A Fragment

I had a dream earlier tonight. I dreamed that I was on a date with a young women who resembled one of the Olson twins. She was a young blonde-haired women with bright blue eyes and a slender build. She seemed much younger than me. I encountered her in her offices with her colleagues and friends, which caused me to feel like an outsider. After suffering the continuing experience of alienation at the hands of her co-workers, I determined that it would be better to find my car and call it a night. I apologized to my date and headed through the parking deck in her office building to my car. My date followed and we talked quietly as we walked. When I got to my car, I noticed damage to my windshield and a ticket. We discussed my problem and she registered concern and empathy. I suddenly discovered similarities with her that I hadn't noticed before. We stood and talked in the parking deck and suddenly she was in my arms and we were planning another meeting for the future.I remarked to her about our similarities. My dream ended when Cindy and the dog got up in the middle of the night. I awoke.

More Coleridge. "In Xanadu, did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree..."

Taking the fruits as they come

I am sitting in a chair on our back patio. Cindy is sweeping the refuse and water left over from watering the plants on what Cindy refers to as "our little piece of Provence." I am sitting with my foot up, in an aircast. I am doing my best to replicate Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his poem, "This Lime Tree Bower, My Prison". There are no lime trees, but there are two lemon trees and the fruit are still green. Cindy has been working on the garden in the heat. I have been resting with my foot up; I think I may have turned a corner today. Just a bit more rest and a couple more pills might do the trick.


The Lime-tree Bower my Prison [Addressed to Charles Lamb]

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge;--that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,
That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
Of the blue clay-stone.

Now, my friends emerge
Beneath the wide wide Heaven--and view again
The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles
Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,
My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined
And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,
In the great City pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain
And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun!
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,
Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!
And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend
Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily; and of such hues
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes
Spirits perceive his presence.

A delight
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,
This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd
Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd
Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see
The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree
Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay
Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue
Through the late twilight: and though now the bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble-bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know
That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes
'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good,
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook
Beat its straight path along the dusky air
Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)
Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory,
While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still,
Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Still, I could have been at some nearby lake, swimming, eating a hot dog and drinking a cold beer with friends and family. The earthy smell of the lake in my nose. A good, filling meal of fried fish and a hot shower at the end of the long day; maybe a glass of red wine and a dying sun in the pink and orange of dusk. But, the trees around me are turning into the deep green of Summer. Cucumbers in vinegar, as cool as ice, and slices of pink watermelon. A bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich with fresh home-grown tomatoes. The gifts of Summer are here.

We are at rest now and the music has died on the stereo and the birds have taken over. The fan is buzzing. The twilight world is growing cooler and darker for the time being. Respite.

The rest is welcome.

The Recipe

Well, perhaps I may have found the ultimate recipe for mint juleps. This recipe was formulated by General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr, who, at the time, was the commandant at West Point. He was requested by the Superintendant, his superior, to provide the recipe. This son of a Confederate general, graduate of West Point, and Governor of Kentucky wrote down perhaps the penultimate recipe for juleps. I offer this recipe as a grand example of my birthplace. You can find it at a Buckner family geneaological site. Just go to Simon Bolivar Buckner. I'll offer that for my morning missive.

Ahh, May. "A Maying We Shall Go." "It's May! It's May! The lusty month of May!" You can't get better than that (other than a post NCAA basketball celebration in Lexington).

Here we go again

The neighborhood is still asleep for most. I sit here with my iPhone, watching the morning news, wondering what word salad would come out if I just wrote without trying to edit the spelling. I see what happens when some people text me without trying to correct their spelling. You get to the point where you can't make any sense of the message. I do better on my desk top. Sooner or later I am going to have to go get ready for work. Oh well.

A long day, but longer for others

It starts off coming into the office very early so you can look over the file and make sure that you have it stuck clearly in your mind so that you don't look like an idiot in front of your client, who will definitely let you and everyone else they know that you are an idiot and remember that if you do well it was a miracle and if you don't then you are paid too much for what you do but you sit there in court from about 8:30 until 12:00, watching the show of other cases and other lawyers and other clients and you get the idea of where court is heading and you almost lean over to counsel for the other side and warn him about what might happen, but you don't so you come back after lunch, which you skipped by the way, but you did let the dog out, Cindy, but you didn't get to water, but you return to court and wait for your client to show and then they start dealing with other cases and you are watching and waiting then suddenly they call the calendar and you stand and opine as to how long it will take and the judge calls somebody else and then you are sitting watching and he asks if you could do it quicker, so you say yes, what else would you say, and you pick your stack of papers up and pile them on the desk and you motion for your client and she comes up and asks you where you want her and you point to the witness stand and she doesn't understand and you try again and you get her up there and swear her in and she starts to unravel and you try to push her forward until the judge starts asking questions and suddenly everyone is leaving and you are running back to the office to prepare an order and the day is done, at least that part of it and you have succeeded temporarily until the next day and the next court and the next client and judge.

And they are still trying cases up there, or were when you left.

The Tyger and the Lamb in Griffin, Georgia

I rode out on the Spring-time streets of Griffin-town
And the skies above me were an infant baby boy blue
And the grass was a tender, callow green,
Like the first sheepish poking of the first planting
Spring and the flowers offered their baby girl pinks
And bright butter-sunshine yellows, a pretty ribbon on the package

This is the day that the Lord has made

And yesterday, last week, last month when the cyclones blew
And the broad oak trees and maples tumbled down and were toppled
From the power of those winds, until the morning's sunshine's light
Showed the tragedies of loss and the chaos of chance
To so many of our brothers and sisters

Yet, this too is the day that the Lord has made.

And so the lamb who frolics to the tabor's piping in Springtime softness
And the tyger who watches from the darkened forests of the midnight blackness
Licking his lips in anticipation and hunger, are children of the same Creator.
So, Blake shall offer our catechism this pleasant morning:
The God of Moses, the God of Jonah as well.

I dreamed of Steven Hawking

I dreamed I met Steven Hawking at Bluegrass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky
And I maneuvered his infirm body into a rental car and drove him southwest
From Lexington toward the palisades along the Kentucky River
And on up the hill from Asbury to Pleasant Hill, an old Shaker community,
Where those early pilgrim souls, descendants of John Bunyan, Milton and Donne,
Sought their Utopia in the verdant hills of the Bluegrass of Olde Kentucky.
Parking our vehicle in the blacktopped parking lot, I pushed him up
To the collection of simple Shaker buildings, still and dignified
And ended his journey in a broad green space between the buildings
Where the grassy field was bounded by white-washed wooden fences
And the invisible breezes of April blew against our faces.
Squatting on my knees, down before his wheelchair,
I stared into his corrected eyes and asked him to stop
The meandering of his mind for a brief moment
And feel for the soft touch, the prompting of his heart
And search for the presence of God, the Creator of his mind
And body and the beauteous hills rolling out around us.
The mechanism of creation might just then lead him to the mechanic there.

FFV

I did some research on wikipedia tonight. I looked up First Families of Virginia. They had a list of family names. Interestingly, Baynham was on the list. So were Morris and Carr. Nice to be part of the group.I think that and a dollar or three, depending on where you go, will get you a cup of coffee. If you drink coffee. There was a news story about the noted, crippled theoretical physicist, Steven Hawking. After writing books about the origin of the universe. After writing about the scientific basis for the universe (based, of course, on "theoretical physics") he decided to explain that there was no scientific basis for God as the creator. The problem with this, as I see it, is that there doesn't have to be a scientific explanation for God. I always thought that the study of god was theology. Perhaps I will look to a theologian for information about God's nature and a physician for information about the physical world.

Moments Kept

There are some moments you never forget. I remember when we were visiting grandmommie and granddaddy at the farm and Frank fell into the hog wallow face first and walked up to the front door covered in that dark green-grey slop from head to toe. Grandaddy didn't recognize him. I remember walking across the fields to find cow carcasses lying at the edge of the woods. Taking home molars from the jawbone. Trolling across the hard-frozen pastures, looking for game. Quail, rabbits, whatever might flush as we breathed out the 'smoke' of late November. Following a rabbit starting away from us and watching as my dad turned and fired his 'sweet sixteen' and tearing that rabbit apart. Climbing up the wooden ladder into the loft above the stable and finding hen's eggs in crannies against the roof. Walking into the tobacco barn and smelling the remnants of the fired burley. Opening the smokehouse and smelling the hams and sausage long after they been taken down and consumed by the family. Eating bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches with homegrown tomatoes and my grandmother's own mayonnaise and a glass of iced tea in the summer. Warm, tart blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream.

Coldest Day

The snow blew in from the west
It was a grey, grey afternoon
In early December
In Northern Tennessee
An early blow
The thin funeral tent not much shelter
Thinking of Ms Jane and her thin, cotton coat
Not much comfort from the cold
We were all gathered
The whole of the congregation
Sitting on a hill above the Cumberland
And we paid the price of respect with our shivering
As the early whiteness fell:
The first snow of the season.

Driving with Cicadas

There was a lot of driving today, up to Hampton or Lovejoy and then to McDonough (pronounced Mik don a, you news heads from Atlanta). Later, I drove down to the jail/magistrate court in Forsyth. As I exited my vehicle, I noticed the eerie sound of cicadas in the trees. Afterward I discussed the advent of these noisy flying pests with Judge Davis and his clerk. I walked out of the justice center and climbed into my car. As I reached up to insert the key in the ignition, I noticed a cicada sitting on the cuff of my dress shirt, staring at me like I had trespassed on his domain. Instead of arguing his place in the world of Central Georgia, when these creatures lie dormant in the soil for thirteen years between appearances, I shook him off onto the floor. Later, when it started making his obnoxious noise, I smashed its fairly substantial body under a plastic jar I found on the floor. Afterward, I read that cicadas are delicacies in many parts of the world, particularly in Mediterrean regions such as Greece and Provence. I offered it to Cindy for her supper. She didn't take to the concept. I was puzzled by her refusal.

Decisions in the darkening world

I am lame. My left foot is betraying me. My ankles are swollen and I keep trying to walk it off without resolution. Two o'clock in the morning is a bad time to try to undertake something of even remote significance. A brighter person or at least one in control of himself would probably determine that it was in his best interest to go back to sleep. Between the stupid ads, the lawyer come-ons and the short educational programs on television at that time of night, you will be driven crazy. Even the PBS show on at this time is talking about education in Brasil. So, I should learn from media: I should go back to bed.

Daddy

He was born in the black patch
South of Christian
Walking the brown furrows, smoking a cigarette,
Row after row, Season to season, Chasing after game,
The grey barns billowing with smoke in Autumn,
On horseback, Good morning Jud, down Butch down,
On to college, riding the train down the black,
Smoky tunnel to dimness and coal dust
First class to reach the computer age:
International Business Machines
White Plains Armonk Schenectady New York
Engineers working with NASA
To help send Neil and Buzz to find Tranquility
On to Atlanta and Coca Cola and the Braves
And "Gone With the Wind" and MLK
In "a city too busy to hate"
Chasing after children and running tractors
Because he had the knowledge, the old farm boy,
To lay the slag, sweeten the soil,
Until we all looked like Eastern Kentucky coal miners
Breathing the dust, the smoke in the darkness
Until the night arrived, climbing those stairs
One last time back to the mountains, to the Chestatee
To ride the flow of my thoughts
The Summer sun reflecting on the waters,
Riding on toward the Gulf, forever.

"Atta Boy!"

Derby Day Eve

Today was filled with partially aborted endeavors. I drove down to Forsyth and found that one of my clients is free. I called his dad and got a call from my client. He wanted me to get his money from the sherrif's office. I asked him he had called the sherrif's; he said, "no." I guess his money is only important in relation to whether I can get it for him. At any rate, I drove over to the jail and signed in to see another client, only to be told that they had transported him back to detention in Upson County. That nixed a part of my trip. As I left the jail for my car, I noticed a strong ringing sound like the ringing accompanying the advent of the alien predator in a 50's science fiction movie. I couldn't figure it out.I drove over to another client's house, only to hear it again. I asked them what it was and was told that the sound was cicadas awakening after a thirteen year sleep underground. Weird. I finished up the day with several calls and a trip to the grocery and to Home Depot. Later, I ordered supper from El Toro Loco. Now we are watching tv before I get the pork and fire ready for overnight smoking. Tomorrow should be a good day. Derby Day. The eyes of the world will set on my birthplace for the day. Not every state gets such special treatment. Not every state deserves such treatment. "You take a K and an E, an NU and CKY, that spells Kentucky, but it means Paradise."

Shadows in the afternoon

It is a magnificent day, albeit, a bit cool this morning. I feel overwhelmed a bit, although most of my angst is based on an ebbing sense of depression taking me down like a heavy wave. It comes and goes. I want to shake it off and take care of business. Be an adult. It will get better, I just have to work my way through it. Working on this mess does some good. Singing at night or on Sunday mornings helps. Being with friends and family. Going out from time to time and sometimes sitting down on the patio and sipping a glass of red wine or cup of bourbon and ice and watching the shadows of evening paint depth on day. That's what I need everyday.

No fun trips tomorrow

I was quite surprised when I found out this afternoon that I will not be crying out any foreclosures tomorrow. I don't know whether that is a sign of good times or just a glitch where the federal agencies which oversee mortgage lenders bear down on the lenders. We shall see soon, I suspect. At any rate, the dark angel will sit and work at his office tomorrow. North Georgia is safe for this month, anyway. I'll have to rely on the normal brand of darkness that a lawyer can get into on a rainy Tuesday.

Jesus Christ

The gift of God's created,
A rudely constructed bridge
Over the flood of time and
The groaning of creation
Which forced a passage
Between us and our heavenly Father.