Camouflage?

May 27, 2008 / J. Thorp / 9 Comments

On my commute this morning, I was contemplating herons, and why they fly with their necks folded to a tight S, when cranes stretch long like geese. Any ideas?

I passed a dark pond backed with greening trees and was blessed to watched an egret descend on the water, uncoiling its long neck, heron-style, as dipped its feet lightly in the water. And I thought to myself, Startlingly white! To what end?*

And then occurred to me:

to fish, the egret
is a white cloud in blue skies
over green water

In fairness, it didn’t occur to me in 5-7-5 haiku format, although I do utter phrases of exactly 17 syllables more often that you might reasonably expect or attribute to chance.**

Anyway, it was more like this: an image of a fish from the egret’s viewpoint: bulbous eyes gazing skyward … Aha!

* * * * *

*The Jim-in-my-head talks exactly like this. Be thankful you don’t have to hear him all the time, like I do.

**And this is a prime example of a “poem” that is really just a somewhat interesting sentence with odd line breaks, right, Jinglebob?

Like Cats and Dogs

May 18, 2008 / J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Blogger’s Note: Old Boomer spent much of this morning asleep on the fresh-cut grass as I mowed. He doesn’t look for trouble — never has, really, but once when Jodi and I lived in South Dakota, he snapped his dog-chain in a successful bid to kill a stray orange tom cat that liked to hang out in our driveway and stare at him. He’s never cared for cats — but his killer instinct is reserved, it seems, for those felines he actually sees. And when you’re partly blind and mostly asleep, that’s a pretty small number … but even in his younger days, he generally missed them.

the cat
i saw her earlier,
before supper,
westbound through the clover.
boomer was asleep, I think,
or too busy parading about,
bone in his jaws,
to notice
the cat, slate and white
and obvious on the grass—
she crossed over and
vanished in the weeds,
hunting gophers.

and again at sundown,
a ripple in the stems—
she reappears,
slips narrowly
between the high grass
and cement foundation,
close to the house.
boomer lies,
great and soft and
keeping watch,
the wrong direction,
from the porch.

she stops abruptly, yellow
eyes trained upon the dog—
natural adversary, and
a terrier to boot.
he’s killed, she’s sure—
birds, yes, and more recently
a ground squirrel.
once, an orange tom.
she proceeds,
slinks wide of the stoop,
silent and unseen,
save by me.

and later,
the airedale tosses skyward
a bloodied gopher;
cocks his great head
at its unlucky stripes and
wonders how it died.

J. Thorp
08 June 01

Tuesday Evening Stream of Consciousness (or, Chilly Versus Chili …)

May 14, 2008 / J. Thorp / 1 Comment

Been kind of a cool, wet spring. Don’t get me wrong: I like the cool weather. I much prefer the coldest days of winter to the hottest days of summer. But it’s mid-May now. Time for sunshine and leafing and stuff.

* * * * *

I enjoyed some edible warmth today in the form of the best Thai noodle dish, Drunkard’s Noodles from True Thai in Minneapolis. A friend and colleague who spends her vacations in Thailand volunteering at an orphanage calls True Thai the real deal. I don’t know about that, but I promise you that pain has never tasted better! Noodles, chicken, basil, onions, and plenty of dried chilis, seeds and all. Wow.

* * * * *

A dear friend of mine who is actually a Minnesota native is my weather opposite. She lives for the hottest, most humid days of the year, when the air’s too thick and wet to breathe and you break a sweat sleeping. Kind of a tropical flower. Why she stays in the great white North, I’m not sure. But I’m grateful.

She loves the heat, and she plays the cello, and one day I got to thinking:

cello as chile
arms al fresco
slick with inspiration
she plucks and slices
the summer sun abundant
thick air ripe with possibility
her cello the fruit
resounding red
her bow a horsehair knife

j. thorp
10 june 04

It’s not the right time of year, perhaps, but her birthday was Sunday, and she likes Thai, too. So there. Belated happy birthday, my friend.

* * * * *

Jodi went to visit another dear friend in Colorado a couple weeks back, and brought me home a surprise: a cookbook called The Red Chili Bible. Looks like great recipes. Another reason for warm weather: the chilis need sunshine!