Granny Smith

Action

2012-01-29T18:53:00.000-08:00

Anna = Action! From the time she was small, Anna danced, climbed, balanced, twirled and jumped from high places. In the photo above, she was just getting to her room at our 2007 family reunion at Asilomar State Park. For her, this was the quickest route.

Here, in 2011, is Anna, resident of New York City area, actress, musician, model, music teacher, and still climbing!

Normal Day?

2012-01-08T17:33:00.000-08:00

THE DAY OF DESTRUCTION

The day of destruction dawns like any day

-birds at the feeder, crumbs upon the table-

"We're almost of toaster bread"she says.

They hear no murmur of subterranean stresses

to cause new rifts to gape, to split wide open

when earth's crust slips or an inadvertent word

releases tsunamis of ocean or tears

The day of destruction dawns like any day.

Perhaps the undetected clot may migrate.

"I'll buy another loaf on my way home."

And who knows? Maybe tis is not the day

the world will end. It still might be a day

like any other day.

Quest

2011-11-08T12:59:00.000-08:00

ABC Wednesday Round 9

In Search of Eldorado

Our faith in gold, and pearl, and fountains
where youth and manhood are renewed
Was lost in challenging these mountains
of pathless chasms, boulders strewed
to crush our spirits, slow our way,
ice by night and fire by day.

We thought we would have been, by now,
stretched languidly in fragrant grass.
Who could foresee this brooding brow
of overhanging cliff? We pass
against the precipice; the blood
of clinging fingers marks our way
precarious, day after day
threatened by avalanche and flood.

Nor have we found the streets of gold,
but dust, and thorn, and flies that bite,
and eyes that circle us at night,
and we are growing old.

Bruised, we scientists retreat.
The stones of paradise have torn our feet.

Not Here Yet - I Hope

2011-10-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

Requiem for Earth (A Sonnet)

Down the slanting pathway of all the years
No memory now of battles lost or won
There were soft rains that fell, or maybe tears
That burned away beneath the blazing sun.

There was a view of earthrise on the moon,
That tender living ball of shining blue
That stirred the hearts of they who all too soon
Would act from need or greed, their poisons spew.

Now down the slanting pathway of the years,
Degreee by small degree, all hope has flown
From rare rich planet, bright among the stars
No longer in the thrall of greed or fears.
Now, here where once a bright blue planet shone
is torrid Venus or an airless Mars.
Phyllis Sterling (Granny) Smith

M is for Memories

2011-10-10T23:58:00.000-07:00

M is for Memories

2011-10-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

Requiem for Earth
(a sonnet)

Down the slanting pathway of all the years
No memory now of battles lost or won
There were soft rains that fell, or maybe tears
That burned away beneath the blazing sun.

There was a view of earthrise on the moon,
That tender living ball of shining blue
That stirred the hearts of they who all too soon
Would act from need or greed, their poisons spew.

Now down the slanting pathway of the years,
Degree by small degree, all hope has flown
From rare rich planet, bright among the stars
No longer in the thrall of greed or fears.
Now, here where once a bright blue planet shone
is torrid Venus or an airless Mars.

Phyllis (Granny Smith) Sterling Smith October 2011

Plan B re Pets

2011-09-25T15:31:00.000-07:00

See other takes on the prompt of "Plan B" HERE
or by clicking on banner above

OF MYTHIC BEASTS

I’ve never tried to trap a unicorn.
It’s not more graceful, say, than a gazelle,
an earthly beast I’m sure would do as well;
and what’s so great about a single horn?
Nor have I tried to snare a horse with wings.
I’ve flown across the sky, but in a jet.
I see no earthly use for such a pet;
I’ll save my sugar cubes to sweeten things.

But dragons! Ah, now that’s a different story:
great flailing tails that slither, thrash, and crash,
tough armored scales to hide the wicked core,
the iridescent wings a blue-black glory,
the knobbly claws whose talons rake and slash!
My favored mythic beasts breathe fire, and roar!

Spring Is

2011-08-07T13:58:00.001-07:00

Click above or here to see other Sunday Scribblings.

SPRING IS

Spring is not allegory. It is weighed
in density of sound from drunken bees,
intensity of sky, contrast of shade
and glinting leaf, the whisper brush of breeze

against my sleeveless skin; and it is seen
in swooping jay’s blue stitchery that sews
pure cherry blossom white to tender green.
Spring is the sun-baked boards beneath bare toes,

strawberries tart on tongue, the first warm night
that lilac scent, as thick as honey pours
through opened windows, moths around the light
and filmy dust of pollen on the floors.

Don’t try to find a meaning or define,
For spring is real
and here
and now
and mine!

Gifts Are For Giving

2011-06-26T15:16:00.000-07:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is GIFT.
Click here or on the banner to
see how other bloggers meet this challenge.

This is an old poem of mine that seemed appropriate to the prompt. You may have seen it before, for which I apologize.

THE GIFT OF WORDS

You say I have the gift of words.

Someday my words may fail me,
lost in a maze of neurons, wells of words
with no bucket to retrieve them;
or they may tangle on my tongue
like Hannah's yarn after her stroke
when she worried helplessly
among her skeins and needles.

Gifts are for giving.

Thus I would bequeath to you
a shimmer of words when I no longer
can order them into their patterns.
They will glint like breeze-tossed aspen leaves
or glimmer like showers in sunshine
where each drop holds a rainbow.
They will be as numerous
as stars
as facets of waves
as moments of our love
and fragrant like water touching parched earth.

They will hold bird song and wind song
but, alas, no Mozart, no sonnets, no meaning -
just their fragments.

I will scatter them at random on a fragile web
spangled with words and syllables like sequins
and toss it scarf-like over you.

This is my gift.

Phyllis Sterling Smith

Animal Chow Design

2011-04-17T15:18:00.000-07:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is Design.

For the interpretations from
participating bloggers click here.

ASSIGNMENT OF RESPONSIBILITY
FOR IMPLEMENTING
PEACE ON EARTHPeaceable Kingdom With Two Olives by Will Bullas (downloaded).
He sells prints of this painting

In the Peaceable Kingdom what will Lion do
lying with studied calm beside the Lamb?
Will he be satisfied with veggie stew?
Will he chow down on chunks of soybean Spam?

To Wolf, who snuggles with his erstwhile feed
what kind of kibble can substitute for Hare?
Although her friend, the Hawk, eats sunflower seed
will Mouse wax nervous at her hungry stare?

I contemplate this future state of grace,
this lion-by-lamb, eagle-by-chipmunk view,
this straight-from-heaven, love-each-other place:
Purina research staff, we count on you!

Phyllis Sterling Smith

Two Part(y) Limerick

2011-04-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

Two Part(y) Limerick

A gal who seemed guileless and sweet
Was riled when faced with deceit.
"I thought he was Dem
But he's one of Them
Who steal from the man in the street!"

She shook her head sadly and sighed
"Can a leopard change spots?" she decried
"This guy is so stealthy -
Gives alms to the wealthy.
Can an elephant change its thick hide?!"

M is for Merry-Go-Round

2011-04-11T18:32:00.000-07:00

ABC Wednesday round 8 has reached the halfway point with the letter M. Click on link or banner to find what participating bloggers have posted.

The Merry-Go-Round
at Tilden Park

Anna (at left) on Tilden Park Merry-Go-Round

The painted horses go round and around
To the lilt of steam organ’s old-fashioned sound.
Go up, go down, go round and around
The Merry-Go-Round goes round and around
The years go around and around.

The toddler rides with laughs of delight
With Daddy beside her to hold her tight
And the years go around, up day, down night
And the Merry-Go-Round goes around.

The ups are winning, no downs today
As teenagers come to the park to play
And the sun shines bright on the Merry-Go-Round
And the years go around and around.

When did the years start to spin so fast
And the feet slow down? But the memories last
Of child and child’s child, now outward bound
And the years go around and around.

Who would have thought that I’d need to cry
When the steed you rode on came bounding by
Without you on it, that years would fly
As the Merry-Go-Round spun around.

My husband, Otto, and our grandson, Dr. Byron Shock,
without the dignity which their respective PhDs might imply,
ride the Tilden Merry-Go-Round.

The painted horses go round and around
To the lilt of the steam organ’s old-fashioned sound
Go up, go down, go around and around
The Merry-Go-Round goes around
And the years go around and around.

April 14, 2011 Phyllis Sterling Smith

Personal Freedom is Vastly Over-rated.

2011-03-20T16:30:00.000-07:00

I don’t mean the kind of political freedom that brave men and women are dying for right now, democracy (if such a thing exists), but freedom of choice on a much smaller scale.

I have much more personal freedom now that I no longer have the love of my life beside me,

I am free to live anywhere I choose to. I chose to move to Washington State to be near one of my sons and his dear wife, rather than being tied to Berkeley where Otto had been a professor for the greater part of our lives.

The Entrance to My New Home

I can decorate my new small home in whatever manner I choose. And I have done so, employing more green paint than most households use in a lifetime. I’ve filled it with dragons from many parts of the world, sculpted, cast, or otherwise crafted, and have done away with any clutter that is not self-generated. Gone are the plethora of electrical parts for Otto’s inventions, the piles of scientific papers being written or critiqued, the stacks of technical journals and books, the scattered tools for modeling new improvements of his patents or for making our big house more livable and beautiful. I love making home improvements but must leave it to others, volunteer or professional, since my talents and physical abilities preclude my doing it myself. But I have enough money to be free to have it done.

A Few of My Dragons

I now have the freedom to spend the inheritance that Otto left me on my personal choices, free of the constraints that are imposed by a partnership that tries to meet the needs of two people. Due to that same inheritance, I am free of most of the economic worries of the majority of people.

And you know what? I would gladly trade that kind of freedom for one more moment with Otto beside me.

And, now that I have written this response to the Sunday Scribblings prompt of Free, I find that I am not free of tears.

For more responses to the Sunday Scribblings prompt, click here or on the banner at the top of this post.

I is for Interspecies Interaction

2011-03-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday has reached I of the eighth round. For other entries, click on link or on badge at left, and it will lead you to participating blogs.

When we were way back at B, I posted something called Elegant Bears, which my son incorporated into a poster for his and wife Kristin's monthly Waltz Night, which they host and for which they and occasional guests provide the music, on violin (Kristin) and concertina or guitar (Otto) and on whatever instruments invited guest musicians prefer. His advertising posters have always incorporated this great impressionist painting of a dancing couple. It was my idea to add the bears. I decided that the next (April) poster should not leave each species on its own. In the friendly setting of the dance floor, it would be only polite for them to exchange dances. Hence these drawings.

She really isn't quite sure of this
especially after smelling bear breath,
but one has to be polite, doesn't one?

He, on the other hand,
finds his partner an excellent dancer
and is teaching her some intricate steps.

Raw

2011-03-06T13:17:00.000-08:00

Intransigence

Take this hideous razored grief
so sharp in every part,
its spines all tipped with poison
and pointed at your heart.

Muffle it with music,
rub it down with prayer,
thrust it out and close the door,
pretend it isn’t there.

Watch closely, though, for treachery
when handling it tomorrow;
a grief is very hard to tame
into a decent sorrow.

Phyllis Sterling Smith

See other responses by Sunday Scribblers to the prompt of RAW.

Volcano

2011-02-27T13:35:00.000-08:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is FIRE.

Volcano at Night

Edged with living fire
the thrusting molten lava
spews showers of stars.

Elegant Bears

2011-02-15T14:05:00.001-08:00

This is my entry for Mrs.Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday a blog that has created a community of caring people. To read other "E" entries, click here.

I originally drew this pair of bears to illustrate my poem Ceremony, and it was printed as a background to that poem in the anthology Roots and Tendrils.

Then my son wanted a few more dancing bears for a poster he was making for the Waltz Night that he and his dear wife (dear to me too), Kristin, put on at monthly intervals. These were rather quickly done (while lying on my bed with the drawing pad balanced on my knees).

And this is the final result.

Bad Spelling, Happy Day

2010-12-28T16:07:00.000-08:00

Xmas? I have avoided that spelling of Christmas most of my life, and I'm only making an eXception so that I can show the photos I made on that happy day 3 days ago and can still use that X . Yes, ABC Wednesday round 7 is at X, planning to eXit the alphabet in two more weeks. Check out the eXceptional cleverness of participating bloggers and their eXciting eXamples of eXercising their XXXXs by clicking on logo.

Early Christmas morning, while some of the guests in my daughter Candace's house still slept, I took these pictures of the living room with its lighted tree and the great pile of gifts that ringed it. This is natural dawn light (no flash) with snow softly falling outside.

While there are some lovely gifts in what appears to be an obscenely
materialistic pile of presents, many of them proved to be
joke items or even gifts for the two dogs.

And I had the choice seat by the tree, camera poised.

Granddaughter Myrtle appeared in silver shoes.

And one of Candy's first gifts proved to be reindeer slippers

So she put on reindeer antlers and hammed it up a bit.

Byron opens a gift while his mother, Candy, at left, looks on. Ernie, Byron's lively little mongrel, and Hobbit, the resident dog, attempt to help.

Myrtle looks on as her brother Cedric prepares to open a gift.
Cedric's wife, Susan, also watches.

Susan admires her new frying pan.
The rosettes on her cap were package decorations.

Son-in-law Clinton hams it up with a new shirt.

Compare this with the serene early morning picture...

All was followed by a delicious Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, formally set on the table that had held our traditional Christmas morning breakfast stolen.

The participants are: myself, visiting from Port Townsend
Candace, my daughter, and Clinton, my son-in-law
Candy and Clint's daughter Dr. Myrtle Shock (Ph.D in archeology)
" " " son, Dr. Byron Shock, professor at College of Idaho
" " " son. Cedric Shock, computer eXpert
Cedric's wife, Susan.
Ernie and Hobbit, enthusiastic doggie participants

N is for Nasturtium

2010-10-17T21:33:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday round 7 has reached N. Click on banner or link to see what fellow bloggers have been inspired to do.

Nasturtiums have long been favorites of mine, at least until invaded by aphids. Way back when my children were young and begging for a snack, I would slather a piece of bread with butter for them to take to the backyard; there they would harvest nasturtium leaves (pesticide and aphid free) to make a sandwich - a tasty treat in which I often would join them. Then the aphids found the "nasty urchins" (as my father used to call them).

This beauty is in a neighbor's yard, not mine

Please click on this picture for a full view of it.

Now that I have moved to Washington State, I can again have nasturtiums in my garden.

Kristin planted these as a border to my walk.
The blossoms are lovely, but so are the variegated leaves.

Some of my language-loving father's other favorite flowers included Christmas anthems. And Spitunias. I wish I could remember more of them!

M is for Merriment

2010-10-12T12:45:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday, now in its seventh round, has reached the letter M. Thank you, Denise, for your original vision and continued involvement. To see how other participating blogs have been by the letter M, click on banner or link.

A little over a week ago my son Stan and his wife Dianne, visiting from Colorado, took me to the Port Townsend waterfront to see the kinetic race. "Kinetic" means that the entries must be human-powered both on land and in the water. It is an all-day race, ending when the last remaining participant reaches the fairgrounds. There is also a judging of the floats for cleverness and decor. These first few pictures are of the participants racing toward the launching spot for the water leg of the race.

Completely unaware!

Some entrants use bicycle type pedals. Others, like the man above, jump or teeter-totter. All of them must have adequate floating devices for the water leg of the race.

The fantastically costumed Kinetic Kops enforce the racing rules. The course is rigidly set. They also act as announcers.

Some Kops ar Kind to Kiddies.

The floats (literally!) must race around a distant marker, out of sight of the launching site. Here one of the leaders in the water leg of the race races toward shore.

Here come they come!

To add to the merriment, there are a variety of prizes, I understand. One for 1st place, of course, but also for last place, middle place and others equally ridiculous.

I can take no credit for the photos. My son Stanford is the photographer.

L is for Lazuli Bunting

2010-10-06T12:24:00.000-07:00

ABC Wednesday Round 7 has pregressed to L. To see the many and varied entries of participating blogs, click on link or banner.

I snapped this picture last May when visiting my daughter Candace in Ontario, Oregon. She has a flat bird feeder outside her dining room window. These were shy little birds that flew at any perception of movement inside the room, so that I had to stay absolutely still with my camera set for the spot that they were apt to perch. They usually appear at Candace's house for about 5 days each spring before flying on to their summer destination.

Update

2010-09-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

Where has the month gone? The last week I can account for. I was recovering from an emergency appendectomy in hospital then at home. Otto and Kristin are my beloved angels who take exceptionally good care of me with cheerful competence and love.

Green is for Granny's Green fingernail polish

2010-08-31T18:19:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday is now a cooperative effort in it's seventh round, which has reached the letter G.

This is just to let you know that I'm still around, although not with the blue hair with which my Webcam portrayed me. I wanted to show off those new green fingernails that have become part of my new identity, but it was too hard to hold a camera in one hand to tkae a picture of the other. Hence the Webcam.

When I found that I would most often be seen in public in a wheelchair, I also found that I was invisible as a real person, especially when accompanied by one of my children (all still vertical).

"What would she like?" the waiter would ask. "When would she prefer the return flight?" "Can she walk a few feet through the door?" "What color does she prefer?" "What size does she take?"

"Hey!" I wanted to shout. "Ask me. I'm not brain-dead!" It seemed that I was only some inert freight to be carted from place to place but never required to speak.

So I painted my fingers with iridescent green fingernail polish. It worked! People said, "I love your green fingernails." They didn't say, "I love HER green fingernails." When I began going about unaccompanied on my electrical wheelchair, I regained most of my identity as a sentient being. By then I had become an acquaintance to many wonderful new friends here in Port Townsend. They would be disappointed if I ever appeared without green fingernails. I have bought enough bottles of it to last for several years.

At one time I thought the way to gain recognition as a real person would be to dye my hair shocking pink, like my favorite author and blogger, Laini Taylor. I'm still considering it. What do you think?

Faith

2010-08-29T10:40:00.000-07:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is FAITH.

What better could illustrate "faith" than the utter confidence on the face of our tiny daughter, Candace, as she launches herself into space knowing, beyond a doubt, that her father, Otto, will catch her in his arms.

For other musings on "faith" click HERE.

C is for Chagall

2010-08-03T19:31:00.000-07:00

Round 7 of ABC Wednesday is well on the way as it reaches C

This is a momentous day when this original Chagall etching, "Ezekiel's Vision", leaves my Berkeley house, where it has hung over the fireplace for more than thirty years. It goes to granddaughter, Daria Bishop, artist with her camera. I know she will take pleasure from when it hangs in her Vermont home. From the time we bought it, Otto and I knew that it should go to her some day.

When we bought it we surprised even ourselves.

I had loved Chagall's art ever since I first saw something of his in a magazine illustration, and when we went to see his etchings for his Bible series at the Hansen Gallery in San Francisco I already owned an unsigned lithograph (he only signed the first hundred and mine is #136) which was bought for me by son Otto at an exhibit and sale at Chico State University and one of his lithographed opera posters (for "Die Zauberflauta").

When we saw in the "events" section of the San Francisco Chronicle that Hansen Gallery would have a show of Chagall's etchings for his Bible series, we hied ourselves over to S. F. to enjoy an afternoon of art we knew that we would enjoy seeing.

But a signed rare Chagall etching had never found even a potential place in our budget. None-the-less we found ourselves the owners of "Ezekiel's Vision" by the time we returned home. It was love at first sight. To be sure we had to cut a few other things from our budget that had seemed to be necessary. Not that it was even in the car with us. It was marked "sold" but would remain for rest of the gallery show here then go on to other shows in New Orleans and Nw York before it was finally hung above our mantel.

Above is an oblique and frameless photo of my earliest Chagall lithograph - the unsigned one that Otto bought f0r me at Chico ('Solomon and Bathsheba'). It was shot at dusk last night by daughter Candace for me to use in this post - hence is both oblique and frameless to avoid reflections of the camera's flash.

For how other ABC blogger's responded to the letter C, click here or on banner.

Bye, bye,Berkeley

2010-07-27T09:27:00.000-07:00

B is for beginning life in my new (to me) home. I shot the above photo at the height of the rhododendron season.

Bye, bye, Berkeley, the city where I was born and where I lived for most of my life, first as a child, then for the more than sixty years that my husband Otto was a professor of electrical engineering at the University of California.

This little house in Port Townsend, Washington, is now my legal address. It belongs to my son Otto and is right across the street from the house where he and his wife and my dear friend Kristin live. As I become more and more dependent on others because of age, arthritis, etc., they are the angels in my life, taking care of me in a thousand ways and claiming to enjoy it.

All of my children have been wonderfully helpful. Daughter Candace will meet me in Berkeley next week to help me with the disposition of a few of my belongings in the big house on the hill which I still own. The grand piano will be sent to Port Townsend, where it will dominate my small living room. But what is nicer than a house with home-made music?!

I have had a wonderful time redecorating the interior of my new home with sometimes unusual color schemes that I have dreamed of but never tried before. My dragons will move here too, in fact will be the theme of my house which I have named Dragonhaven. There will eventually be a sign out front proclaming it!

Since the photo above was shot, ramps have been built to enable me to encircle the house in my wheelchair or reach the wheelchair-friendly walks of Port Townsend or be loaded in an auto for longer trips. (I'll tell in some future blog of some of memorable trips we have already made.)

This blog is definitely egocentric, not to be confused with the educational, informative, and creative entries of other ABCers. For their entries, click here or on banner.

2010-07-18T18:51:00.000-07:00

DREAMWHERE

You walked all night to beat the cold
so now you drowse on a sunlit bit of sidewalk
legs sprawled, head lolling on your knapsack
backed against a facade of patterned tile
from Mexico.

Your eyesballs move behind your eyelids
but your face is slack and inward turning.
Surely your dream is not here on the avenue,
hassled by corporate cops, muttered at
by passers-by who must detour around you
as they scan store windows for a way
to spend their money.

Where do you dream?

Do you toss a football to the brother lost in 'Nam'
Weave a mysterious plot that's fraught
with dream significance?
Walk a shaded path you know but can't say where?

Will you remember when you're wakened
by the grip on your shoulder
and the order to move on?

No. Dreams like that escape like noonday ghosts

You stumble to your feet,
grit grinding where your elbows met the sidewalk,
limbs still leaden with fatigue
mind struggling to retain the dream
where lost loves linger—
even your own lost self.
Phyllis Sterling Smith

Me Then and Now

2010-07-04T13:20:00.000-07:00

For more self-descriptions by Sunday Scribblers, click here or on banner at left.

This poem was written in the year 2000. Since then I have aged in a multitude of ways. I am confined to a wheelchair, have been ill any number of times, am in pain much of the time with all the problems associated with pain control. Am I happy? Yes, almost always, blessed with children who not only take superb care of me, but who are also delightful company. My only sadness is mourning my dear Otto. I love my new little house and am enjoying redecorating and furnishing it. I am surrounded by music, both live, due to my talented son Otto and beloved daughter-in-law Kristin, who live just acrosss the street from me.

I THOUGHT THE WORLD WAS MINE

I thought the world was mine.
I thought that I could swim in any ocean.
Clouds below were my familiar landscape.

How could I know that wings that carried me
would be landlocked, horizons shrink and borders close forever?

Generals
Presidents
Oil executives
I object!
It’s my life that you circumscribe.
I miss my world!
Your oil is running short; so too my years
and I am bitter with thwarted expectations.

I know that somewhere children starve.
Their eyes rebuke my selfishness.

But oh! I want my steaming jungles, jangle
of unknown tongues, smells of roasting coffee,
lights of a city never seen before that mark
a thousand homes in each of which
I live a lifetime
for a moment.

Phyllis Sterling Smith revised September 11, 2000

T is forTalent

2010-06-01T13:02:00.000-07:00

ABC Wednesday Round 6 has reached the letter T. Thank you, Denise, for starting this weekly spot where friends can meet to share their talents by following the link above or the badge to the left.

The talent I would like to showcase today is that of a young poet, the son of a friend. The poet, Kincaid Gould, is only eight (yes, 8) years old.

I will let his poetry speak for itself and let his wonderful feeling for words and nature shine through them.

RAIN
by Kincaid

splash and splatter
drizzle and splinter
dazzle my eyes
a dash of wonder
a dash of light

SHOWERS OF RAIN
by Kincaid

spirals of shimmering vapor
diamonds of puddles
swishing in the wind
flashing ribbon hitting the ground
opening the gate of drizzle.

ROSES
by Kincaid

glory full looks
bleeding for happiness
screaming for joy

gloomily reflecting the glittering sun
meek little leaves

MOUNTAINS
by Kincaid

mountains shimmer
snowy mountain peak
a stream of purple
a line of blue
a flow of pink
and a wave of white light
a rough surface
and a fuzzy inside

mountains shimmer
snowy mountain peak
mountain

THE WINTER BREEZE
by Kincaid

Shiny winds blow
and frosty chills tickle me
breezing past me quickly
diamonds blowing magestically

ROCKS

by Kincaid

smooth and tough rocks
pebbles are chunks of boulders
some rocks are cloudy
and some rocks describe the sunset
some rocks are grassy
and some watery rocks too.

FOREST
by Kincaid

forests gloom with trees
seas of frosted clover
dark and magically
takes me across the bridge of fairies
past the enchanted emerald ruby sky
of mystical dawn

I wish you could see the little scraps of paper on which these are printed. I took a few liberties with spacing, such as centering the lines which Kincaid had positioned from the left of the page. I thought it looked better on the blog. I also put in that line-break in ROSES because I interpreted the next-to-last line to refer to the meek little leaves not the happy flowers. I capitalized all of the titles (the poet used no capital letters) but signed each title with by Kincaid, since he used it with the title on every poem and may have considered it an integral part. Am I right, Kincaid? Consider me one of your first fans - and keep writing!

P is for Pelican in Public Park

2010-05-05T11:02:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday has progressed to P. Click on link or banner to see how other bloggers have interpreted it.

Candace took me last Thursday to Oakland's Lake Merrit Park, an urban gem in the center of the thriving city. My camera and I (below) are on the outside of that cyclone fence that keeps mere humans from intruding on the water fowl. The birds are free to come and go in this area of the lake set aside as a wildlife refuge.

In the distance you can see a pelican on the shore among other feathered friends who have flown into this safe harbor. The park has built five artificial wooded islands edged with reeds. There they can breed and nest.

Here is a closer view of the pelican

intent on getting those feathers cleaned

Event

2010-05-02T14:04:00.000-07:00

The prompt for Sunday Scribblings is event.

Just yesterday I went to a genuine community event in this town of Port Townsend, Washington, where I expect to make my home for at least part of every year and perhaps permanently.

May 1 was the annual opening of the Saturday farmers' market, a street fair where local purveyors of farm and nursery products and handicrafts have weekly booths. Unfortunately I left my camera at home, so I was unable to photograph the many colorful booths. Fortunately this left me free to roam in my trusty wheelchair to simply enjoy them. I was sorely tempted to buy a quilted hot pad that had at its center "Home is where I park my stuff while I go buy more stuff." Also fortunately, Peter Wiant, a local photographer has posted a gallery of photos taken yesterday. I have borrowed a few.

There was entertainment.

Copyright 2010 Peter Wiant
Here is the unofficial audience facing the official entertainment stage and Cal's Beach Band, one of the many groups in which my son Otto and his wife Kristin take part. That is the back of Otto's head with the billed cap in the lower right corner of the photo as he holds his concertina...

Most of venders at the booths not only sell their products by the pound, dozen, bag or tray but also sell snacks such as sandwiches, soups or (paper) plate meals to eat at one of the many picnic tables. Hungry for a Baja style fish taco? You can find it here. How about a wild salmon and fried egg sandwich on local sourdough bread? It will be prepared before your eyes, and you can buy at the same booth a whole salmon or salmon steaks or fillets to take home for dinner or your freezer.

But perhaps you are in the market for handicrafts. There are dozens of booths selling everything from gorgeous cloaks of hand-spun handwoven fabrics (with the spinner working at her wheel) to whimsical hats and toys, beautiful hand-thrown pottery, jewelery, woodcarving, etc. etc.

One of the reasons that I want to have a home in Port Townsend is that it is really wheelchair friendly. Friendly also to bikes, trikes and backpacks.

What did I buy at the market? Two pots of young sun gold tomato plants for the garden I will have here after May 15, and a beautifully silk-screened official Port Townsend Farmers' Market shopping bag made of environmentally-sound cloth - to carry to MY home MY future "stuff" from the market.

Sky High Wonder

2010-04-18T20:52:00.001-07:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is WONDER. And I may just get under the wire, since daughter Candace and I took advantage of this glorious warm day for a wheelchair trip (Candy pushing, me riding)around the Marina paths through the territory where folk were flying kites, walking dogs, picnicking, and shedding their winter wear.

Candy with kites just showing over hilltop.

Fathers were launching kites with the "help" of excited children.

Big Dog.

And what child's sense of wonder could fail him at the sight of this humongous dog floating above him or her? They ran back and forth beneath him shouuting with laughter, trying to catch a giant paw. While this is literally a kite filled only with breezes from the bay through that flapping slit between his eyes, it's greater weight required a booster kite, at a much greater height, buoying it up.

Booster Kite,

Nor were children the only ones taking part in the joy and wonder of kites! Here are a few other kite photos taken today. Many may be practicing for the renowned Berkeley Kite Festival, which takes place in July.

Here are a few more kites sighted today:

Airplane kite

There were many rotating kites.

Dragon rising.

And then there were the ground squirrels everywhere. A sign at the entrance to the walks warns "Please don't feed the squirrels." It seems that the park is suffering from squirrel over-population. Well, here are a few of the little varmints:

One squirrel...

Two squirrels...

And so it goes. And the squirrel population grows and grows. For some other blogs participating in Sunday Scribblings (probably not submitted as late as this one) click on links or banner.

M is Mythic Beasts

2010-04-14T12:44:00.000-07:00

M is the letter to which Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday round 6 has advanced. To enjoy other posts of M, follow the above link or click on the banner.

OF MYTHIC BEASTS

Just in case you don't believe me, above is one proof of my loyalty to dragons.

Below, however, is my favorite dragon.
I have done animations of him, but
have not found a way to upload animations to blogspot.

Of course he flies by day and night and once had a home in a cave with other dragons.

He also has a wife named Trog. Here is a picture of her on her wedding day.

As I was just saying...

2010-04-11T13:43:00.000-07:00

The prompt for Sunday Scribblings is "deadline".

Really! I am visiting in Port Townsend, where, in Otto and Kristin's house (not the separate building with music studio and Otto's office), there is no printer. Kristin is trying to put together a box of gifties to send to Johnny and Pookie in Thailand, and only my gift is lacking its tag. Otto is out in his office, so I e-mailed the design below for him to print, then cell-phoned him to tell him it was on his e-mail. But he, too, has a time problem in that he is in the midst of down-loading some programs!

I am notoriously late with birthday greetings, even though they are printed right there on my calendar. I missed your birthday yesterday, granddaughter Ruthie. Happy belated birthday! The next gift I send will be a wedding gift! I am determined to remember that granddaughters Anna and Gwen have April birthdays. Or have I already missed yours, Gwen?

A happy deadline is May 15 when the tenant in the little house across from the Otto Smiths will have vacated it and I can begin moving my "new" (acquired at Goodwill and Habitat for Humanity thrift stores) furniture into what will be my part-time home. I will still keep my Berkeley house, at least for the near future.

The prompt today could not have been more relevant! For more responses to it, go to Sunday Scribblings.

K is for Keen Kinetic Key to Independence

2010-03-29T14:12:00.000-07:00

K is the letter of the week.

Keen Kinetic Key

Granny Smith rides again
on the streets of Port Townsend!

My Keen Kinetic new electric wheelchair means that I have the independence to go places without the constant accompaniment of someone else. Even though their companionship might be delightful and welcome at times, I don't want to need someone to go with me when I just want to enjoy the blossoms and dandelion-studded lawns of Port Townsend WA where I am visiting (see photo above). What a lift to the spirits!

Southwest Airlines has added even another Keen Kinetic Key to my independence. When I fly to and from Berkeley and Port Townsend I drive my happiness vehicle straight through Oakland airport or SeaTac right to the door of the plane where a flight attendant helps me to a seat while my wheelchair is whisked away to be loaded as cargo. At the end of the flight the process will reverse itself and my wheelchair will soon appear at the door of the plane. (This is my completely voluntary and guaranteed non-paid tribute to an airline that not only carries my wheelchair at no extra charge but also doesn't charge anyone for the normal number of checked bags unless the bags are overweight.)

(image lifted from Southwest Airlines Website)

For other interpretations of the letter K go to ABC Wednesday.

Wish

2010-03-07T11:01:00.000-08:00

the Sunday Scribblings prompt is fluent.

This is not a new poem, but I think it is appropriate for the prompt and I don't feel quite up to writing something new since I am still recovering from pneumonia. By some odd quirk of previous work on another computer with now out-dated programs, this was stored as a graphic rather a writing program. I hope you can read it! Of course I should copy it instead of pasting, but I have only my little netbook with me - and, yeah, it seems like a little too much work!

Message to Poets

2010-02-06T17:42:00.000-08:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is "message". I am using a self-invented form of rhyme in these couplets, even in the two line title. See if you can figure it out, and let me know if you find it effective.

TO POETS LEST
THEY FAIL TO SELL IT

Sing not of poison oak or sticker.
The sunlit meadow plays no tricks.

Hear note of lark or bee and sing it.
Ignore the broken wing or sting.

Reject vast emptiness of ocean.
Its rosy shells are better shown.

Man’s poisoned air may choke and stifle
Sing only of impassioned flights.

For gloomy word be reprimanded.
Don’t let it slip that man is damned.

This bent brown child convulsed with rickets?
Try gentler views, more wisely risked.

Avert your eyes from floorless chasm.
Erect for skulls a smiling mask.

Milestone

2010-01-31T11:09:00.000-08:00

Milestones can be happy or sad, personal or universal. The one I choose today, as a response to the Sunday scribblings prompt of Milestone, is a distant echo of the time when my brother's death left me the sole survivor of my family. I had mourned the deaths of father, mother, grandmother's, uncles and aunts. But I thought that my younger brother would always be there to share my memories of our experiences together.

Allen Sterling Jr.
Graduation from high school photo.

TO ALLEN
Berkeley is cool today
fog drifting through the redwood branches
and dimming far trees.
They have the subtle look of Japanese prints.
I hug my soft warm robe about me;
I’ve worn it now for more than twenty years,
this gift from you, my brother.
When long ago I undid its glittery Christmas wrappings
I saw it through my tears
Your generous heart had stopped
before you could bring my gift to the Christmas feast.
The long folds of the robe felt then
- and still feel now -
like your warm embrace.
The velvet plush is worn in spots,
embroidery designs on sleeve-ends almost gone.
I cuddle in it on this cool day
and think of you.

I remember not the man
you grew to be but you, my little brother:
with me in the back seat of the Chrysler,
our heads together as we slept away
the hot desert night,
motor hum our lullaby;
playing in the Tuolomne river at summer camp,
flirting with the dangerous rapids
with our swimming lesson over and lifeguard gone;
in the backyard with pierced-lid jars
to catch the bees that buzzed the blackberry bushes
- one point for each honeybee, five points for a bumblebee;
standing in the long line for the Saturday matinee
at the Oaks Theater - then -
the cartoon
the serial
Fox Movietone news
the sing-along with its little bouncing ball
and finally Tom Mix
- and you beside me, hardly noticed.

I thought you would always be there,
my younger brother
with whom I could remember.

Now I tightly wrap my plushy robe around me.

It keeps me warm.

Phyllis Sterling Smith

The Good Old Days

2010-01-17T12:16:00.000-08:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is The Good Old Days. Click on link or logo to see how other bloggers responded to this prompt.

My "Good Old Days" lasted through more or less 70 years of my life with Otto before his accidental death last May. That 70 years includes the years I knew him at Stanford as well as the 68 years we were married. But in deference to the prompt, I submit this re-created memory of a morning in 1940. I can find no pictures of Otto and me together in our college years. With no digital cameras in the "good old days", college students were stingy with their film. So here are two separate pictures of us to show how young we were at the time to which I refer in this poem, recently written (not even in my computer yet. I'll have to sidetrack this post while I write it into my file of poems).

Otto, spring of 1940

Phyllis, spring of 1940

FIRST MORNING

Last night you held me
as raindrops pattered.

This morning
every puddle on the muddy path
reflects sky
shoots glints of sunlight
from its ripples.

Drops of last night’s rain
still cling to trees,
refract rainbows,

and every atom in me dances.

Phyllis Sterling Smith

I don't think I miss "the good old days" in most ways. I love computers, talking face to face (on Skype) with grandchildren in Brasil or Asia, designing with my graphics programs, and, of course, posting on this blog. What I do miss is Otto - and I wouldn't mind being young again. But, as one of our not-too-bright governors of California once said, "I look forward to the future with anticipation."

If you would like to see a few more of poems, go to my newly restored website Dragonhaven.

Extreme

2010-01-10T11:28:00.000-08:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is "Extreme". This is a "walk" (quotation marks because I was in a wheelchair and others did the walking) last Thursday.

Our walk led to the extreme end of a little lost peninsula that extends into the bay. There are no roads there, and access to the start of its paths is difficult by auto unless one knows the way.

Otto pushes, Candace observes, I enjoy -
and keep camera on hand.

The peninsula has become a junk yard for discarded building materials. Here one can see evidences of extreme poverty, where the homeless have constructed their domiciles of abandoned culverts and pieces of junk lumber. On this blog you will see no photos of their structures, since we felt they deserved whatever privacy they could find in such circumstances. And, much to our surprise, we found evidence of humankind's extreme need for artistic expression.

Here are some of the materials the artists had at hand.

The first inkling of folk art appeared when we ("we" being son Otto, daughter Candace and her daughter, Myrtle, and me) had gone only a short distance along the shoreline path.

I like the yellow butterfly.

Next this colorful hillside of blocks and rocks appeared. Paint seemed to be available to the artists whether it was bought, found, or "liberated". All of our first encounters with art involved paint. The scuptures would come later.

This decorated rock was right around the corner
from the yellow faces.

Whimsical

Increased sophistication
the bumpier the path becomes!

Sculpture. Cute, but not exactly great art.

But then, because Otto was curious and wanted to see, before darkness fell and forced us to return to the trailhead, the end of a steep path leading down from the summit of the hill, this figure appeared over the crest.

Myrtle's approach to the kneeling figure gives one a sense of its scale.

Detail of hand.

Imploring what? A home, perhaps,
as condominium high-rises on the mainland
form a background to his plea?

And then we looked around us, here at land's end, and found a whole colony of clever sculptures constructed entirely of "junk". Here are a few of them.

The artist wields a piece of pampus grass as brush.

Dragon Rider.

Daughter Candace enjoying sculptures.

And the end of a delightful day, as dusk and gathering clouds accompany our retreat to where our car is parked. This is a tiny sampling of the found art that we encountered. I didn't scribble much for Sunday Scribblings, did I? I guess I have been thinking that the photos themselves speak of a universal extreme desire for self expression.

Unbelievable Froggy

2009-12-09T13:52:00.000-08:00

For more U entries go to Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday, in this it's fifth g0-around.

This is the National Geographic Picture of the Day. I can take no credit for it. According to the photographer, he pulled the light out of the mouth of this Cuban Frog, and it apparently suffered no ill effects from it.

I wish you all a happy holiday season, with no mishaps such as occurred to this little fellow. I have not been posting much due to finishing Christmas calendars, nor have I commented on your always interesting posts. I don't even promise to do better, since I am dealing with getting a new furnace installed and anticipate many very welcome holiday visitors.

Strange Interviews

2009-11-07T10:15:00.000-08:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is Interview.

It so happens that I have been spending an inordinate amount of time on a New Yorker activity, their "Cartoon Kit Contest", announced in the November 2 issue, conducted principally on their website and with, by now, thousands of entries. Cartoonist Gregory has drawn an empty talk show setting and a set of appropriate or inappropriate or impossible elements that can be moved unto the set. The participants also provide a caption. One is given the ability to distort, enlarge, shrink, slant entire elements, but cannot draw (for instance, to cover gaps left to fit figures to chairs).

Translation in readable font: "I blame it all on them blanket-blank
growth hormones my woman dropped in the well."

The above is what the contestant can display (to print) on the New Yorker home page if he/she can find her/his own entry among the great gallery of entries.

And here is the page from the New Yorker of Nov. 2 that displays all of the elements that can transferred to the empty set:

Well, one is allowed one vote daily for a favorite, one favorable or critical comment, and, more importantly, only one contest entry. So, guess what? I have been entering daily. I guess it shows that I have a fascination with talk shows, interviewers and interviewees. Or maybe I just like to play with computers.

Here is my entire output for the week, including that overgrown caveman at the top. (I haven't composed my one for the this day, yet.) They could all be displayed like the one above, but I will eliminate all but my basic arrangements and captions.

"Unusual entrance. Somehow I was expecting a flying saucer."

"Just give me 40,000 more troops and I'm confident
that we can eliminate all of them."

I like the idea of the aliens having a talk show on their own planet, as in the above entry and the one below. In both of these I hope the viewer will automatically understand that the caption is coming from the mouth of the interviewee.

"...and he's only the second Earthling to consent to visit our planet."

"Well I'm frightened too!"

And in the above cartoon it might be either interviewer or interviewee that is speaking.

I'm not quite sure that all of this can be called Sunday Scribblings, but it illustrates my ability to find something to do instead of the myriad things I should be doing.

Check out the gallery of entries on the New Yorker home page (clicking on humor). Maybe you would like to join in the frivolity.

Among The Lions

2009-10-31T10:05:00.000-07:00

This adventure happened more than 40 years ago. Traveling as much as Otto and I did, we ran into quite a few adventures. They made good dinner conversation when we were with others.

The two photos with this story
are from a brochure from Lindblad Expeditions.
We took similar ones, but they are on slides
that I have been unable as yet to convert for my computer.

We were determined not to let a mere purse-snatching ruin our trip to Kenya. We would deal later with new passport, canceling charge cards, etc. We had come to see wildlife. We went to the safari tour agency that our first fully-booked agency had recommended (but we went there only after I had applied newly-bought lipstick and powder and combed my hair). This agency, like the earlier one, was a large modern office with street windows enticingly decorated with scenes of wildlife. Alas! Their last tour of the week had just left.

We gazed longingly at the photo murals of elephants and giraffes that papered their walls. “But perhaps--” The young clerk hesitated. “There’s another place you might try.”

Otto scribbled the address of Magical Mystery Tours. And we tried not to laugh as we remembered an old movie in which the tourists on a “magical mystery tour” had been stranded on an island that at first seemed to be paradise but where they gradually realized that they were probably in hell--literally--the one to which they were consigned after death.

We found the small sign for Magical Mystery Tours pointing up narrow stairs between ground floor store fronts. Its office was a tiny room with a desk, a few chairs and a few posters on the wall. Behind the desk sat a dark-haired woman in a sari.

“I can’t get you into a Landrover with a group,” she said. “But I can arrange a private car and driver.”

No, she assured us, it would not be more expensive. And we would stay in exactly the same facilities. We would go to one salt lick for night-viewing. We would go to either Amboselli national park or the Masai-Mara game preserve. And, by the way, we each would be allowed one small piece of baggage. Also we would be expected to dress for dinner--skirt or dress for me, tie and jacket for Otto.

Somewhat dubiously we paid for the five-day tour, which included everything, even meals. Our driver would handle all arrangements. He would pick us up at our hotel the following morning. Which he did.

Simon was probably in his twenties, very black, clad in blue jeans and a sport shirt. His car was a Datsun -- a very small Datsun that seemed crowded with just the three of us in it, rather than the four for which it was designed.

Orderly coffee plantations lined the well-paved highway from the city, the shiny leaves glinting in early morning light. Simon began to explain coffee cultivation to us and was somewhat nonplused to find that we knew more about it than he did, since we were owners of a coffee farm in Paraguay.

Flat land gave way to hills. Into the Kenyan highlands the road wound, through banana plantations, bamboo, lumber yards. The Aberdare Country Club sprawled in stonewalled rustic splendor on the crest of a hill. In the spacious wood-paneled hall a few other tourists lounged in deep leather chairs near the windowed walls. Two other Landrovers arrived and disgorged their eight or nine passengers.

“Goodbye,” said Simon. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He and the other drivers departed. We had been fed into the highly organized tourist network that was coordinated by the Kenyan government. We and our fellow tourists would spend the night at The Ark.

It was mid afternoon when a bus pulled up to the front of the building, We tourists embarked as attendants stowed our bags. The bus took us higher through increasingly dense forest, with fewer and fewer small cultivated clearings, to our destination for the day and night: The Ark.
Set on stilts, the rustic building had Spartan rooms, each with two narrow cots. These were spread with snowy sheets and pillows, one gray blanket each and another on a shelf at the foot of the bed. There was also a bell, resembling a fire alarm, and a wall chart with the code: how many rings would mean rhinos, wart-hogs, elephants, etc.

The air up here was much cooler, and I was glad I had brought a sweater. It was not needed, however, in the viewing stand to which we were led. Above a balcony with tiers of seats glowed infrared heating lamps. Beyond, bright floodlights already added their brilliance to the late afternoon sunlight around the salt lick. They burned day and night, we were told, so that the animals would become completely accustomed to them. The resident naturalist pointed out elephants among the trees on a hill to our right, and everyone excitedly aimed binoculars or cameras. “You’ll have a better view of them tonight,” he said, but we snapped a lot of pictures anyway. Maybe he was right, but what if the elephants never came closer?

It was a glorious night of interrupted sleep as our buzzer sounded again and again. We would grab our cameras and the extra blanket to wrap around us, and, still half asleep, would stumble to the viewing gallery: A rhino and her child. Wart hogs, trotting with their tails erect like pennants. But most of all, elephants. Herd after herd arrived--not simultaneously--one group would leave before the next arrived, sometimes giving us half an hour of sleep before the buzzer again sounded. Some had young with them, well protected under the bellies of their elders. We found that there was some truth in the old joke that the way to determine the number of elephants is to count the lags and divide by four. The last group of elephants still lingered in dawn light (augmented, of course, by floodlights).

Otto and I dozed quite a lot in the Datsun as Simon drove us toward our next location. In waking moments we observed the land sloping below us checker-boarded with small farms, and Simon, who was proving to be a knowledgeable guide, told us about the problems of a land over-populated with farmers, not many with enough acreage to support a family. In late afternoon, now traveling on dirt roads, we began to pass tall Masai in native dress (or undress) with herds of emaciated cattle. When we pulled out our cameras, Simon demurred. We should get permission before taking a picture. Simon negotiated, we paid a fee of a few cents and took a picture or two.

At dusk, on an even more primitive road, we entered the Masai-Mara preserve. Simon braked suddenly. To our left, not more than twenty-five feet from us, lounged a male lion with magnificent mane. This time Simon was excited. After we took pictures of the lion, who seemed almost to be posing for us, Simon seemed reluctant to leave. It was our first hint of his passion for lions.

The Masai-Mara lodge was large, a big main building with dining hall, swimming pool, and recreation rooms, and with separate small groups of motel-like sleeping rooms so situated that each looked out on the open savanna. Dinner again was rather formal, served at candle-lit tables. Beyond the picture windows giraffes were silhouetted against the sky. The diners were warned not to go near the swimming pool at night; after dark it became a watering hole. We also had to wait to return to our rooms until an armed ranger could escort us; a cheetah had been spotted earlier in the day. Our room proved large and comfortable, with private bath and with draperies across the window wall. A strange rustling noise drew our attention. Pulling the curtain aside we found that zebras were munching grass at the doorstep. Who needed draperies? We opened ours wide, which rewarded us in the morning with a panorama of grazing Thompson gazelles, zebras, and a giraffe or two rocking along in the distance. On the path to the dining hall we met baboons. A male, standing upright, showed a lacquered looking turquoise-blue penis. His toothy grin did not look friendly. We gave him and his family a wide berth.

The very early breakfast, a lavish buffet, was followed by Game Drives. Tourists piled into the Landrovers that had brought them, Otto and I squeezed into Simon’s Datsun.

It soon became apparent that we were in for a visual feast of beasts. Gazelles grazed or loped along. A magnificent Eland posed on a rock as though for his photo. Otto’s telephoto lens proved superfluous when giraffes leaned over our car and a giraffe eye filled the frame of his viewer. Vultures and secretary birds feasted on carcasses, challenged by jackals and hyenas. And everywhere were zebras and wildebeests. The wildebeests were on their annual northward migration, and columns of them with hundreds, maybe thousands of members were constantly in sight. Simon sped the Datsun into the middle of a herd of wildebeests to give us action views of flailing hooves and flying manes.

As the day wore on, it became obvious that we, with our private and enthusiastic driver, had an advantage over the groups in the large Landrovers. Their drivers observed strict hours: two game drives a day of two hours each. Simon took us out for three hours in the morning and for both of the two-hour afternoon game drive slots between which other tourists had to choose. Simon generally followed the traditional game-observing routes but was willing to deviate from them at our request or at his own perception of a better photo opportunity. Sometimes we were in the company of other cars, sometimes not.

In the afternoon we again saw elephants. We were on the unpaved road back to the lodge for afternoon tea when a herd of about a dozen elephants approached the road in front of us. For all the world like a school crossing guard, the large leading elephant stepped out on the road in front of us, held her trunk stretched in front of her like a crossing guard’s stop sign and stood there until the last elephant had filed past her to the other side of the road. Then she hurried again to the front of the procession.

A group of female baboons, all with babies in their arms, sat in the shade of a large tree. Simon stopped the car so that we could watch them. Each seemed to be admiring the babies of the others, circulating to get better views of the small ones, each holding up her own with what appeared to be immense pride. Perhaps that was just my anthropomorphic viewpoint of what was happening.

In the late afternoon--the ultimate game drive of the day--we were with the Landrovers near a group of lionesses relaxing in the shade with their almost-grown cubs. Again Simon was really excited. Our little Datsun did not afford us the same views as the open tops of the tall Landrovers. Simon jockeyed for a position in the front row--and ignominiously wound up stuck on a tussock of grass that was taller than the bottom of our car. It needed a push from a Landrover to get us moving again. Still, Simon was the last driver to leave the scene, and we were rewarded with the sight of a lioness cuffing the rambunctious youngster who bit her ear in play.

The next morning the news was of a leopard in the neighborhood. This was rare. The entire flotilla of tourists, including us, set out for the area in which it had been spotted (no pun intended!).

All we saw there were the usual (yawn) giraffes grazing on the treetops. And before we quite knew what was happening, Simon was heading back to where we had seen yesterday’s lions. Along the way he harassed a few more wildebeests by swerving the Datsun into their midst. And then his face lit up with enthusiasm. In a sparsely wooded ravine, a small gash in the wide savanna, he spotted a group of lions--or lionesses, to be exact.

We took a few pictures from a distance. Then Simon said, “I can get you closer.” He turned the Datsun smartly along the edge of the ravine. The grass was tall. None of us saw the deep erosion at right angles to the ravine until the front wheels of the Datsun suddenly plunged into it. The bottom of the car sat firmly on the edge of the eroded crevasse. The back wheels spun as Simon gunned the engine to try to move us either forward or backward. Dust flew. The tires smoked. We didn’t move. The car was well and truly hung up.

Every time the motor gunned and the wheels spun, the lionesses became more alert and interested. They seemed to be sensing a wounded animal. They crept closer, tails switching, until they were only a few feet from us. After a bit, Simon cautiously edged his door open. A lion let out a tremendous roar. He jumped as he slammed the door. “Did I do that?!” he asked.
From time to time Simon would start the motor again and spin the wheels until they smoked. We were afraid he would set the car or the tall dry grass afire from the friction. I had pictures of headlines in the Berkeley Gazette saying TOURISTS EATEN BY LIONS AS THEY FLEE BURNING AUTO. Simon heeded our warning. We sat. Surely someone would happen by soon to rescue us.

The sun rose toward noon. We had closed the windows on the lion side of the car, and the air became hotter and hotter. We opened the windows a few inches . There was no breeze. We were getting thirsty. No water. My eyes and nose began to water. I had a full-blown case of allergy and only one handkerchief.

Across the horizon trooped thousands upon thousands of wildebeests. That horizon was not very far away, either, since we were in a shallow valley.
Noon passed. Otto divided three ways the banana he had picked up at the breakfast buffet. I pulled out pen and postcard and wrote to Loren, our oldest grandchild. “This is an adventure. An adventure is when you don’t know how it will turn out. At least this will make a good story someday.”

We imagined lunch at the lodge. We pictured the Landrovers starting out on the first of the afternoon game drives, and hopefully we scanned the landscape for a glimpse of one. Apparently the afternoon attraction was elsewhere. Once we sighted an official Jeep with two park rangers. We honked and waved wildly, but they either didn’t see us or ignored us. Our commotion only excited the lionesses, who crept even closer, with avid eyes.

We were hungry and thirsty and hot. We were tired of wildebeests. The afternoon wore on. It became apparent that this was not a goal for the second afternoon game drive either. We imagined afternoon tea at the lodge.

It was very late in the day when we heard a vehicle, and, around a corner of the wooded ravine a large bus appeared with a sign over its windshield proclaiming it “Hotel California.” And, miracle of miracles, it had a winch attached to its front. It turned out to be full of New Zealand students who were on a camping trip. Two of them unfurled a canvas which they held between the lions and the rest of us, while another New Zealander held a tent pole like a spear, just in case. Lions, they assured us, don’t notice people who are out of sight. That’s why their expedition could sleep in tents without fear of lion attacks. They attached the winch to our bumper, backed the bus to about a hundred yards away and slowly reeled our car onto solid ground.

Back at the lodge teatime had passed. Reluctantly they dredged up some cookies for us. But we were already behind schedule for our next hotel at Lake Nakuru. Off again on the dusty roads through the dark. Otto dozed in the back seat, but I sat in front with Simon, mainly because I was afraid he might fall asleep at the wheel. I kept a conversation going and learned a lot about his life, all of which I have since forgotten.

At Lake Nakuru I was too tired to go to the late dinner. I went to bed surrounded by a canopy of mosquito netting. Simon brought me dinner on a tray. Lamb chops.

The next morning Simon was surprised when we appeared in the dining room for breakfast, completely recovered. He had thought we would want to return to Nairobi rather then spend a day seeing great flocks of flamingos, cute little Dik-diks (the smallest of the antelopes, about the size of hares), and other things that would be new to us.

I love to travel. Travel encompasses the unknown, the unexpected, the variousness of a wide and wonderful world

I was born under a wandering star.

O is for Ocean

2009-10-27T09:32:00.000-07:00

We of Mrs. Nesbitt's Abc Wednesday Round 5 have just crested the middle of the alphabet and now can coast down to Z. Use the links to other participating blogs. Thank you, Denise!

Shh! Don't tell anyone, but this is a preview of the cover of my 2010 calendar that I am still working on. A calendar with important dates (such as birthdays) has been Otto's and my (now my) traditional Christmas gift for family and a few friends. Click on it to read my double haiku on the left-hand side.

And here is another Ocean, great-grandson, at Christmas last year. He is the fifth in the unbroken line of Otto Smiths. His full name is Otto Ocean Anthony Smith, but, like his father, Otto Joseph (Joe) Mason Smith, his second name is the one by which he is known. And isn't Ocean a lovely name for a little boy, who, like his parents, spends much time on the water?

Shame

2009-10-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

The word shame can mean different things to different folk. In my opinion the most common mistake is to confuse it with embarrassment, which is another emotion that doesn't diminish in recalling it. I feel, though that true shame is more related to guilt. And it is in that spirit that I will confess something.

I am a murderer.

No, nothing that I could be arrested for: I have murdered countless butterflies. The somewhat out-of-focus photo below is evidence of both my guilt and my shame.

When we first moved to Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil, Otto and I were fascinated by the clouds of butterflies outside our dining room window or encountered like bright fallen leaves on the ground throughout the nearby woods. Other people at the institute collected butterflies and advised us how best to kill and preserve them. I think we thought of them as something akin to pressed flowers - a way of preserving the beauty of nature. We bought butterfly nets. Many of the butterflies could simply be caught by hand as they rested on tree trunks, tree branches or the ground. Then we enclosed each butterfly in a suitably sized metal can - preferably flat so that they couldn't beat their wings enough to damage the beautiful colors or patterns. We put the cans into our electric freezer where they quickly froze to death.

We made several butterfly trays. Among the butterflies we sought and murdered were the two varieties below. (These photos, for the sake of expediency, were captured from the Web,)

The little fellow above is known as setenta e seis (eighty-eight)
because of the markings on his wings

Yes, I feel both guilt and shame for the needless end to so many shining, flittering little lives

N is for Nighttime in the Garden

2009-10-21T17:45:00.000-07:00

For other blogs responding to Denise Nesbitt's gracious hosting of the ABC Wednesday round 5, follow the link or click on the banner

Nighttime in my daughter's garden.

SAVE OUR BEAUTIFUL PLANET

2009-10-15T13:39:00.000-07:00

Climate Change is the theme for this year's annual BLOG ACTION DAY.

"BLOG ACTION DAY is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance."

On the corkboard that covers the walls near my desk, I post photos of the ones I love. Even before the "Eagle has landed", when the first astronauts had circled the moon without landing, I pinned up their photo of earthrise over the edge of the moon. They were awed by it, and so was I. What a beautiful planet we live on, blue oceans and lands tinted blue with atmosphere, all swirled with white clouds and glittering snows!

It looks indestructible, but it is not. Global climate change is happening at an accelerating rate due to the rapid buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Glaciers and polar ice caps are melting. They have served through the ages as reflective surfaces that moderate the amount of sun rays striking the earth. And as they diminish they not only lead to climate change for us, they themselves become the victims of the increased heat. It is a positive feedback system.

I feel confident that many bloggers are posting remedies that can be applied on a personal basis. Here is a link to my friend Aurora's blog. She has a list of excellent suggestions.

What I would like to address concerns larger projects that must be addressed by governments or industries if we are to save our planet from its catastrophic increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. This is how Otto spent the last part of his life, seeking to convince those in power that the sun and the wind are the only solutions, that they were being used successfully in other countries, that the components were essentially "off the shelf". He had designed an even more efficient conventional steam power plant. I have shown a diagram of it previously on this blog.

Just this morning I saw a program on PBS that showed wind farms in Pennsylvania, and the acceptance of them as things of beauty by an initially hostile populace. They are tall, slender and quiet, a lacy decoration on a beautiful landscape.

There are many ways to store the energy of alternative systems when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine, especialy when wind and sun are integrated into utility systems.

Because it is BLOG ACTION DAY I will post once more the information about improved solar plants. Skip it if you have read it too many times already.

Otto proposed building solar-turbine power plants in such places as the Gran Desierto of northern Mexico, the Yuma desert of Arizona, the Sahara and Gobi deserts.

The power plants, of his improved design, would be the conventional steam turbines now used, with the schematic below showing a more economical design than any current solar plant. Low-cost parabolic trough concentrators would boil water. The wet steam would then be dried and superheated by the focused solar light of tracking heliostats.

This would significantly reduce dependence on fossil fuels. It would be a first step toward slowing the accelerating pace of global warming before it reaches the point of no return.

This is an example of the single-axis parabolic collectors
that would be used for the pre-heat.
These are at Kramer Junction in the Mojave Desert.

Their are improved versions of the above type of pre-heat collector using Fresnell lens for even greater efficiency (i.e. lower cost).

This plant, CPS 10 in Spain is an example of the
tracking heliostats that would provide the super-heating
for the seccond stage.

And here is a part of our earth to be saved.

Delightful Surprise!

2009-10-06T09:50:00.000-07:00

I came home at suppertime last night and turned on my computer for the first time that day. And guess what?! I found that Laini Taylor is awarding me a copy of her newly released book Lips Touch: Three Times autographed by herself and her husband, Jim Di Bartolo, who illustrated it. The book I am winning is one of the three prizes for entries in her first kiss contest (see my previous blog). Isn't that fabulous?

If, by any chance, you have missed Laini Taylor's blog Grow Wings it will be well worth your while to get acquainted with this incredibly gifted and energetic author of the Dreamdark; Blackbringer and Dreamdark; Silksinger. She is also the new mother of Clementine, one of the world's cutest baby girls. I don't know where she gets the vitality to do all that she does, including hosting Sunday Scribblings, book signings, conferences and family celebrations and still write an almost daily blog that bursts with happiness and gossipy bits that make one feel that one is getting a long letter from a favorite sister.

This is the current heading of Laini's blog
showing the covers of her three books

Jim Di Bartolo's illustrations in Laini's books and on their covers, are like jewels in a perfect setting.

Oh, and she has pink hair.

First Kiss

2009-10-03T14:03:00.000-07:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is First Kiss.

The first time I was kissed, other than by my close relatives, I was outraged. Phillip had no right to seize my face with a hand on each cheek and press his mouth to mine. I was almost four years old. He was a few months younger.

Yes, I guess I was pretty cute.

As far as I was concerned, kissing rights belonged to one’s daddy or mama, not to a playmate chosen by Mama. Phillip lived on the high side of the street and I lived on the lower side. One or the other of us had to be escorted across the street so that Phyllis and Phillip (and weren’t those names cute together?) could play while their mothers visited.

Yes, I was truly outraged by that unsolicited kiss. I burst into tears while Mrs. Lathrop told my mother how they had always encouraged Phillip not to inhibit his feelings but to express them freely. She frowned at me. Apparently she felt that I was expressing my feelings much too freely.

With this early conditioning against kisses, I managed to avoid most of them for the next fourteen years or so. That’s when I had my first real kiss, the kind that can resonate for a lifetime.

Early sketch that I did of Otto

It was a late afternoon of a spring day, the air balmy and fragrant. I felt pretty in a floaty green dress with white polka dots instead of my usual sweater and skirt for a day of classes. I knew that he - he of the blue eyes and wavy brown hair - would probably be sitting on the curb in front of the art building in which he thought that I would be working on an assigned project.

We had held hands. We had compared philosophies. We had hiked together, gotten poison oak together, sung together. But we had yet to kiss. And I wanted desperately to be kissed by Otto.

As I crossed the quad and skirted the chapel, I entered a cloud of fragrance from a planting of small trees with tiny flowers with the texture and scent of gardenias. I broke off a twig and stuck it in my pocket. The sun was setting and the first star appeared, and, quickly, before the appearance of other stars destroyed the magic, I wished on the first star that tonight he would kiss me.

I don’t remember exactly how we reached the hill overlooking lake Lagunita, on the waters of which myriads of stars were now afloat. I think I may have positioned myself so that it would be very easy for him to kiss me. And he did so.

It was the first of seventy years worth of kisses from the one I love forever. He couldn’t return our last kiss, which I gave to him in the hospital as he lay dying. I miss his kisses, but I have a treasure trove of ones to remember. Especially that first one.

Cheese Challenge

2009-09-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

"No one chooses to be cheesy!"
I wouldn't be so sure.
Don't mystery writers find cheese easy
To use as metaphor?

Just listen to the tough detective:
"She's full of holes as Swiss!" -
a description that's effective
for a bullet-riddled miss.

Tattoo

2009-09-11T22:11:00.001-07:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is TATTOO.

I've never craved tattoos as body art -
except your name tattooed upon my heart.

H is for Houses - Berkeley styles

2009-09-07T17:28:00.000-07:00

Daughter Candace Shock took these pictures of Berkeley houses during the many weeks that she stayed with me after Otto's death. She didn't include one of the more common styles, derived from the Mediterranean, perhaps because she grew up in one, the one in which I still live. She has returned to her own husband and household in Ontario, Oregon. My son Otto is here for this week, and soon (maybe Wednesday) I will begin sharing the house with a friend.

Here a Tori gate sits easily next to a driveway

This is a house I have long admired for its architecture
and the way in which the current owners
have painted it to show its decorative details.
It's a shame about those overhead wires, isn't it?

Some of said decorative details.

Details on a somewhat less elaborate Victorian.

And this little Victorian cottage boasts solar panels on its roof.
Very Berkeley!

There are many half-timbered houses

I think a witch might like this one.

Another delightful little Victorian - and too many overhead wires.

Details. Please enlarge this photos by clicking on them.

To link to other ABC Wednesday participating blogs, go to Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday Round 5 or click on banner at top of page. And hope that MakLinky is behaving better than he did last week.

Keys

2009-09-04T14:09:00.001-07:00

The prompt for Sunday Scribblings is "key". While I suspect that the intention of our prompter was that we should write metaphorically about abstract keys, I am going to be very literal and write about honest-to-goodness, real-life, fit-into-a-lock keys. Dozens and dozens of them.

My children (if one can call senior citizens "children") and I (but mostly they) have been sorting Otto's belongings, clothes to go to various charities, millions (literally) of pieces of paper any one of which might be of vital importance, odd items that have accumulated during the fifty years that we have lived in our current home, thousands of slides, snapshots, photographs, certificates etc.

And KEYS, all carefully marked, but not always in such a manner that it is easy to fit them to the many keyholes and locks in our large house and our Mendocino county vacation houses ("the cabins").

These are a few that daughter Candace and son Otto were trying to fit to their appropriate keyholes.

It has rapidly become obvious that husband Otto and I had become unintentional pack-rats. It wasn't that we were acquisitive, but rather that we never threw anything away. Candace points out to me that she has found at least twenty more keys since these photos were taken.

No, I'm not planning to leave this house full of joyous memories, but there will be a little more space in the the drawers and closets. I am too lazy today to photograph the boxes and boxes of pencils and pens or the two large packing boxes that Candace has filled with empty ring binders (planning to donate them to women's shelters where the children of the sheltered women need back-to-school supplies).

Be sure to go to Sunday Scribblings to find what many clever writers have written about keys.

G is for Giant Sequoia

2009-09-01T22:11:00.000-07:00

Well, gee whiz, here Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday Round 5 is at G!

Giant Sequoias are the world's largest trees in terms of total volume ....They grow to an average height of 50-85 m (165-280 ft) and 6-8 m (18-24 ft) in diameter. Record trees have been measured to be 94.8 m (311 ft) in height and 17 m (57 ft) in diameter. The oldest known Giant Sequoia based on ring count is 3,500 years old. Sequoia bark is fibrous, furrowed, and may be 90 cm (3 ft) thick at the base of the columnar trunk. It provides significant fire protection for the trees....(from Wikipedia)

Grandson Byron Shock at base
of Giant Sequoia in Sequoia National Park
photos by Candace Shock

Grizzley Giant
Mariposa Grove
Yosemite National Park

To reach other blogs that participate in ABC Wednesday Round 5, follow links.

In Search of El Dorado

2009-08-28T19:46:00.000-07:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is "Poetry". Follow link or banner to participating blogs.

Sunset reflected in parabolic mirrors.
courtesy of Theodosia Ferguson, Vital Systems

IN SEARCH OF ELDORADO

Our faith in gold, and pearl, and fountains
where youth and manhood are renewed
was lost in challenging these mountains
of pathless chasms, boulders strewed
to crush our spirits, slow our way,
ice by night and fire by day.

We thought we would have been, by now,
stretched languidly in fragrant grass.
Who could foresee this brooding brow
of overhanging cliff? We pass
against the precipice; the blood
of clinging fingers marks our way,
precarious, day after day
threatened by avalanche and flood.

Nor have we found the streets of gold,
but dust, and thorn, and flies that bite,
and eyes that circle us at night,
and we are growing old.

Bruised, we scientists retreat.
The stones of paradise have torn our feet.

Wind turbine at sunset.
courtesy of Theodosia Ferguson, Vital Systems

F is for Family Fun

2009-08-25T12:20:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday Round 5 has progressed to the letter F.

They had gathered for the celebration of their Father/Grandfather/Great-grandfather's life. The day after that not-unjoyous sharing of memories, they proceeded to enjoy the rest of the family reunion. And what better way to have family fun than by going to nearby regional Tilden Park to ride the little train and the merry-go-round?

This is genuine scale-madel steam engine

From left to right:
Susan Shock, Charlie and Jon Andersen,
Anna, Kristin and Otto Smith.
Photo by Josie Andersen

Charlie shows son Jon the inside of the miniature cab.

Photo by Josie.

Otto and Kristin Smith enjoying the merry-go round.
Photo by Josie.

Otto reaches for a high-five with Charlie.
Photo by Josie.

Byron Shock
Photo by Josie

Anna Smith dances with her father
to the music of the merry-go-round.

Cousins enjoy the playground at Codornices Park.
Susan Shock on zip line.
Photo by Cedric Shock (Susan's husband).

Byron Shock on the concrete slide.
Photo from Susan and Cedric.

Anna swings!
From Susan and Cedric.

Brother and sister Loren Bishop and Josie Andersen
had not seen each other for two years.
Joyous reunion!

Link here for other blogs that participate in ABC Wednesday round 5.

E is for Eulogy

2009-08-18T13:44:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday Round 5 features the letter E this week. Somehow, in two very busy weeks, I managed to mis C and D, but I think this entry is long enough (i.e. too long!) to make up for several missed weeks.

I wrote this down to read at the start of the celebration of Otto J. M. Smith’s life, held at the beautiful Alumni House on the University of California campus on the day that would have been Otto’s 92nd birthday. This was not a religious celebration. I read the following, then my oldest son, also named Otto, served as master of ceremonies, calling upon those who wished to take part. He also played piano accompaniment to violins or singers who didn’t wish to sing without accompaniment. I wanted this to be a happy celebration. It was, with much laughter and smiles as relatives, friends and colleagues shared anecdotes as well as heartfelt tributes to what he had contributed to their lives. The music was eclectic, some chosen just because my husband had enjoyed it, some chosen to express the feelings of the musicians.

Son Stanford sings Woodie Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land"

So here is my introduction:

Thank you all for coming to this celebration of the life of my brilliant, multi-faceted, compassionate husband. He was a dedicated teacher, a scientist, and (the title he most prized) a licensed professional engineer. He figured that engineers were the people who put ideas into practice. He considered himself a citizen of the United States and of the World and as part of the University of California. He wanted the best for all three of them, anxious to solve their problems and ready to criticize when he thought they were following misguided paths. He worried about Global Warming and promoted alternative energy systems. In the picture displayed here (to left of Stanford in above photo) that bit of shiny green under his hand is a prototype plug-in electric car that he is admiring. He was a loving husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

I know that some of you wish to celebrate his life with words, music or poetry. Remember, too, that this is a birthday party for what will be Otto’s 92nd birthday tomorrow. I know that he would want us to enjoy it. When we are done with our seated participation, there are light refreshments available and the patio, as well as this room has tables and chairs for us.

I feel extremely privileged to have shared almost 71 years of Otto’s life, first as a friend at Stanford University then almost 68 years (as of September 3rd) as his wife. He was always my best friend. We shared ideals, aspirations, interests, were constantly delighted with our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We laughed a lot, discussed a lot (sometimes heatedly), always knew that we each had married the right person. Otto had a constant thirst for knowledge, loved teaching, and at the university kept his office door open at all times. He enjoyed meeting old friends but also would engage total strangers in conversations about his concerns and enthusiasms. Traveling with Otto was always an adventure, and we did a lot of traveling.

Most of you know of his many honors and his numerous patents, but he also had a beautiful bass voice and joined choirs both here and in those countries where we might have been living for a few months or years. He enjoyed playing violin, viola and guitar. He was a life member of the California Writers' Club, and wrote not only technical papers but essays, travel stories and poetry.

Otto was always an honest person, and almost always a truthful one, but he also was a bit of a tease. At one time he had rescued a small albino possum whom we named Pogoette after Walt Kelly’s Pogo. Otto bought her a little red harness and a leash and would take her walking through the neighborhood. She would slurp up snails from the gardens that they passed, and many people would ask, “What is your little pet?” Otto would answer with a straight face, “She’s a tetraploid rat.” Most peoples would nod wisely.

I would like to read one of Otto’s poems to you. Coincidentally, just yesterday, long after I had decided on this poem, a blogger friend in Australia e-mailed me for permission to use it in her literary group. (Here I read the poem Stonehenge, which I have previously shared with you.) A reflection of Otto’s joy in life is expressed in a song which he and I often sang in the car. Our car was always filled with song. The language of this song is German, but it means “Enjoy life while the lantern glows” and seems to me an expression of Otto’s ebullient spirit. I have asked my granddaughter Anna to sing it for you as the start of this celebration.

This photo shows that it was a joyous occasion
mixed with some tears as we realized the magnitude of our loss.
In this photo:
Anna Smith and Kristin Smith, granddaughter and Daughter-in-law,
violinists; Alden Bryant, long-time friend who sang "Beloved Comrade";
Sterling Smith (standing) who played a Bach fragment on his tenor recorder.

The photos are by granddaughter Josie Andersen. For more links to ABC Wednesday, click on link or banner at the top of this post.

New Verses for "America the Beautiful"

2009-08-07T18:53:00.001-07:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt for this week is "New." For other posts with a "new" theme, click on link above or on the banner.

Have you ever heard a familiar song and suddenly realized that there was a verse that should be there, but that it was missing? These two new verses for "America the Beautiful" are in response to just such a realization on my part.

I wrote the first of these two new verses when a friend pointed out that the original inhabitants of this land were NOT the pilgrims!

This photo of Navahos at Shiprock
was found in Google images.

O beautiful for tribes whose lore
Embraced the buffalo,
Who met the pilgrims at the shore
And gave them corn to grow.

America,America!
Great spirit ease the pain
Of those displaced,
Their past erased
From hogan, woods, and plain.

"from sea to shining sea."
I photographed these Pacific waves
at our family reunion

And this was written in a burst of pure euphoria the day after Obama was elected as future president of this great land. I posted it on this blog at that time, so excuse me for running it by you once again.

O beautiful for rainbow race
for multicolored skin
for outside differences of face
Americans within.
America! America!
where every voice is heard.
We pledge to heed
each anxious need
with deed and work and word!

A and B are for Agapanthus and Begonia

2009-07-27T08:10:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday round 5 is well launched with B already the letter of the week. For other participating blogs click on the link above.

O.K.! So I'm cheating! I didn't really make it for the first of round 5 last week, so I am putting in a double post this week.

First: A for Agapanthus, better known as Nile lily. These pictures and those of the begonias were taken about three weeks ago. Please be sure to click on the photos to enlarge.

Here is closeup of a single blossom

This one is blooming at the bottom of the stairs down from the street to our front door.

And these are in the inner patio in front of my geranium bed.

And now B for Begonia

These pink and white begonias in the outer patio share a basket with lobelia.

A closer look at the begonias and lobelia.

And finally a modest little yellow begonia that I have great hopes for.

When in the World?

2009-07-24T17:21:00.001-07:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is "Where in the world?"

My question is not so much "where" in the world but"when" in the world. I would give anything to be in a "when" with Otto still by my side. So this is the story (much condensed) of our last trip together outside the United States - a journey to Costa Rica and Nicaragua. We traveled by small cruise ship (40 passengers) with extensive land excursions.

This beautiful bromiliad and these burgeoning new coconut palms were in a private preserve on the island of Curu. We visited it on the day after we had boarded the ship after busing from the airport in San Jose down to the coast, and, while many people took advantage of swimming on the pristine beach or being led on a nature walk, I chose to prowl with my camera, entranced by the tropical foliage. This was my last trip without a digital camera, and, stupidly, I had brought no telephoto lens. There were unusual animals and birds, a tribe of monkeys, a tri-colored squirrel, but the photos we attempted showed mostly jungle with teensy dots of the critters which were perfectly visible to our eyes.

We had to settle for this humongous toad (about the size of a man's foot) who was occupying a corner of the communal shower for the swimmers.

This macaw was at a highlands ranch called Los Innocentes to which we traveled the next day.

On the last day on the Costa Rican side of the border everyone explored, in zodiacs, channels in the nearby mangrove swamp -

where this pelican was sighted - probably looking for snakes rather than fish - according to our accompanying naturalist.

The next morning, after the customs inspectors had left our ship, we landed for the first time in Nicaragua. I came ashore before Otto so that I could take a picture of him landing. That's he with the wide-brimmed sunhat.

We then traveled by bus up to the town of Rivas, where these pics show some of the produce for sale.

Otto holds a long specimen of papaya, his favorite fruit.

This shy little girl wore her best clothes to go to market with her mother.

Another day we traveled to the Vulcan Masaya, which has a lake of fiery lava in its center, and where parrots nest in cliffs of the crater in the noxious gases.

For a trip to the cloud forest (isn't that a lovely name) our bus was not deemed sufficiently powerful to take us up the steep and winding road, so we transferred to this truck.

These boys by the side of the road watched our climb.

And the above are what grow in the cloud forest.

These musicians serenaded as we boarded launches on Lake Nicaragua to attend a fancy barbecue at a beautiful home (roll of film lost).

On our last day in Nicaragua, we visited the city of Leon and were treated to the following sights. First, street theater with elaborate stilt figures...

and the cathedral with this dramatic scene through its bells.

As I look at this very condensed version of a memorable trip, I realize how seldom Otto and I took "We were there" photos. Neither of us figures in any of these pictures, although both pairs of eyes saw them, though two people talked, compared, enjoyed them together. Maybe I should have called this post "WHO in the world".

Guess whom I would have chosen?

Z is for Zero Emissions

2009-07-14T12:19:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday round 4 is at the finish line. For participating blogs go to above link or banner at left.

Please click on these photos.
That way you can read the explanatory info.

An important and deadly contributor to climate change due to global warming is the vast quantity of pollution pumped into the atmosphere by automobiles that depend upon fossil fuels. There is a growing number of manufacturers who have deveoped non-polluting electric cars with zero emissions. These photos were made last Friday of exhibits at the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.

Indulgence (on a Global Scale)

2009-07-11T16:10:00.000-07:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is "Indulgence". Follow link to participating blogs.

Yesterday was my son Stan's birthday. He and his wife, Dianne, have been here visiting - actually taking care of me - shopping, meals, gardening, taking out the trash etc. - and I suppose that I could count that as a kind of personal indulgence. When they leave tomorrow for their home in Denver, they will also be driving Lorelei, Otto's and my beloved 1968 Mercedes SEL 300 6.3. Lorelei would be too hard for me to maintain. As a birthday gift for Stan I treated us to a visit to the new Academy of Sciences building in Golden Gate park. Stan and Dianne wheeled me around in a wheelchair - another kind of personal indulgence. I was pleased to see that the newly constituted building has a large section on global warming - better called climate change, since some areas will be colder, wetter or drier, or everywhere subject to increasing violent weather.

This giant graph shows the reason that we should be
VERY, VERY worried

This devastating increase in the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can be explained by another type of indulgence by civilized and developing countries as they increase their standards of living beyond what our planet can support. Fortunately the Academy building itself displays some ways of mitigating our increased use of carbon-producing energy for lighting, heating, and air conditioning. The rather industrial appearance of the above photo is due to the building's dependence on light admitting panels (offset in most parts of the museum by living exhibits of rain forest, swamp, stream, and aquarium). For temperate control there is a "living roof".

The living roof,
with domes with skylights that also open for ventilation.
The plants are all native to the area.

Another way to fight climate change on larger scale is one that I may suggest on this blog time and time again.

My husband Otto proposed building solar-turbine power plants in such places as the Gran Desierto of northern Mexico, the Yuma desert of Arizona, the Sahara and Gobi deserts.

The power plants, of his improved design, would be the conventional steam turbines now used, with the schematic below showing a more economical design than any current solar plant. Low-cost parabolic trough concentrators would boil water. The wet steam would then be dried and superheated by the focused solar light of tracking heliostats.

This would significantly reduce dependence on fossil fuels. It would be a first step toward slowing the accelerating pace of global warming before it reaches the point of no return.

This is an example of the single-axis parabolic collectors
that would be used for the pre-heat.
These are at Kramer Junction in the Mojave Desert.

Their are improved versions of the above type of pre-heat collector using Fresnell lens for even greater efficiency (i.e. lower cost).

This plant, CPS 10 in Spain is an example of the
tracking heliostats that would provide the super-heating
for the seccond stage.

And there is that indulgence that I have enjoyed for years, doing my part to add to the CO2 buildup in the atmosphere. Her name is Lorelei, Otto's and my 1989 Mercedes 300SEL 6.3. Well, it's Stan's car now. Here we are in Golden Gate Park yesterday.

Y is for Years Passing

2009-07-06T10:02:00.001-07:00

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday round 4 has reached the letter Y. The above link - also the banner to the left - will take you to participating blogs. Thank you, Denise!

Every year since 1998 I have designed a calendar for friends and family. The custom was started several years before that by my oldest son, and I only took over the practice when he tired of it.

These covers of calendars of the passing years are on 11 by 8.5 inch paper, 32 weight, with a clear plastic cover on top. Each month inside has a similarly sized picture with a pendant calendar marked with important dates - important to the calendar recipients, at least.

These calendar covers prove that the first decade of the 20th century has almost run its course. Sadly, 2009 is the last calendar that will be from both Otto and Phyllis.

Here Otto stands on the Stanford University campus with the chapel in the background. Stanford University is where Otto and I met and fell in love.

This was a sunset view from our bedroom window.

In our front entry hall.
That somewhat battered Webster's dictionary
(brown book at the left) is the one that Otto used as a booster seat
at the table when he was a small child.

California poppies speak for themselves.

I took this picture of sprouting coconuts when we visited Costa Rica.

One morning I arose earlier than usual
and spied this view of San Francisco across the bay
as the rising sun illuminated the tall buildings.

This beautiful wreath of sedums was on a neighbor's gate.

Asilomar near Monterey was the sight of our family reunion
to celebrate Otto's 90th birthday.

This visiting buck apparently enjoyed our backyard lilies.
I took this picture from an upstairs window
in order not to disturb him.

The pictures below show how the October calendar will look as it hangs above my desk. And when I look at it, I will treasure the memory of this, the last October that Otto and I were together.

Human?

2009-07-04T16:22:00.001-07:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is "human".

This faded and inexplicably folded photo came to light today as I was sorting through one of those drawers that are full of miscellaneous objects that overflow from other places in this big house. It was obviously one of the many snapshots my father took during his 1916-1918 explorations of the South American continent making measurements of terrestrial magnetism for the Carnegie Institution at Washington but also observing the people and their customs wherever his work took him.

This is what my father wrote on the back of the photo in his distinctive handwriting. I have chosen not to correct or enhance these scans of the originals of either of these images since they are accurate in appearance and accurate also, it seems to me, in another sense: it has been all too easy for the majority of humans to overlook the plight of the poorest among us or even to exploit their vulnerability for our own comfort or profit. And one need not go to a foreign country or a time in the past in order to observe it. It exists here and now: the exploitation by employers of those who are desperate to eke out a living and will accept underpaid jobs. They slave in the fields and orchards, the service industries, or perhaps they sleep in doorways at night because they cannot find housing.

Actual slavery still exists in all parts of the world, and, according to recent reports, even in our own United States.

How can humans do such harm to other humans and still call themselves human? It's not a question that I can answer, but I have a niggling little suspicion that I am a part of the problem.

X is for Xanthophyl

2009-06-30T22:27:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesd ay round 4 has wound its way down the alphabet to X. For contributing blogs click on link or banner.

Xanthophyl is the yellow carotenoid pigment in plants. The following photos showing the presence of xanthophyl should be credited to my daughter and her husband, Candace and Clinton Shock.

Flowering ipe shows off its xanthophyl
against a typically blue Brazilian sky.

Cassia

Baby Myrtle enjoys the yellow field of flowers.
This is an old photo. Myrtle is now a 28-year-old archeologist
working in Brazil.

Well, this picture of a marigold is one
I actually took myself last summer
at my daughter's house in Ontario, Oregon

Teddy Bears' Bedtime

2009-06-26T21:21:00.000-07:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is TOYS. Follow the link to other participating bloggers.

The truth is that I have too many toys around my house, which is to say, around the house of an almost 88 year woman! There are still a few teddy bears here and there, but except for Priscilla and HER doll in the below photo, the others are all dragons. My children and grandchildren all say that my favorite toys - at Christmas, birthdays, Easter - were most often stuffed toys. The verse below was written for the teddy bear lovers among my offspring.

The Teddy Bears' Bedtime

The clock hands say it's sleepy time
For little Teddy Bears,
So rub your furry little eyes
And toddle up the stairs.

Don't forget to brush your teeth —
But wait! Don't close your door!
You've left your boys and girls, again,
All scattered on the floor!

Take them up to bed with you,
Hug and hold them tight,
And they'll keep you warm and snuggly
Through the drowsy, dreamy night

Well, That's the Way...

2009-06-24T14:35:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday round 4 has progressed to W. For other W responses, follow above link.

Well, That's the Way...

“The world has changed since yesterday.”
Don’t try to tell that to the jay
who, raucous, head cocked, shrills his need
for a feeder full of sunflower seed.
Not do the voices, filled with doom
stop sunlight filtering to this room
as light and shade play through the trees
stirred by an ocean scented breeze.

“The world has changed since yesterday.”
Well, yes, of course, that is the way
it’s always been. Earth shifts. Men die.
The seasons change. Storms cross the sky.
Dark hair sprouts new shafts of white
as age creeps on us in the night

This sadness, too, could go away...

It may...

It might...

I originally wrote the above (under the title The Day After) shortly after the fall of the New York's twin towers . Today I mean it personally. I also feel less and less possibility that the sadness of Otto's death will ever leave me, but time does go on from one day to the next, however one wills it. One of Otto's big concerns (which he was working to publicize) was climate change due to global warming and the urgency of doing something about it before it reached the point of no return. He wanted to show that solutions are currently available and proven. I intend to try to carry on his work, so don't be surprised if, in the future, you see a lot of pictures and diagrams re solar and wind power etc!

Silver Linings.

2009-06-12T14:32:00.000-07:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is "absurd", and there's nothing absurd about my life right now. Maybe I should label this "Not Absurd". Will that qualify this post (which was already posted once)? This first paragraph is just an addendum to my previous post, but I want to feel part of the Sunday Scribblings gang again.

I half promised to tell you (I added, "with indignation") about how Otto's accident happened. I've changed my mind about that. For one thing, the City of El Cerrito responded promptly to our request that their sunken patios be fenced to prevent another such terrible fall. Also I'm determined not to focus on Otto's death but on the full rich life I have shared with him.

This is a poem I wrote thirty years ago when we spent a large part of the summer at a conference on solar energy.

Otto lecturing on efficient motors

Otto was giving a lecture and demonstration; I admiring him. Before the lecture was over, I had written this verse:

OTTO
(Trieste, 1979)

Quicksilver
quick and silver.
Quick hands that sweep and gesture
following the quick mind
ideas that dart and dazzle
then drop like silver rain
to fill a pool of reason.
Silver hair whose wavy petals
lie against the nape and temple
crest like surf along the brow.
Quick face that glints and sparkles
in the light of his enthusiasms
or softens with compassion
for the suffering of others.
Quick to laughter.
Quick to joy in every living creature.
Quick hands that can:

spring to capture sunning lizards
adjust the timing of an engine
hammer
saw
wield a wrench
gently hold a grandchild's trusting hand
or coax the sweet notes from his old guitar.

Guitar and violin and voice all sing
the voice more gold than silver
deep and resonant
at variance with his Pan quicksilver figure.
Gray eyes that see not just the fact
but the fact beyond the fact
voice passionate to proclaim it.
Curiosity and courage.
Quick in loving people, places:

students
family
ragged outcasts
redwoods, firs of Mendocino
scent of leaves
warmth of sunlight.

Careful not to hurt another
detecting like a silvered mirror
others' hopes and doubts and feelings.
Quick to recklessness when rushing
to do battle with oppression.

Quicksilver
quick and silver
scintillating
life-affirming
love inspiring.

Also a Poet

2009-05-30T11:38:00.000-07:00

Dear Blogger friends,

Thank you so much for your expressions of sympathy. They mean lot to me.

Otto and I have always participated in many of each other's activities. I have gone to technical conferences with Otto, once or twice chaired sessions where my knowledge was up to the challenge, drawn circuit diagrams, even shared a patent. Otto and I went to writer's groups together because he wanted to go with me and share my interests. For a poetry workshop, Otto wrote the following:

Stonehenge

The sun orb at its noon zenith
approaching midsummer
casts my shrunken shadow around my feet.
It stretches out like a snake emerging
from his hole
then races east and south
as the sun swings low and north
until at sunset my shadow is infinitely long.

It sleeps fitfully
then jumps to life in the early midsummer morn.
Stonehenge points to the sun's
most northern emergence.

We mark each high point with such monuments:
greatest weight lifted
farthest discus thrown
largest pumpkin grown
valedictorian
highest flood
largest tree.

We mark the onset of anxiety
that the sun will desert us quickly -
shorter days, longer noon shadows,
cooler nights, threat of winter.

We are anxious about the ebb,
the coming cold, slipping skills,
a loved one leaving.

What enchantment can keep this warmth with me?

April 2005, Otto J. M. Smith

New Things to Worry About

2009-05-22T18:23:00.000-07:00

First I want to thank all my friends in cyberspace for their kind and comforting words of sympathy. They really do ease grief.

My two eldest "children" are pooling their worries about composing an obituary for their father. Son Otto is in Port Townsend WA, Candace is staying with me, but electronic communication is wonderful and they have been sending suggestions and revisions back and forth by cell phone, land phone and email. I want to post this version, even though it might not be the final one. I want to share what a wonderful man my husband was and what a rich legacy of memories he left to his descendants. So here is what they've said so far:

Dr Otto J. M. Smith died on May 10, 2009 from injuries sustained in an accidental fall on a poorly engineered sidewalk in front of the recreation center in El Cerrito CA. The accident occurred on May 7, 2009, He is survived by his wife Phyllis Sterling Smith and their four children and spouses, Candace and Clinton Shock; Otto and Kristin Smith; Sterling and Joan Smith; and Stanford and Dianne Smith.

Dr Smith was 91 at the time of his death, a professor emeritus in the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley and an active inventor working in the field of energy production and efficiency. He was deeply concerned about global warming and devoted much of his later life to developing technologies and working for policies that would help save the world from this man-made disaster.

Dr. Otto J. M. Smith was an educator, inventor and author in the fields of engineering and electronics. He spent most of his career as a professor at University of California Berkeley. Dr. Smith is probably best known for the invention of the Smith predictor, a method of handling dead time in feedback control systems as well as the invention of Posicast control and the invention of several enabler devices to run three phase motors on single phase power. An early invention was for a circuit to generate square waves that was used in all Hewlett Packard signal generators.

Since 1976 all of his patents have been for devices to generate or conserve energy. Among his many patents are designs for solar electric power plants, wind generators and high efficiency motors. He has been granted at least 30 US patents as well as several foreign patents. At the time of his death he was actively pursuing two more patents which had been applied for but had not yet received a final office action.

Dr Smith was born Aug 6, 1917 in Urbanna Illinois. In 1923 he moved with his family to Stillwater Oklahoma where his father had a position teaching chemical engineering at Oklahoma A & M. He did his graduate work and received his doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University where he met his future wife and life long companion Phyllis Sterling. They were married for 67 years at the time of his death. At Stanford he was in the habit of catching lizards and presenting them to his wife-to-be who would wear them under the collar of her blouse for a day and then let them go in the evening. He was an animal lover and during his life had many wild animal pets as well as domestic pets including snakes, lizards, two different kinds of bats and an albino female opossum named Pogoette (after the Walt Kelley 'possum Pogo). He even set a praying mantis’s broken leg with a toothpick.

Otto was invited to give numerous presentations including such diverse topics as “Bats in the Belfry”, engineering ethics, camping through Russia in 1960, and living in Brazil during the 1950s. An orange at one side of a lot and the head of a pin at the other side could demonstrate the relative size and distance of the sun and the earth to boy scouts whereas slides of rice paddies and water buffalo were more appropriate to discussion of southeast Asia. His inclusion of his family in his overseas adventures introduced his children and grandchildren to the joys of international participation.

Dr Smith was a pacifist, a World Federalist, a believer in the rule of law, an atheist, a humanist, and active in political causes. He participated with his students in strikes and protests against the Viet Nam war and actively supported his wife in her extensive volunteer work with the Berkeley Free Church, the Ecumenical Chaplancy to the Homeless and other social causes.

Among his many awards were:
* Guggenheim Fellow.
* R&D 100 Award in 1999 for technologically significant new product.
* Listed in the “Leaders of the Pack” In Tech’s 50 most influential industry innovators since 1774 .
* Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
* Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
* Visiting Research Fellow in Economics and Engineering, Monash University, Victoria, Australia.
* Honor Societies: Sigma Xi, Phi Kappa Phi, Tau Beta Pi (Engr.), Phi Lambda Upsilon (Chemistry), and Eta Kappa Nu (EE).

The family requests that condolences take the form of gifts to the ACLU or Amnesty International, organizations that he supported. No memorial service is planned at this time.

Sad News

2009-05-11T16:03:00.000-07:00

Dear blogger friends, many of you have become acquainted with my dear husband Otto through my many mentions of him on my blog. Through my tears I must tell you that he died last night from injuries sustained in a fall. I will tell about it at a later time - probably with indignation. He had stuck his head around the door a few minutes earlier, saying to me, "I'm off to do a few errands." And Otto, with his vitality, his sharp inventive intellect, his love and his humor, is lost to a world that is a better place because of his efforts and to a host of friends and family. He has been emeritus from the university for 17 years, but he never retired and worked until almost midnight the night before his fall -which had nothing to do with his age - on the world problems he considered the most urgent.

P is for Pauline, Pearl and Phyllis

2009-05-05T09:47:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday Round 4 has progressed to P. Click on link or banner to see how other bloggers have interpreted it.

Sunday will be Mothers' Day. The photo below is of Pearl, my mother, and of me, Phyllis, on the last Mothers' Day that we enjoyed together. The year was 1983, and Mama turned 90 the following November. She died in early 1984.

The day that Otto snapped this picture doesn't seem like very long ago to me, but now I am looking forward to my 88th birthday in August, just two years short of the age of Pearl in this photo.

Below is one of the few snapshots I could find of Pearl's mother Pauline. Here Grandma Sitzler holds me, baby Phyllis. What a difference modern camera's have made in our ability to record and remember our precious moments! I have no pictures of Grandma Pauline and Mama Pearl together, although they hardly let a week go by without long visits with one another, even when they lived in towns two hours apart (by Model T).

I posted this studio portrait of Pauline just a few weeks ago, but, in case you didn't see it, here it is again. It's nice to see a face to go with that rear view above!

Free Range Children

2009-05-01T20:03:00.000-07:00

The Sunday Scribblings prompt is confession.

Otto and I were listening a little while ago to a discussion on TV of the controversial book called Free Range Children. Most of the panelists argued with the author that she should not have let her nine-year-old ride alone on the New York Subway. She explained that he very much wanted to go by himself, so she and her husband prepared him well, tested his ability to read maps, gave him money to call home if there were any problems, etc..

This philosophy does not prevail in my neighborhood or city. The only time I even SEE children is when I encounter them at the library or on the lawn of the library waiting for a parent to come by with a car to ferry them home. We can drive for miles without seeing a child on his own two feet.

What I must confess is that Otto and I raised four free-range children. Our children were allowed to roam throughout the neighborhood, ride their tricycles around the block, walk the half mile to school, (they eschewed the school bus which the city provided), jump rope or roller-skate on the sidewalks, play hide-and-seek all over the neighborhood, only giving us a general idea of what they would be doing, but with certain deadlines to appear for meals or previously-made family plans.

And after Otto and I had recalled how we had dealt with our own children’s freedoms, we grew nostalgic about our own free-range childhoods.

Otto remembered catching frogs after school.

I remembered especially living in Santa Cruz, at that time a small town that always carried a faint scent of ocean, with flowers a little brighter than they ever appear inland. I was only in kindergarten when I was allowed to walk to and from school, wander up the bare hill behind our house and the few dead-end unpaved streets that intersected King Street. At the top of one of these streets I found a farm with a new best friend (even though she had a scary German shepherd). A few hundred yards up another, I found a barn with a nest of new-born kittens and was offered one as soon as they were old enough to leave their mother. My mother didn’t allow me to have pets, but when she was in the hospital giving birth to my brother, Grandma, who was caring for me, went with me to choose and bring home a small white kitten.

And after we moved from King street to Caledonia street, I, a first-grader was allowed even more freedom. My mother would have had a fit if she had seen me walking on the top of twenty-foot retaining walls above concrete yards. As a matter of fact I would have had a fit if I has seen any of my children doing it!

We moved to Stockton in the hot central valley when I was seven years old. Except for meals, none of the children spent any time in their un-airconditioned houses. During the day we played, jumped rope, romped in the lawn sprinklers, gathered in the shadowed crawl-spaces under the houses to scare ourselves with ghost stories. At dusk the big kids and the little kids and everyone between joined in games that might be one-a-cat in the street, or hide-and-seek or run-sheep-run that scattered us in all directions.

This is not one of my new poems, but I think it expresses some of the joy of the type of childhood I experienced:

RUN SHEEP RUN
Baked by summer sun, the cramped house is cocoon
whose tight walls clutch the valley heat. Now late
beyond the ordained hour of bed-at-eight,
like moth emerged to night and rising moon,

I'm freed to velvet air, allowed to play
with older children. Captains choose, and then
I pledge my fealty to a man of ten.
“One, two, three...”, and , scampering away,

I seek the darkest shadows, crouch below
a berry bush with warm, tart, berry smell,
my heart a-thump. I scan the dark, can’t tell
if slithering forms are ghost or friend or foe.

The single street lamp shivers points of light
through leaves; I shiver in delight and fear.
Aware of gravelled footsteps stealing near,
I’m drunk with peril, happiness and night.

Furtively I creep along a hedge
past feathery rows of carrots, tents of pea,
startled by window light where I can see
a neighbor. She’s oblivious of the edge

that separates her world and mine outside.
I move with stealth and joy and feral cunning.
Then, “Run sheep! Run!”, and I am off and running,
phantoms at my heels, my arms flung wide

to hug the tree trunk. Trembling. Safe. Our turn
to be the hunters. Then my mother’s call:
“Come in! Bedtime!” and I must leave it all
for lamp lit prison, sweaty sheets. I yearn
my lifelong for an hour as fierce and free
as that abandonment to jeopardy

Phyllis Sterling Smith

O is for Opossum

2009-04-28T13:09:00.001-07:00

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday Round 4 has reached the letter O. To link to participating blogs click on above link or on banner to left.

This is a photo my son Otto took several years ago of his daughter Anna with a baby Opossum. They were visiting a friend who raises Opossums. The females make lovely little pets. Long ago, when Otto's and my children were small, we had a sweet little albino Opossum. Otto would put her into her little red harness and then lead her around the neighborhood to eat the garden snails.