My streams of thought meet here
contract deadline novelist pens her tale around the block walkway tiles heaved by frost custody battle evening picnic happy mosquitoes coming to dine day at the fair cotton candy drum spinning threads of memory .......................................................
moth
in my pantry
so very lost
dandelion seeds in the blowing dust seek greener pastures
monks scatter corn for their plump geese feathering their nest .
salty old towel
another summer day
left on the beach
scraps of denim
all that’s left of scarecrow Sam
thieving crows!
by Edgar Guest
Blue in the sky and green in the tree
and a bird singing anthems of gladness for me,
a breeze soft and fair
as a little girl’s hair,
with nothing that’s ugly or base anywhere.
A world that’s swept clean
of the doubtful and mean,
with nowhere a hint of the care that has been.
I stand at my gate with the sun in my face,
and I thank the good Lord for such beauty and grace.
Time was, I declare,
when the snows drifted there,
and those boughs with their blossoms were ugly and bare.
Now the sin and the wrong
of the cold days and long
are lost in life’s splendor of sunshine and song.
God makes it all right in good time, I believe –
we doubt when we’re troubled, we doubt when we grieve;
like a stark, barren tree
looms the wrong which we see.
Hurt, anguish and care hide the splendor to be
but at last from the pain
rises beauty again,
and there’s never a bough that has suffered in vain.
Perhaps at the last, ‘neath a lovelier sun,
when the anguish and hurt of life’s growing is done,
we may rise from our pain
showing never a stain
of the cares of the years which fell on us like rain.
When the soul is set free
all the flaws we now see
may be lost in the joy of the new life to be.
From his book, Collected Verse of Edgar A Guest
© 1934 by The Reilly & Lee Company
A wild electrical storm came up at 1 pm this afternoon, just as I was leaving work. Soon after I got home the system settled right above us for about fifteen minutes. Fierce winds and lightning flashes all around, but the ones right over our heads were worrisome. However, we got at least 3 cm of much-needed rain, so we’re thankful. (Our neighbour’s rain gauge showed 1 1/2″ when all was said and done. Nice! ) A friend who lives +/- 40 km north of us got not a drop.
Now here’s a quickly composed verse about the event:
In constant waves the pouring rain sweeps over the field, the road; the tree tops thrashed by the onslaught, spring back, to be bullied down again.
The overshadowing turbulence
hurls jagged streaks our way,
followed closely – so closely! –
by the cannon roars of thunder.
With each boom we shudder, praying
neither we nor the trees will be zapped,
sizzled or uprooted by the ferocity
clamoring above our heads.
We cringe, yet count this not the malevolence of a foe; rather we rejoice in the storm and bless the sheets of driven rain bringing life to this thirsty land. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yesterday I heard three little warning tinkles that provoked some serious thoughts.
Yesterday morning Marla, the FlyLady, posted a list of practical things everyone should do to be prepared for an emergency. I went over this list of simple, obvious things like being sure you have at least half a tank of gas in your car, some cash handy, a few essentials in a flight bag.
— If there’s a big exit, such as happens in the US when a hurricane’s about to hit, cars may be bumper-to-bumper on the freeway for awhile, so be prepared. If the power’s out, gas pumps won’t work, so don’t let your tank run so low. In fact, many things won’t work if the power’s out: debit machines, ATMs, etc.
— Plan ahead and have your precious stuff near the door or where you can grab it in your rush to evacuate. Keep all precious documents in a safely deposit box, copies at home, duplicate keys and flash-drives a friend or relative’s home. Etc.
Another tinkle chimed in the news yesterday. After several days of record-breaking heat, topping at 49.6C – which is just over 121 F – a fire started and rapidly destroyed 90% of Lytton, a town in the interior of British Columbia. Horrible! Our sympathies to the folks without homes, and in that terrible heat wave. Thankfully the people of Lytton had enough time to get out. How would it be to have JUST ENOUGH time to jump in the car and go?
The next tinkle came when a friend, in the course of our visit, talked about the possibility of fire. On such a windy day as it was yesterday, which made our outdoors like a blast furnace, fire is a terrifying prospect. In fact, we heard that our son-in-law and grandson, members of the local volunteer Fire Dept, were out fighting a fire about 30 km from here. It’s not hard to imagine fires raging in the northern forests, but we’re not as immune as we’d like to think, either.
I’m not anticipating disaster but these tinkles remind me there are some things I could and should do to be prepared. If the need arose for sudden flight, we’d likely grab our two cats, our cell phones and my purse if we could, and dash for the car. Everything else would stay behind, come what may. So which of our belongings are really precious and what can we do to ensure their safety? For those of us who are pack-rats, these are questions worth pondering.
Christine's Collection 