unwanted poems

Billy Collins accompanies me on my trips to the mirador these days.


The view up there is exactly the place to write poetry.  Quiet.  Stunning view.  High and lifted up.  Nature on the wing.


If not to write poetry, then to read it.  And that is why Billy Collins comes along with me in my Kindle.  I have been reading his most recent collection of poems (Ballistics) over the past few months.  A poem at a time as it should be read.


My hands have not yet lost the muscle memory of holding a 1000 page biography.  When books that size are reduced to the size of a Kindle, I feel vaguely cheated of an old endeavor.  The medium does not seem to match the subject.


But the Kindle is perfect as a poetry reader.  It is about the same size as a book of poetry.  And its screen serves up the bits of concentrated thought that is poetry in easily-digested pieces.


Whenever I read Collins, I almost immediately sit down and start writing poems.  Admittedly, they are too Collinsesque to be anything more than derivative.  I could call them compliments, but they verge on theft in the noon day sun.


I get tempted every now and then to publish one or two here.  But I know better.  Poetry is death in blogs.  And I am not certain why.


Well, I know why for most poems.  Because they are painfully bad.  The best amateurs tend to write poems that would make a 13-year old girl’s diary sound insightful.


But there is something more.  Even the good poetry – the stuff of eternal values concerning the human condition that helps us see our own lives in a new light – sends most of us running for cover.


A lot of that reaction can be placed at the feet of high school teachers who sucked the joy out of literature and made it a task.


I was lucky to have an English teacher, Mrs. Metz, who loved word play and humor, and gleefully directed us to each little Shakespearean pun or Ogden Nash joke – teaching us first fun, and then leading us to the great wonders that could be ours simply by opening Milton or Frost or even that old humbug Whiman.


My poems are not good enough to share.  But from time to time, I run across something that strikes a chord with me.


Billy Collins once pointed out poems (or literature in general) is all about one topic: death.  Even when the poet is celebrating life itself.


I thought about that when I read “New Year’s Day” – a perfect example of how poetry can lightly lead us into the ultimate experience of our corporeal lives.  I was originally going to provide excerpts.  But it is a whole -- and deserves to be read that way.

 

New Year’s Day

Everyone has two birthdays
according to the English essayist Charles Lamb,
the day you were born and New Year’s Day—


a droll observation to mull over
as I wait for the tea water to boil in a kitchen
that is being transformed by the morning light
into one of those brilliant rooms of Matisse.


“No one ever regarded the First of January
with indifference,” writes Lamb,
for unlike Groundhog Day or the feast of the Annunciation,


New Year’s marks nothing but the pure passage of time,
I realized, as I lowered a tin diving bell
of tea leaves into a little ocean of roiling water.


I like to regard my own birthday
as the joyous anniversary of my existence,
probably because I was, and remain
to this day in late December, an only child.


And as an only child—
a tea-sipping, toast-nibbling only child
in a bright, colorful room—
I would welcome an extra birthday,
one more opportunity to stop what we are doing
for a moment and celebrate my presence here on earth.


And would it not also be a small consolation
to us all for having to face a death-day, too,
an X drawn through a number
in a square on some kitchen calendar of the future,


the day when each of us is thrown off the train of time
by a burly, heartless conductor
as it roars through the months and years,


party hats, candles, confetti, and horoscopes
billowing up in the turbulent storm of its wake.

cleaning up

My town is getting a trash lift.


The last few days, my neighbors have been grabbing trash bags and patrolling the streets in gaggles.  The goal?  To pick up the type of stuff that accumulates in the streets, and gives the place a less-than-German look.


Like most things in Mexico, when large groups are involved, the task is fun.  The cleanup includes school kids in uniforms, men and women in service club shirts, and just plain neighbors.


And the laguna is not left out.  Someone has hired a backhoe to come in and scoop out the tangle of vegetation and human trash that has accumulated over – who knows, how long?


The result is evident on the street.  Pile after pile of vegetation and trash is piled on the frontage road.  But it is a small down payment on what needs to be done.  The backhoe has physical limitations.  The bucket can only reach so far.

But just like the other volunteers, some people who live along the laguna have created their own clearance teams.  The photograph at the top of this post shows the result of their work.  They have used two kayaks to pull out even more vegetation than the backhoe.


The day I was there, I would have given the green award to the guy in the front of this kayak.  He was grabbing water hyacinth as soon as it came within his grasp.  I suspect it was almost as good as a piñata to him.

And for those of you who are wondering -- yes, this is the same body of water that harbors the crocodiles that hang out in my back yard.

many happy returns

Well, at least two happy returns on Friday.


The first was rain.  That which must fall into every life.  The adage wears a pejorative costume.  But that is not always so.


Most of us in Mexico welcome the return of the rain.  Not because it washes memories from the sidewalk of life.  Unless you are Woody Allen.  But because it settles the dust and the temperatures.


Ours arrived on Friday with a bit of a whimper.


Hurricane Adrian is off our coast kicking up a bit of fuss for the maritime set and adding some thrills for the local beach boys who like their waves to verge on limb-mangling.  Usually, hurricanes spawn at least a few thunder claps and lightening bolts.  But today – nada. 


What we got were periodic showers.  Enough to give some relief to what was a sleepless night.  But not much more than that.


But we did get what we get with almost every rain – no matter whether large or small.  A power outage.  For several hours.


Because I could not do any work on the computer, I decided to try to catch a quick nap.  That didn’t work.  No fan.


However, we did have a few hours of relief from our summer heat and humidity.  I should show my calendar to the weather god – if I could find him.  It is still spring.  We should not be having this weather until late July or so.


But my other happy return was my truck -- as you can see above.  I stopped by the mechanic around 3 on Friday.  He told me on Thursday a replacement window would be on its way from Manzanillo.  When I stopped, the window had arrived, but it was the wrong one.  He now needed to get one from Colima.


That was not a problem.  I was pleased that everything was still chugging along.  Then he told me it should arrive in Melaque later that afternoon.  I was dubious.


To kill some time, I drove over to a hardware store to purchase a tarp to cover a stack of bricks the church will use to build a new palapa later in the year.  When I drove past the shop (no later than an hour had passed), the mechanic waved me over.  He was just opening the shippping box that included my new window.


So, I left the truck there and walked the three blocks home.  He said it would be done in an hour. I gave him two.  When I returned, my truck was ready.


And the cost?  He said the cost of the window was $3,000 (Mx) – about $250 (US).  His labor cost was $100 (Mx) – $8.34 (US).


Now, I suspect my mechanic does what every mechanic does – tries to minimize the appearance of his labor cost by shifting a bit to the parts side of the equation.  But there was not much room here to do a lot of shifting.  I know that auto pats (including glass) are more expensive than up north.


Needless to say, I was pleased that I did not need to leave any appendages behind to redeem my truck.  And there are still six windows that have not yet been broken.


I would say a pretty good days of returns.

pirates in the shops

My friend, Al F., mailed me an article from The Washington Post he thought I would find interesting.  The headline -- "Mexican drug cartels muscle in on lucrative movie and music piracy business."


Now, that is not news for those of us who have been talking about the drug lord involvement in copying and selling DVDs and CDs.  The Economist has been running similar warnings for the past three years.


But this story was a bit different.  The Mexican police conducted a raid on the largest counterfeit DVD and CD operation they have yet encountered.  They walked away with 12 tons of movie discs.  They also confiscated 1000 DVD burners.


Anyone who has visited a local market in Mexico -- or walked along the streets of any major Mexican city -- knows how common pirated movies and music are.  They are almost everywhere.  And they cost next to nothing -- compared to legal copies.


And almost everyone is now aware that the vast majority of the contraband copies are made by the drug operations and the profits go back to drug bosses to help finance illegal drug sales.  They are brazen enough to stamp some of the copies with a stallion or a butterfly -- depending on which drug operation is involved.


They are also master marketers.  I walked through Melaque on Wednesday and saw a copy of the current Pirates of the Caribbean in the flea market and a copy of Water for Elephants in a souvenir shop.  Both films are still in the theaters in Mexico.  Both are of uncertain parentage.


The pirating has become so bad that legitimate distributors have generally stopped trying to sell legal copies in Latin America.  What is the point?  It is Gresham's Law in cinematic clothing.


I really do not have a moral horse to ride on this issue.  If people want to buy from drug lords, I have no objection -- just as long as they are willing to answer the underlying moral issues.


And one of those issues is this.  If they are willing to put dollars in a drug lord's pocket for a bit of entertainment, would they also be willing to support the legalization of drugs in The States and Canada?  Perhaps putting that rebellion to a good purpose that could help reduce the number of drug deaths on both sides of the border.


Just asking.


Note:  If you would like a darkly amusing take on the drug wars, take a look at The Interview.

dropping the giant

There are days when everything is practically perfect – including me.


Then there are days like today.


Our nights have been getting warmer and more humid as the summer sets in.  That makes sleeping a bit challenging – especially for an aging former Oregonian who considers the proper sleeping weather to be about 50 (degrees, not years).


For whatever reason, I could not sleep past 5 this morning.  So, I got up and started my day.  Just as I was getting my morning reading done, I felt tired.  Real tired.


When you are retired, there are no voices that nag if you fall asleep you are going to waste the best part of the day.  Frankly, I think sleeping is a grand way to properly spend that currency.  And I did.  For five more hours.


That did not seem to be a bad start for the day.  But my computer did not agree.  I have my entire computer support system (you do not want to know how many wires that is) plugged into a very small gauge extension cord.  Well, let’s say, I had it plugged into that extension cord.


When I originally sat up the system in its current location, I knew the cord could not handle the electrical load.  It was temporary.  And it has remained that way for eight months.  Until today.


I was talking with a friend on Skype and knew something was not right.  Just as my voice faded on his end, I saw what was wrong.  Wisps of smoke and sparks were coming from the extension connection.  I caught it just in time before the rest of the system was affected.


I drove around town looking for a thicker extension cord.  None are to be  found.  At the moment, I have everything in another “temporary” set-up.


While I was drafting a series of blogs (on an entirely different topic), I heard my front gate bell.  It was my neighbor – the owner of La Rana.  I invited him in.  But it was obvious he was not there to bring tidings of great joy.


To cut to the point – I lost another window in the truck while it was parked on the street.  This time, the rather complicated rear window.


But the culprits were not thieves.  It was a little boy with a rock.  A David who mistook my Escape for Goliath.


All of the neighbors were there fully expecting, I suspect, to see an angry truck owner.  The boy was in tears.  (Having been a boy, I know that penitence is the best defense -- and tears are worth, at least, an additional 10 points.)


I looked at the window and told his mother I would get it replaced.  She wants me to hold her son responsible.  The scene ended in him hugging me.


The cost is far more than an 8-year old can absorb.  And, for me, it is simply foregoing – well, probably nothing.  It will be repaired, and just like the other repaired window, I will give it no further thought.


But I will talk with the boy when the window is repaired.  I am going to forgive him, but I want him to learn that kindness needs to now move beyond me to him.  It will be his duty to share the same grace with those he encounters.


So, it was not a bad day, after all.

things that go bump in the night

Tuesday night was a bad night for predators.

No crocodiles.  No ants.  Only a few termites. 


Hubris lulled me into the Canutean fallacy -- that I really could control the tide of nature.

That, of course, is usually when nature decides to have her way with us.  As I walked through the back yard toward the house, I noticed an eight-legged shape on the screen door.  And a large shape, at that.

"`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if spider or devil! -"  Thinking for a moment that a bit of Poe might lift the mood. 


It didn't.  The shape merely perched on the screen -- not even bothering with a "Nevermore."  Nor did I expect it.

But a bit of light cleared up any sense of dread.

 

It was a crab.  A land crab.

The season is upon us, and I barely noticed.  But it will soon be hard to ignore.

There will be land crabs on and under the car.  In the bathroom.  In the bedroom.  And certainly all over the yard.  Their scuttle in the night will soon sound like legions of cockroaches.

They are quite harmless -- even though they put on an air of fortitude with their Jack Dempsey fighting stances. 


Unless you step on them with your bare feet.  Their cracked shells are sharp and nasty.  And when they die, they stink.  Fortunately, nature's little sanitary squads clean them up quickly.

But, here it is.  My first robin of the crab summer.

There will be many more happy returns.

prickly dessert

I just looked back at my last few posts.  A casual reader would assume I am a food obsessive.  And a quick look at my girth might confirm the assumption.


I’m not.  Or, I don’t think I am.  I am merely starting to get back into a normal meal rhythm.


For the past year, I have not been cooking for myself on a regular basis.  Eating, yes.  Cooking, no.


The six months I was in Oregon, I ate almost every meal either at the company cafeteria or in a restaurant.  When I returned to Mexico, I kept up the same habit.  I ate at least two meals a day at local places to help keep the tourist economy rolling.


But when I returned from my cruise, I discovered I would need to change my eating plans.  Most of the places where I ate are either closed until next November or have reduced their days of operation.  And thus my hunt for ham and cherries and other bits of exotica to spruce up my own cooking.


Some of that exotica is close to home.  At home, in fact.


There are several fruit trees in my back yard.  Limes.  Bananas.  Mandarin oranges.  Sour oranges.  Fruits I have known most of my life.


But there is one that I have been waiting for almost a year to taste.  A guanábana.  One of Mexico's gifts to the rest of the tropical world. 


It is an odd tree.  Spindly with huge fruit.  As if Twiggy had elected to sport a Mae West look.


During the past month, I have watched two guanábana fruits weigh down a single limb – almost to the breaking point.  Yesterday, the largest was on the ground.  In a single day, it had gone from unripe hard to as soft as a full diaper.


I broke it in half and gave a portion to my land lady.  Inside is a white pulp filled with an incredibly fragrant nectar (somewhere between apple and banana – think Juicy Fruit gum).


I pulled out the pulp of my portion and stored it in the refrigerator.  I grab a piece now and then.  It is simply too taste-explosive to eat a lot at a time.  But it is now one of my favorites.


The other large guanábana fruit is now under a daily food watch.