7/31/08 Take The Wheel

Kris asked me if I knew the song.
Silly question. Carrie Underwood,
come on, we all know that song.

I said that I try it from time to time,
letting Jesus take the wheel.
Kris said, yeah but it never works.

7/30/08 Large Crowd

Funny that a large crowd is so often the easiest place
to sense what a very lonely world this is.

7/29/08 RNC: Anticipation

Republican
National
Convention:
A
nice
time
if you
care enough to participate in
insurrection,
protests
are too often
the only
instance that
our culture chooses to exercise
nonviolence

7/28/08 Chi Gung

Forty-five hundred years ago
people practiced the art
of inhaling good energy
and exhaling icky energy.

I wonder at what point
people stopped thinking
that was a good idea.

7/27/08 Hearing Trains

I don't think I've ever lived in a place
where I couldn't hear trains.
I could hear trains from the apartment
in Springfield.
I could hear them from both houses
in Eugene.
And here in Bismarck, of course.
I don't think I could hear any trains
in Mexico City,
but I wasn't really living there.
That was more like dying.

7/26/08 Buzzards

Nothing like twenty or thirty
huge-ass vultures
circling the sky over your house
every day.
I realize they are living on the
sandbars this time of year,
but still, each time I drive home,
I wonder who might be
slowly dying in my yard.

7/25/08 Pride and Dandy

The serene bale-dotted fields
stretching out from my camper's window
on the morning after pridefest
belied the chaos and impossible noise
that had been rattling my ribcage and
jiggling my headache all night long.
Was it remixed Britney Spears?
Was it really?

Or was it all just a crazy rainbow-tinted,
overflowing porta-potty dream?

7/24/08 Hey, Macarena

Don't mean to get snagged up with definitions
but the salsa dance party tonight made me wonder
what salsa dancing really looks like and
what salsa music really sounds like.

I wasn't going to argue with seven carloads
of hispanic people representing almost
every country in Central and South America.
Maybe it was salsa, in which case I was mistaken.

7/23/08 Harvesting Organs

Another Thursday means more Urban Harvest.
This creature has quite an appetite.
It is eating me.
I think there's still a good kidney
somewhere in there that I don't really need.
But what will I feed it next week?

7/22/08 After Graduation

Tonight Cookie wanted to know how many
grades there are and I told him 12.
He thought 12 years might be enough.

"I don't think I'm going to go to college.
I'm just going to get my driver's license instead."

Then he wanted to know exactly
how many levels of school there are.
He decided he wouldn't get his master's.

"I can't afford it anyway, right?
I'd rather spend the money on cars."

7/21/08 Birthday Blues and Greens

there is loneliness wrapped
in blue and green tissue paper

there is a sewing machine
with questionable intentions

there are quiet longings here
and so much love at a distance

7/20/08 dropping out

let's all just drop out
just walk away from all of this junk
and figure out what's really important
what's really going on
what we really have
what we really think
what we can really do
it could be beautiful

7/19/08 Watch This

For example,
you can watch a watch
all day long
and never know
what time it is.

Better not to watch
and know for sure
you don't know.

7/18/08 Bows and Eyelashes

According to cartoons
the only difference between
males and females
is that females have
eyelashes and bows.

Sometimes
when I'm not sure,
I still use that rule
to decode a person's
gender.

7/17/08 Super Computer

(colored lights blinking randomly)
beep boop beep bop
beep beep
boop bop
(small ribbon of paper snakes out of the
output slot)

The tiny scientist inside my head picks up the end
of the paper and begins to read:

"send package wedding card milk diapers oil change van registration rehearsal at six babysitter for friday charge the phone bills reserve a room do the mileage preschool sign-up helmet band-aids order checks recycling thank yous"

The tiny scientist shakes her head and lets the paper slip out of her fingers onto the floor.

7/16/08 Things I Don't Need

this jar full of coins
the rice cooker
a whole drawer full of pens and rubber bands
the furniture
my houseplants
that vase
the television
the step stool
the cat

When I imagine losing everything,
I realize that it won't be that bad.

7/15/08 The Old Fashioned Way

Campers are a simple lot.
Basking in nature.
Unplugging from the hectic world.

I myself enjoy doing things
the old fashioned way.
I just roll like that.

Like the time we had to make
the coffee in the campground bathroom
because we forgot the french press.

Primitive, I know.

7/14/08 Circle Town

The On-A-Slant village had a population
of 15,000 people before the smallpox.
There's really no good reason to refer to a settlement
that size as a village except that it was a circle town.
Circle houses placed in concentric circles
around a central circle. Circle town for circle people.

I saw the diorama.
I also saw the diorama of the fort.
That was a square town.
Square buildings enclosed by a square fence.
We may feel like we've learned a thing or two since then
but I believe that when we build our circle town
the square people will still call it a village.
And we circle people won't really care.

7/13/08 Jump in the River

Why are we not all standing with our feet in the water
like elephants on these hottest summer days?

I want to watch the trains cross the river.
I want to let the cold water take my breath away.
I want to watch the sun weave light through the clouds.
I want to hear the thunder coming and wait for it.

Why am I not standing with my feet in the water
like an elephant on this hot hot day?

7/12/08 Little Garden that Could

All the traditional garden plots are boasting
some massively oversized crops already
here in the second week of July.
And by traditional I mean Miracle Grow.

And the little organic plots like mine
look longingly over at them.
It's not just the grass that's greener,
apparently it's the corn and melons and tomatoes, too.

So I sit quietly and encouragingly, weeding
and hoping to love my plants enough
that they will grow, when what they really want
is some of that petroleum-derived deliciousness.

7/11/08 Caveman

It's like a trippy rabbit hole thing
cause it looks really little on the outside
and then you step in the door and
it just sort of expands all around you
like a cozy wood-paneled slice of heaven
with a vintage green stove and matching
icebox. Yes, I said icebox.
It's like a fridge except it's just a box.
For ice.

7/10/08 shake it don't bake it

While contemplating deeper acts of rebellion
I will just go ahead and start with this:
I will dance right here in front of the computer
and I will not cook anything for dinner.

I will continue to dance late into the night,
dancing in addition to or in spite of any needs
or requests others may have of me.

I may dance over to the mirror to watch
myself dance if feeling especially funky.
I may put on shoes to hear myself dance.

7/9/08 I Got This

I have left the wet laundry in the washer
until it got moldy three times in a row.
I washed the same clothes 4 times.

So the biodiesel bus broke down by Mary's house.
Don't look at me like that. Nope,
not gonna drive around and collect raffle tickets.

I can't keep pretending like I can do better
because what you're looking at is all I've got.
All I've got. Do you hear me?

7/8/08 Go To Sleep

I would like very much for you all to go to sleep right now,
not so much because of the restorative powers of sleep,
not so much because we have a huge day tomorrow,
but because I can't take any more, and I need to be done.

7/7/08 Let's Go

What do you want to do?
Really?
Let me buy you a shot first.
Okay, let's go.

7/6/08 Prairie Women

There is loneliness
and there is strength
in a prairie woman.

There is sacrifice and frustration, too,
I would imagine.

I believe there may also be joy
and some simple satisfaction,
although I don't know for sure.

Yet.

7/5/08 Owning the Earth

Jen points far off toward the horizon.
That's our land out to those trees.
And up to the river that way.
Not those hills.
That's where the coyotes live.
We own all this along the road
out to where that green field starts.
And another piece up past the homestead.

But off the back of the 4-wheeler
I saw some antelope,
and I'm pretty sure they
thought they owned that land, too.

7/4/08 Glaciers

The wind makes waves in the grass that look like moving water.
I pretend that the prairie is an ocean and this gravel road is the beach.

Out here you can see how the glaciers' giant hands smoothed and rippled
the solid ground, and where enormous pebbles slipped through their fingers.

My hands become giant, too, and I can smooth the hills and push them back.
I can scoop up mounds of clay and built a castle between the corn fields.

7/3/08 Estrellitas

When all the fireworks were gone
the kids chased fireflies instead.

Grandma Henry remembered loading everybody into the car
and driving down to the river late at night to watch them.

In Spanish they are called luciernagas,
but in Cacalote they called them estrellitas.

Little stars.
Grandma Henry said the river looked just like Las Vegas.

7/2/08 Daily Yell

Oh, it's not a day until I yell at somebody about something.
Some people need coffee or a jog,
some people need a shower.
There are even people that have to eat a meal.
Every day.
I don't need any of those things.
I just need to lose my temper and yell.
At anybody.
So it's best not to make eye contact if you can help it.
You're in bear country now.
Might want to put a doorknob
on that trash can.

7/1/08 Push Lawnmower

My push lawnmower may not be as time efficient as your mower.
But at least you can't hear it from 3 blocks away.
Like yours.

My push lawnmower may not trim all the grass the same length.
But at least it doesn't pollute the air.
Like yours.

My push lawnmower might make me do all the work,
sweating and heaving over and over the same spot.
But at least no one is living in an oil war zone, or dying there,
so that I can have a pretty lawn.