop.  This is for Hepatitis C and is proving to be a cure for this virus.  The course of treatment is 84 days depending on the individual. Our medical  systems usually pay for this (especially Medicaid since Hep C  may be caused by sharing needles.)
I do not need this pill, thank goodness!

Time to purchase some stock in Big Pharma . . .

Surprise

“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken.” ___ Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1


At first it's too much, too fast: growing, studying, wondering, people,  coping, driving, working, driving, working, settling, moving,  constant adjusting to the new.

Now there are places I would like to be maybe for a few days, but I don't wish to go there.  (Be, not go -- kinda like the hot springs)
Now I have time to discover  if, in fact, the only drum solo Ringo ever did was on side 2 of Abbey Road?    And to  wonder how long the old barns will last?

And wait for the next surprise! 




Or as Wordsworth would have it: 

"Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me"

--------------- excerpt from "Tintern Abbey"

 

Another Duck Story

You want to keep them alive.  After all you put them there to survive if possible.  But when it comes down to stems and seeds, extreme methods are necessary.  It is a  harsh winter,  worst in my memory: snow follows cold  with wind and ice between then more cold.   My attempts to keep part of our small pond open for the ducks involved two sets of pump/motor combinations to keep water flowing at the surface  to avoid freezing.  Both failed in the extreme conditions.  The last pump froze up during a -4° F morning leaving the four ducks without open water for protection from the marauding coyotes.  The dogs know when the ice will hold their weight and it now will.   The next morning  would be the end of ducks without intervention -- the coyotes are sneaky and slinky, built high,light and leggy -- since ice was thick enough to support even my 138 puunds.

The plan was to chase the ducks out of their tiny corner of the lake onto the snowy yard where they could be caught by hand.  That plan proved unnecessary since it turned out Ginny and I could herd the little ingrates back down through the yard to the duck pen I built years ago (which they seldom used and wouldn't usually go into)  Me with a long aluminum  pole and she with a  plastic-bin cover managed to get them  herded to the pen with rest stops every 50 feet or so.  Safe and sound they went into the duckhouse strewn with straw and (we can only imagine) happy to be there -- who knows?

A dove flew in . . . . . . .

Ducks started out to be a birthday present for Ginny years ago (the local farm store sells duck and chicken chicks in the spring) with 4 of the little critters.  Little did I know the process needed to keep them going:  From dining room floor to garage cage to building a duckpen with cedar poles and plywood, extending into the pond 8 feet or so, totally enclosed since racoons like duck too as I later found out.  Eventually I managed to hatch several with an incubator I made as one of many.  Sitting back to ponder, I cannot remember the number of ducks I have killed through inexperience or injury.  Little mama, spotts, sprig, big al . .many more,  some stand out, some don't but all part of the flow of life  we must all experience.