Friday, November 18, 2005
Falling snow. 15-XI-05
Stopped, paused in your walk, listening for the sounds that can't be heard.
Incline your face upward in the silent darkness
to meet the snowflakes arriving
gently
Count them as they reach your face.
Look up, into the void, into the disappearing light
the swirling thousands upon thousands,
Without a breeze to help them find their way.
A touch
One on that cheek, then on the nose, the lip, the other cheek, the eyelash.
Count them as their creation ends.
They touch your waiting face.
Stopped, paused in your walk, listening for the sounds that can't be heard.
Incline your face upward in the silent darkness
to meet the snowflakes arriving
gently
Count them as they reach your face.
Look up, into the void, into the disappearing light
the swirling thousands upon thousands,
Without a breeze to help them find their way.
A touch
One on that cheek, then on the nose, the lip, the other cheek, the eyelash.
Count them as their creation ends.
They touch your waiting face.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Here's what akshully happened to the best of my recollection. Hell, it must have been 65 yrs ago, so maybe my memory is a bit fuzzy.
My mom says, 'don't EVER let me catch you doing that again.!!!!' (Probably playing with it.)
So, I kept doing whatever it was, but got careful she didn't catch me.
My mom says, 'don't EVER let me catch you doing that again.!!!!' (Probably playing with it.)
So, I kept doing whatever it was, but got careful she didn't catch me.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Air Supply, Organ assistant 16-IV-05
It's Sunday morning in Greenville, RI, and on this pleasant spring day of 1945 we're attending worship service at St.Thomas Episcopal church, corner of Smith Avenue and Putnam Pike. Some of the tall, stained-glass windows are tilted open to better enjoy this fine day .
As they sing the hymns, the congregation will be accompanied with music from an old-style pipe organ down front. The organ's voice is air-powered like our own, but in this case air is provided by a bellows inside the organ. The bellows is pumped with a large, flat, wooden handle, shiny from the hands of many years. Pumping resembles the way we operated the waterpump in barnyards of that day.
One member of today's congregation is a very happy twelve-year-old boy. He is stationed to the organist's left, where her brother would ordinarily sit, to operate the handle that furnishes air. Today the organist's brother is unavailable and although there will be no pay, our substitute is glowing with happiness because he has snared the job he has coveted for some time, despite the Commandment warning against coveting.
The young man will operate the bellows when he receives a signal from the organist, air will flow, and music can begin.
The stained-glass window on their immediate left has been tilted out from the bottom, providing ventilation while permitting our air technician to see outdoors and across the lawn and Smith Avenue, into the yard opposite the church where some children are playing close to their house.
Our organ-support man has become absorbed in watching them play. As he watches, one of boys works loose a brick from the lintel of the ground-level window of the house; perhaps half a brick. Two events then occur both at the same moment--- the boy across the street turns and brings the missle forcefully against his small sister's forehead, while in church the organist signals urgently that the need for air has arrived. After a brief but anxious delay, the music and the service resumed.
Although that particular Sunday had been a happy one for our young adventurer, he never received another request to serve as organist assistant. After the war, the church replaced the air-operated organ with an electric model, thus removing that job from the roster forever. But even today, the mind harks back to that poor little girl & her bump, to remind us of the meaning of the Biblical term 'smote'.
It's Sunday morning in Greenville, RI, and on this pleasant spring day of 1945 we're attending worship service at St.Thomas Episcopal church, corner of Smith Avenue and Putnam Pike. Some of the tall, stained-glass windows are tilted open to better enjoy this fine day .
As they sing the hymns, the congregation will be accompanied with music from an old-style pipe organ down front. The organ's voice is air-powered like our own, but in this case air is provided by a bellows inside the organ. The bellows is pumped with a large, flat, wooden handle, shiny from the hands of many years. Pumping resembles the way we operated the waterpump in barnyards of that day.
One member of today's congregation is a very happy twelve-year-old boy. He is stationed to the organist's left, where her brother would ordinarily sit, to operate the handle that furnishes air. Today the organist's brother is unavailable and although there will be no pay, our substitute is glowing with happiness because he has snared the job he has coveted for some time, despite the Commandment warning against coveting.
The young man will operate the bellows when he receives a signal from the organist, air will flow, and music can begin.
The stained-glass window on their immediate left has been tilted out from the bottom, providing ventilation while permitting our air technician to see outdoors and across the lawn and Smith Avenue, into the yard opposite the church where some children are playing close to their house.
Our organ-support man has become absorbed in watching them play. As he watches, one of boys works loose a brick from the lintel of the ground-level window of the house; perhaps half a brick. Two events then occur both at the same moment--- the boy across the street turns and brings the missle forcefully against his small sister's forehead, while in church the organist signals urgently that the need for air has arrived. After a brief but anxious delay, the music and the service resumed.
Although that particular Sunday had been a happy one for our young adventurer, he never received another request to serve as organist assistant. After the war, the church replaced the air-operated organ with an electric model, thus removing that job from the roster forever. But even today, the mind harks back to that poor little girl & her bump, to remind us of the meaning of the Biblical term 'smote'.
