thoughts about Hot Air Ballooning

That's me in there. In that balloon. Floating about out there. Above that field in between the trees. It really is.

I had the chance to go last year. It was brilliant. You speed (with the right wind) inches from the ground. You dart up suddenly just before you hit a tree. You touch the tops of trees and see Lama, darting rabbits, deer, fawns, foxes. You float over people's heads and back yards and can inspect their roofs. And one time, a labrador chased us with such abandon through corn fields it seemed to me to be exactly what joy looks like.

Also, I wonder. Is this how it feels to be Balloon Bird? He really is the luckiest of all birds to be able to float about like that. If I possibly could, it's the only way I'd travel.

As you waft along in the silence you can hear the tiniest sounds below you.

One thing I never knew about hot air balloons: you can control the up and down, but you can't steer. You just have to go wherever the wind blows you.

Hmm. Sounds a bit like something wise ...

aspirational broccoli

i'd never heard of it
(have you?)
but I just got some
and ate them all up
(they were delicious)

only now I feel horrid
not because they are disagreeing with me
because of their name
"Aspirational Broccoli"

I keep wondering
what were they hoping for?
were they hoping, one day, to maybe grow up to become Broccoli?

oh dear

these poor broccoli babies
this infant broccoli
that I just murdered
and cut up
and ate

baby spinach
baby arugula
baby vegetables
why is everything suddenly baby something?

I'm not all that keen on eating babies

particularly when all day long I'm writing stories for them

writing stories all day long to entertain them
only to have them on toast?
and heartlessly gobble them up for my lunch?

(THIS JUST IN: apparently Aspirational Broccoli is just another name for Broccolini. So that's all right then.)

(Although, now I think about it, doesn't Broccolini sound more like someone's little sister... or a cousin of Fusilli ... or in some way related of the Linguines of Queens?)

full stop, period

"There is no iron that can enter the human heart with such stupefying effect, as a period placed at just the right moment."

Isaak Babel (1894-1940)

Johnny Cash's advice for writers...

In a letter Johnny Cash sent his daughter Roseanne, he urged her:
"Write. Write. Write. And don't care what anyone thinks."
— Johnny Cash (1932 - 2003)

Is there any better advice than that?

a lump in the throat

Frost said, "A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love-sickness. It is a reaching out toward expression, an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the word."

barefoot boy

Blessings on thee, little man,
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!
With thy turned-up pantaloons,
And thy merry whistles tunes;
With thy red lip, redder still
Kissed by strawberries on the hill;
With the sunshine on thy face,
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace:
From my heart I give thee joy—
I was once a barefoot boy!

O, for boyhood's painless play,
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor's rules,
Knowledge never learned of schools,

O, for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw
Me, their master, waited for.
I was rich in flowers and trees,
Humming-birds and honey bees;
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,
Mine the walnut slopes beyond,
Mine, on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides!

Cheerily, then, my little man,
Live and laugh, as boyhood can!
Though the flinty slopes be hard,
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
Every more shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the dew;
Every evening from thy feet
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat:
All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride,
Lose the freedom of the sod,
Like a colt's for work be shod,
Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,
Ere it passes, barefoot boy!

"The Barefoot Boy" by John Greenleaf Whittier.
1855. Public domain.

Coney Island signs

I love Coney Island--wonderful, old world place with huge boardwalks, old rides, sea side food and cool signs like this one. (the photo: it's a polaroid transfer.)

a nose tour

it's true (if you don't believe me or need more information or want to explore up someone's nose for yourself, click here.)