12:12:12 on 12.12.12

I drove into a pine grove the day I turned twenty, engrossed by my Corona’s odometer as it slowly rolled over.

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Passages

9 June 2021 - rbarenblat@gmail.com (Velveteen Rabbi)

This week I am reading up on cardiac catheterization. It sounds like sometimes they go in through the wrist, and sometimes at the groin. My wrists are tiny: I can't imagine that the blood vessel there is large enough to thread anything through. Then again, it's an easy place to feel my pulse. The radial artery, according to the internet. Radial makes me think of radiant. When I had the stress test with nuclear imaging, were my arteries temporarily radiant? I wonder if I could use that image in a poem. I wonder what became of the images of the inside of my body from when I had my strokes. Did the trans-esophageal echocardiogram yield still pictures, or only a live video feed? I remember being asked to count backwards, but I don't remember the procedure itself. I know there were brain scans; I remember seeing grainy images, with white blemishes in the places where the strokes left their damage. I probably have the images on a CD-ROM somewhere, though I no longer have a… [Read more...]

Out-foxed

9 June 2021 - Dave Bonta

Up, and by water to White Hall, and so to Sir H. Cholmly’s, who not being up I made a short visit to Sir W. Coventry, and he and I through the Park to White Hall, and thence I back into the Park, and there met Sir H. Cholmly, and he and I to Sir Stephen Fox’s, where we met and considered the business of the Excise, how far it is charged in reference to the payment of the Guards and Tangier. Thence he and I walked to Westminster Hall and there took a turn, it being holyday, and so back again, and I to the mercer’s, and my tailor’s about a stuff suit that I am going to make. Thence, at noon, to Hercules Pillars, and there dined all alone, and so to White Hall, some of us attended the Duke of York as usual, and so to attend the Council about the business of Hemskirke’s project of building a ship that sails two feet for one of any other ship, which the Council… [Read more...]

NEBRASKA SANDHILLS (4)

8 June 2021 - Tom

The wind makesand remakes them --the Sandhills.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

Vanishing Point

8 June 2021 - Luisa A. Igloria

At the end of the street before the turn, a glimpse of river: choppy with light, singed with coal dust. I forget sometimes whether the barges crossing look smaller or larger as you speed up. Perspective is what they call it: a way of looking at the world that's shaped by the length of time you can hold it in your gaze without faltering. [Read more...]

Tourism

8 June 2021 - Dave Bonta

Up, and to the office, where we sat, and sat all the morning. Here Lord Anglesey was with us, and in talk about the late difference between the two Houses, do tell us that he thinks the House of Lords may be in an error, at least, it is possible they may, in this matter of Skinner; and he doubts they may, and did declare his judgement in the House of Lords against their proceedings therein, he having hindered 100 originall causes being brought into their House, notwithstanding that he was put upon defending their proceedings: but that he is confident that the House of Commons are in the wrong, in the method they take to remedy an error of the Lords, for no vote of theirs can do it; but, in all like cases, the Commons have done it by petition to the King, sent up to the Lords, and by them agreed to, and so redressed, as they did in the Petition of Right. He says that he did tell them indeed, which… [Read more...]

NEBRASKA SANDHILLS (3)

7 June 2021 - Tom

All I have seen hereI am seeing new --June in the Sandhills.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

At Margaret’s House

7 June 2021 - Loren

Leslie spent a lot of time this Spring helping Margaret, so I would occasionally spend the night there, too. I’ll have to admit that I would sometimes feel a little lost without my toys and with too little to do, but when I was really feeling bored I would take my camera and go out for a walk and entertain myself. Early on I would just focus on the flowering trees in the orchard, or the beautiful azaleas that lined the road. Margaret’s house is also a good place to see birds. One day I even took my 500mm lens with a doubler but, of course, the terns that Leslie kept telling me about didn’t turn up since I had that lens with me. They did show up on a day when I had my 600mm RF lens, though, and I managed to get some distant shots of them diving into the water. When the tide was out and the sea birds had disappeared, I would wander the field in front of the house looking… [Read more...]

Memory of Brownout With Aborted EEG

7 June 2021 - Luisa A. Igloria

When our oldest daughter had seizures at around seventeen months, none of the doctors in our city could explain them: afebrile, unconnected to any fall or blunt force trauma, etc. We were advised to travel six hours to the capital to visit a leading nuerologist, who ordered an electroencephalogram on the spot. In the basement of a hospital that was a garrison during the last world war, we tried to keep our crying, struggling child calm as nurses and technicians tried to attach a network of electrodes to her sweaty scalp. Dose after dose of Benadryl and still she couldn't be still. But as they put the last wire in place, the heavy drone of machines shutting down, followed by the flicker-shut of all electricals, then the choke-cough of generators trying to come to life. Perhaps this was a sign? We gathered her up and said No more. On the long car ride back to the mountains, she fell into a sleep without a tremor, without a sigh. The thing is, until today, no one… [Read more...]

Poetry Blog Digest 2021, Week 22

7 June 2021 - Dave Bonta

A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond. Although I tend to quote my favorite bits, please do click through and read the whole posts. This week, many bloggers took an existential turn. Others aired grievances and critiques. Sometimes they converged. Enjoy. Fox barking to my right, to my left: what does it mean to be open? Risk, and patience. One bark after another, on and on they call and respond. Once home, once lost, once dead and blue at the bottom of the stair, stepped over: dream. Just a dream. The calls of foxes sound like screaming coughs, lungs gone closed and blued: I remember my dreams, even the ones I’d forget. What does it mean, “a wild patience has taken me this far,” if risk, if death? They bark and bark, echoing against June midnight, mountain. Crickets. Frogs. A whiffle of horse, a sussurus of sleep. I miss her, also gone. The new ones make sure to say my name.JJS, Almost-ghazal, vulpine and the rainfell in onelong storywe sidesteppedbetween treesi… [Read more...]

Echo location

7 June 2021 - Dave Bonta

Up, and to my office, where alone all the morning. About noon comes to me my cousin Sarah, and my aunt Livett, newly come out of Gloucestershire, good woman, and come to see me; I took them home, and made them drink, but they would not stay dinner, I being alone. But here they tell me that they hear that this day Kate Joyce was to be married to a man called Hollingshed, whom she indeed did once tell me of, and desired me to enquire after him. But, whatever she said of his being rich, I do fear, by her doing this without my advice, it is not as it ought to be; but, as she brews, let her bake. They being gone, I to dinner with Balty and his wife, who is come to town to-day from Deptford to see us, and after dinner I out and took a coach, and called Mercer, and she and I to the Duke of York’s playhouse, and there saw “The Tempest,” and between two acts, I… [Read more...]

TEN OLD MONK POEMS (18)

7 June 2021 - Tom

ROUND AND ROUNDRound and roundthe mulberry tree,the old monk says,what an awfulway to die.~IF THE SUNIf the sundoesn't come up,you don't want toget up either,the old monk said.~HOW LONGHow long can youstay still beforethey think you're dead,the old monk asked.Stay still that long.~WHAT YOU WANTWhat you want is tosilence the darkness,the old monk says.You don't want tosilence the light.~IF SOMEONE WANTS ITIf someone wants it,someone will make it,the old monk said.That's how you end upwith crap like this.~SOMETIMES YOU LEARNSometimes you learnthe most just bysitting still,the old monk said.~YOUR BODYYour body,it's just an oldpiece of meat.It's the waythe world eats you,the old monk said.~IT'S AS IFIt's as iflife's an emptybox and whenyou've filled it,that's it,the old monk said.I wish I could bemore reassuring.~WIND AND THE RAINWind and the rainare friends,the old monk said.Be friends with them.~The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

NEBRASKA SANDHILLS (2)

6 June 2021 - Tom

The windmill takesthe easy jobin the Sandhills.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

Kuchisabishii

6 June 2021 - Luisa A. Igloria

Kuchisabishii is a Japanese word whose meaning is best described as eating not from hunger but because your mouth is lonely. For instance, you've just had dinner but can't settle down with a book or crossword. Rain is falling on the roof but sleep eludes you again— tonight it's disappeared into the pantry, so you rummage among boxes of wheat crackers and tinned sardines, a bag of gummi worms left over from Halloween (your mouth is not that lonely). Perhaps it wants a cold leaf of ice from the freezer, a scoop speckled with vanilla bean. The mouth is a door to a hundred hungers, none of which you really understand anymore. One door is stress eating; another, grief eating. There are eating-after-bad-breakups scenes in the movies, and eating from a surfeit of joy. There was eating through long months of isolation: one cracked pumpkin seed at a time, and night after night soaked in hot chili oil washed down with milk. [Read more...]

Wet walker

6 June 2021 - Dave Bonta

(Lord’s day). Up, and to the office, there to do business till church time, when Mr. Shepley, newly come to town, come to see me, and we had some discourse of all matters, and particularly of my Lord Sandwich’s concernments, and here did by the by as he would seem tell me that my Lady had it in her thoughts, if she had occasion, to, borrow 100l. of me, which I did not declare any opposition to, though I doubt it will be so much lost. But, however, I will not deny my Lady, if she ask it, whatever comes of it, though it be lost; but shall be glad that it is no bigger sum. And yet it vexes me though, and the more because it brings into my head some apprehensions what trouble I may here after be brought to when my Lord comes home, if he should ask me to come into bonds with him, as I fear he will have occasions to make money, but I hope I shall have the… [Read more...]

NEBRASKA SANDHILLS (1)

5 June 2021 - Tom

Lovely tough women,the Sandhills.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

Embracing the giant grapes

5 June 2021 - rbarenblat@gmail.com (Velveteen Rabbi)

In this week's parsha, Shlach, the scouts go to peek at the Land of Promise. They return with a giant bunch of grapes, so big it needs to be carried by two men on a carrying frame. And most of them say: nah, there's no way we can conquer that land. The people who live there are giants. We felt like grasshoppers next to them, and we must have looked like grasshoppers in their eyes. We can't do this. And God gets angry, and says: because y'all don't trust in Me, or maybe because y'all don't trust in yourselves, fine, let's make it a self-fulfilling prophecy: you can't do this. This whole generation is going to die here in the wilderness, except for the two people who believed in this enterprise. They'll lead the next generation into the land of promise. You don't feel up to it? Now you can't even try. If all goes according to plan, I'm sharing these words with you from our first multi-access (a.k.a. hybrid) Shabbat service since the pandemic… [Read more...]

Foreign Exchange

5 June 2021 - Luisa A. Igloria

On a field trip that summer, we were a group of exchange scholars from 47 countries, many of us still blinking from jet lag. Yellow school buses spilled us out on the lawn in front of a marble memorial in the capital. In the drizzle, I didn't wonder about whose statues sat on pedestals and if, looking down on us, to them we might resemble a slow- moving cluster of insects from all over the world. I was more curious about the names of trees whose branches arced overhead as if inviting us to make a parade of our bodies under their wild yet formally jubilant light, but no one could tell me for sure. Later in the evening, after a picnic on the grass while John Williams conducted the orchestra onstage at Wolf Trap, the linguist from Guatemala showed us a barred owl he'd whittled with a penknife, on a twig he'd picked up in the grass. [Read more...]

Time piece

5 June 2021 - Dave Bonta

Up, and to the office, where all the morning we sat. Here I first hear that the Queene hath miscarryed of a perfect child, being gone about ten weeks, which do shew that she can conceive, though it be unfortunate that she cannot bring forth. Here we are told also that last night the Duchesse of Monmouth, dancing at her lodgings, hath sprained her thigh. Here we are told also that the House of Commons sat till five o’clock this morning, upon the business of the difference between the Lords and them, resolving to do something therein before they rise, to assert their privileges. So I at noon by water to Westminster, and there find the King hath waited in the Prince’s chamber these two hours, and the Houses are not ready for him. The Commons having sent this morning, after their long debate therein the last night, to the Lords, that they do think the only expedient left to preserve unity between the two Houses is, that they do put a stop to any… [Read more...]

IN SOME LANGUAGE (59)

4 June 2021 - Tom

In some languagethe word for bloodalso means marriage.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

Toward re-entry

4 June 2021 - rbarenblat@gmail.com (Velveteen Rabbi)

This morning I moved the box of graggers back to the storage room. They've been out of place since Purim of 2020, the last in-person program we held at my synagogue before the pandemic began. I remember our Board chair wearing blue food prep gloves behind the dessert table. I remember bottles of hand sanitizer, not yet in short supply. I remember chatting with one of my Board members whose family lives in Hong Kong. I couldn't imagine sheltering-in-place like that. I didn't think it would happen here. Within a week, the pandemic was happening here. (In truth, it already was, at Purim -- I just didn't know.) That was fifteen months ago. Tomorrow we'll hold our first hybrid (a.k.a. "multi-access") Shabbat service. We'll be outdoors, because everyone agrees that being outdoors is safer than being indoors. (Also, we are in a spectacularly beautiful place; we should take advantage of that.) We'll meet under the great spreading willow tree beside our patio, overlooking the meditation labyrinth and our beautiful new pollinator garden in three wooden… [Read more...]