Tag: Musings

With yellow bursting in the grass

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

“Those yellow flowers, what do you call them? They are so beautiful.”

“We call them weeds.”

The Frenchman cannot understand our reaction to dandelions.

Still, a sparrow carefully picks at the puffs bit by bit for breakfast.

A jerk here, tug there, then swallowing. And flies away.

~*~

Summer Full Out:

Kat smoking her new pipe

~*~

Nosmo:

Our four-legged asshole
an input-output equation
hops on our bed
tears at the carpet
leaps nearly three feet at eleven weeks
stinks terribly
goes after moths
when we call, he comes
“He’s really a dog”
“He’s really a pest”

 

Bodies of water attract us, naturally

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Walking along rivers, lakes, and ocean shores seems to have healing powers for the soul. Just consider.

  1. “If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” — Loren Eiseley
  2. “Rivers run through our history and folklore, and link us as a people. They nourish and refresh us and provide a home for dazzling varieties of fish and wildlife and trees and plants of every sort. We are a nation rich in rivers.” — Charles Kuralt
  3. “To put your hands in a river is to feel the chords that bind the earth together.” — Barry Lopez
  4. “The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.” — Zhuangzi
  5. “Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.” — Herman Hesse
  6. “I’m an old-fashioned guy… I want to be an old man with a beer belly sitting on a porch, looking at a lake or something.” — Johnny Depp
  7. “When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
  8. “There’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away.” — Sarah Kay
  9. “Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.” — Zora Neale Hurston
  10. “Despite the ferocity of the current, a river is always moving but it’s always in the same place. And much like a river, while we should surge forward with great ferocity, our principles should never move.” — Craig D. Lounsbrough

 

Bear-hunting in mythology, not so far back

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The Hunter is typically a male, an image of strength and tribe. In this case, Truckers.

Citizens’ Band radio, take a totem, new name for self:

  • Wildcat
  • Canadian Redhead
  • Blue Marlin (a Chevy van)
  • Kentucky Kid
  • The Illinois Playboy
  • Bluebeard
  • Old Dutchman
  • Bumblebee

with a talking stick / in your hand, in the air / at the wheel of an 18 / yes, eighteen-wheeler

Sometimes talking four-wheeler, too:

“Four-wheeler, she’s clear”

that is, not a Bear

“Ya got ears”

“Keep an eyeball out for”

~*~

Time check
Road check

~*~

“At 205, Eight-O
westbound Bear flipping around”

~*~

“Green stamps” are dollar bills
(reflecting store promotion trading stamps
of the time)
hence, “on the green stamps”
means turnpike tolls
perhaps bridges, too

~*~

“Was you in Harrisburg Pee A last night?
I was a-talkin’ to you”

~*~

In Gilligan’s Island, meaning Ohio
during Governor Gilligan’s term

“The Bears got seventy-five dollars out of me,
lost you,” meaning fine paid

A rig is reported doing “a roly-poly,” that can’t be good.

The signoff of departing or divergent interchanges:

  • “Have a good trip”
    “Don’t feed no Bears”
    “Catch you all later”

Wonder where they all are now.

Here’s looking at glass

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

You know, we usually take it for granted.

Here are some thoughts. Or should I say reflections?

  1. Usually you look through it, unless it’s dirty. You know, a pane of glass.
  2. I don’t know about you, but I find washing windows to be a pain.
  3. It can also be something you drink from. Or a quantity. (“I’ll take a glass of milk, please.”)
  4. Or something to boost your vision. (“Now where are my glasses?”)
  5. It can have very sharp edges, sometimes used in tools or instruments.
  6. Traditionally, it’s made from silicon dioxide (SO2), a common constituent of sand and coming from quartz flakes. Because of the high temperatures required to work with pure silica, most glass is made with additives that lower the required heating levels and allow for different varieties of glass, soda-lime being the most common. Borosilicate gives Pyrex, and lead glass being the most brilliant and having a lower melting point.
  7. Contrary to a widespread thought, it is not a solid liquid but rather an amorphous (non-crystalline) solid, allowing it transparency. In addition, it’s chemically inert, which is why it’s so wonderful for bottles and jars.
  8. Fiberglass is stronger than many metals by weight, non-magnetic, non-conductive, can be molded into complex shapes, and is generally chemically inert. Its applications include aircraft, boats, automobiles, bathtubs and enclosures, hot tubs, swimming pools, septic tanks, water tanks, roofing, pipes, cladding, surfboards, and orthopedic casts. It could easily be a Tendrils of its own.
  9. Spun glass is probably best known as insulation, while its use as fiber-optics cable is touted as superior to traditional copper wiring.
  10. The oldest known glass objects are beads, perhaps originating as an accidental byproduct of metalworking or lead glazes for pottery.

Technological advances in glassmaking could furnish a Tendril on its own, but let’s not overlook the fact that one of the most recent gives us the tough glass that’s on the screen of the laptop or smart phone where you’re likely reading this.

 

Dreams of publishing poetry bigtime

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In the Far East there is a vital, well-read proletariat literature – speaking for a people.

Here, we have intellectuals playing games. Along with populist idiots.

Still, how much of the Far West book scene I knew revolved around poetry-conscious, well-stocked bookstores that were also patrons to readings, broadsides, and small private volumes.

Suppose, now, a poetry journal allied with a bookstore where its authors’ books could be purchased …

This was pre-Internet, which has opened new opportunities, or before I knew of radical publisher and bookseller Giles Calvert and his Black Spread Eagle on Ludgate Hill near St. Paul Cathedral in London, the voice of many early Quaker tracts and volumes.

 

There was an old farmer who lived in Maine

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Actually, there are a lot of them. A recent Census of Agriculture found that of Maine’s 13,053 farmers, half are over the age of 57½. Not only that, but there are more farmers over 75 than under 35. Do we see a shortage coming soon?

Now, for ten more tidbits.

  1. Four-fifths of the farms are family owned-and-operated. Corporations account for less than a tenth, 677 farms, while another 474 are partnerships.
  2. A bit over two-fifths of the respondents said farming is their primary occupation. The majority of the farmers rely on other jobs or other income.
  3. Women farmers comprise 43 percent of the workforce, 5,638.
  4. As the Census observed, “Male producers had higher rates of involvement in land use and/or crop, livestock, and marketing decisions than female producers. Female producers were most involved in day-to-day, record keeping and financial management decisions.”
  5. USDA-certified organic farms = 412.
  6. Black farmers: 132 operating 2,238 acres.
  7. New and beginning producers = 4,681.
  8. Renewable energy-producing systems in use = 907 farms.
  9. The state leads the nation in wild blueberry production and ranks second for maple syrup, but potatoes lead the way as the largest crop. Other leading agricultural products potatoes, milk and other dairy products, chicken eggs, and floriculture.
  10. Of special interest to Washington County, where I live, was the Maine harvest of 24,735 acres of blueberries on 703 farms in 2022, an increase from 20,473 acres five years earlier.

 

Step by step somewhere into the wild

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Walking unrushed, meaning outdoors, in fresh air, releases something within me: I feel freer. When I begin, I’m like a slightly out-of-tune violin. I enter the woods full of thoughts, problems. The office is still with me, along with many worries. The wind may scurry up leaves, and I jump and then freeze, startled that I may have scared up a large animal of some sort. Or perhaps it’s be a twisting item that resembles a snake. Sometimes the sun stings my eyes. I adjust, from one system of time and timing to another.

As I fall into a rhythm, my mind clears. Poems begin.

In the hills or mountains or along the water, the world is always fresh: sunlight on branches or water.

 

On hits and misses as a writer

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Here are ten more confessions on being a published author.

  1. “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” – Mark Twain
  2. “Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.” ― Stephen King
  3. “Style means the right word. The rest matters little.” – Jules Renard
  4. “My aim in constructing sentences is to make the sentence utterly easy to understand, writing what I call transparent prose. I’ve failed dreadfully if you have to read a sentence twice to figure out what I meant.” – Ken Follett
  5. “I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent, he would be wise to develop a thick hide.” – Harper Lee
  6. “One of [the things you learn as you get older] is, you really need less … My model for this is late Beethoven. He moves so strangely and quite suddenly sometimes from place to place in his music, in the late quartets. He knows where he’s going and he just doesn’t want to waste all that time getting there … One is aware of this as one gets older. You can’t waste time.” – Ursula K. Le Guin
  7. “Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil – but there is no way around them.” – Isaac Asimov
  8. “Was I bitter? Absolutely. Hurt? You bet your sweet ass I was hurt. Who doesn’t feel a part of their heart break at rejection. You ask yourself every question you can think of, what, why, how come, and then your sadness turns to anger. That’s my favorite part. It drives me, feeds me, and makes one hell of a story.” – Jennifer Salaiz
  9. “I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.” – Sylvia Plath
  10. “I used to save all my rejection slips because I told myself, one day I’m going to autograph these and auction them. And then I lost the box.” – James Lee Burke