bright lights shining dots broken beams flashing dark shapes school bus crossing kids
With the time change I am driving to work in the dark again, watch the sky turn pink over the Atlantic Ocean.
Made my next to last turn into the darkness with bright lights shinning into my eyes.
There bits or red lights flashing around the halos or brighter white lights and all the lights were interrupted as dark shapes crossed in front.
It was a school bus crossing with kids crossing the street from the right to left and walking in front of the school bus.
The school had its headlights on as well as the flashing yellow caution lights as well as the red stop lights that required that I stop as the kids crossed.
Big kids, little kids and littler kids with moms holding hands.
strive to learn before we die what we are running from, and to, and why
The Shore and the Sea
A single excited lemming started the exodus, crying, “Fire!” and running toward the sea. He may have seen the sunrise through the trees, or waked from a fiery nightmare, or struck his head against a stone, producing stars. Whatever it was, he ran and ran, and as he ran he was joined by others, a mother lemming and her young, a night watch lemming on his way home to bed, and assorted revelers and early risers.
“The world is coming to an end!” they shouted, and as the hurrying hundreds turned into thousands, the reasons for their headlong flight increased by leaps and bounds and hops and skips and jumps.
“The devil has come in a red chariot!” cried an elderly male. “The sun is his torch! The world is on fire!”
“*Tt’s a pleasure jaunt,” squeaked an elderly female.
“A what?” she was asked.
“A treasure hunt!” cried a wild-eyed male who had been up all night. “Full many a gem of purest ray serene the dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.”
“It’s a bear!” shouted his daughter. “Go it!”
And there were those among the fleeing thousands who shouted “Goats!” and “Ghosts!” until there were almost as many different alarms as there were fugitives.
One male lemming who had lived alone for many years refused to be drawn into the stampede that swept past his cave like a flood. He saw no flames in the forest, and no devil, or bear, or goat, or ghost. He had long ago decided, since he was a serious scholar, that the caves of ocean bear no gems, but only soggy glub and great gobs of mucky gump. And so he watched the other lemmings leap into the sea and disappear beneath the waves, some crying ‘““We are saved!” and some crying “We are lost!” The scholarly lemming shook his head sorrowfully, tore up what he had written through the years about his species, and started his studies all over again.
MORAL: All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.
As published in Further Fables for Our Time by James Thurber (Hamish Hamilton Ltd, London, 1956).
staring at stoplights looking through the windshield of car in front of me …
Driving to work in the dark again after the time change.
I found myself stopped at a stoplight and looking at the stoplights through the windshield of the car in front of.
The windshield of the car in front me neatly framed the four, no, five lights counting the left turn lane, that pointed in my direction from straight ahead.
The glass in the windshield made the lights into little starbursts for green when the color changed and the cars started to move.
I live in podunk little town and I drive to a resort town on a barrier island on the Atlantic Ocean.
As I stared at the stoplights, looking through the windshield of the car in front of me I had to wonder.
Four, no, five lanes counting the left turn lane for all the traffic coming on to the island.
Five lanes of traffic.
Five lanes of paved road.
In one direction.
There are five going the other way as well.
Ten lanes of traffic connecting podunk with a dead end barrier island.
It wasn’t so much that there were that many people who drove that many cars that so many lanes were needed but that we all had to be on the island at the same time.
But that’s okay.
We all leave at 5 o’clock too.
And we will need all these lanes to get off the island.
Trying to make sense of this world and I cannot even understand my commute.
In the marathon race of life, I am expected to finish my race even though the folks who won this race finished long ago.
The light was green and I drove through the light, under the green starbursts and on to another day at work.
OBSERVATION If I don’t drive around the park, I’m pretty sure to make my mark. If I’m in bed each night by ten, I may get back my looks again, If I abstain from fun and such, I’ll probably amount to much, But I shall stay the way I am, Because I do not give a damn”
Excerpt From Enough Rope Dorothy Parker This material may be protected by copyright.
“FIRST VINTAGE CLASSICS EDITION, JANUARY 2022 Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.
songs that greet sunrise rain, twilight – Here I am – sing what and where they are
Sunrise on Hilton Head Island …
Not how many different birds I’ve seen but how many have seen me, letting the event go unremarked except for the quietest sense of malevolence, dead quiet, then restarting their lives after fear, not with song, which is reserved for lovers, but the harsh and quizzical chatter with which we all get by: but if she or he passes by and the need is felt we hear the music that transcends all fear, and sometimes the simpler songs that greet sunrise, rain or twilight. Here I am. They sing what and where they are.
Geo-Bestiary, #34 as published in Jim Harrison: Complete Poems by Jim Harrison, Copper Canyon Press, 2021.
