College Apartment/The Coming of Autumn/She Moves Through the Fair

The Golden Window

The manner in which one is wakened each morning has a tremendous impact on the way that the day proceeds. Too many of us, unfortunately, are awakened by the obnoxious buzz of an alarm clock or the overbearing tones of a clock-radio. As a result, our days reflect these annoyances. Instead of revealing the smiles that we all keep veiled we snarl and stare and approach life as one whose very existence is an inconvenience to nature. Yet, life does not have to be this way.


I am a great connoisseur of slumber. I rarely have trouble sleeping and make the most out of each opportunity to do so. Yet, Thoreau reminds me that “It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet.” As usual, he is correct. Given the stark settings of the city and its bothersome noises I tend to shut myself up in my abode and sleep until the latest possible hour. But in the country where nature provides the apparatus for waking, there is a different tale to be told.
This morning I lay nestled in my bed, swaddled in comfortable quilts and resting with great peace. I awoke with joy like few people have the opportunity to do. This was my gift from September. The breeze that caressed me as I slumbered told me a story that few people can narrate. Nature is changing. She is coming!
Now, I know that in my pseudo-mystical nature-child rambling I have completely lost you. “She” is the one. Earlier today I would have said that she was my (and many others’) mistress. But, after deeper contemplation that simply would not be befitting. In fact, it is potentially blasphemous. “She” is more than mere words can relate: a muse, a mentor, a lover, a provider. She is the enigma of inspiration, motivation, admiration and adoration.
She is fall. She is coming.





Nature does not tell lies. I have sworn by this and have been called idiotic on several occasions for saying it. The morning breeze today brought the song of a new season from afar. It foretold of change, and beauty, and long-awaited promise. This breeze was tinged with the spirit of ripening apples, of curling chimney smoke, of shaking corn husks and of the song of flights of geese. Likely many of you were up much earlier than I was this morning and did not discern any of these qualities. Nature may not lie to you, but she does dabble in the art of subtlety. Sure, it is 95 degrees now and the sun still beams with an inescapable intensity. Regardless, the wind continues to whip and the secrets of autumn hang like awaiting birds over the crop ready for harvest.





Besides the wind, what else foretells the coming fall? Why, my demeanor, of course! Had I not been rousted by the rejuvenating gale this morn I would like many others stomp and demean the very ground that I walked upon. Summer to me is like a family relative that while not disliked, must be tolerated with some difficulty. No longer! Let them be gone on to greener pastures! My domain is now my own.

Bend the Bow: An Archer's Paean

This is an older poem that I thought need resurrected. I wrote it in October of 2009 and thought that with the approach of archery season it would be appreciated.





An Archer's Paean

Timber, slender and elegant---
Refined by man's reverent hands!
How I love to see thee flex under steely grey skies!

Wood-grain---
A thousand stories in one piece of maple!
How thy arc moves my soul!

Sinew, resonating and alive---
Make this stave reverberate once more!
How thy sweet twang sings to my ears!

Feathers, barred and crisp---
An eager bird perched upon the shaft!
How thou guidest my wishes!

Vision, sharp and true---
My very existence focused on one point!
How the weary world leaves my mind!

Arms, brawn and might---
Bend the form to my design!
How thou drawest the world into perspective!

Impact, distinct and remarkable---
Fulfill the purpose of my endeavor!
How thou gladden my heart!

Quarry, sacred and divine---
God has given thee to me!
How thy death brings life!

In archery, all of life and death is witnessed.
Breath for breath, hunter and game entwine!

On Summer & Flyfishing

The Oklahoma summer is a broiler searing all life. I am not hot; I am denatured. Is it truly worth going outside? The rational mind says no, but there is an oasis that beckons. A farm pond breaks the monotonous landscape and parts the crackling sea of dried grass.

Willows! They are my summer friends. They know what others do not, that when Hyperion rises high in the noon hour that there is still refuge to be sought. I step into the mossy shallows and fry scatter like olive missiles seeking a distant shore. My ankles sink into the oozing grime and I am instantly refreshed. Mind you, not in the manner of a frosted glass of lemonade; I am refreshed because I have found a place of comfort and of (arguable) productivity even during nature’s harshest tantrum.

With straw hat atop my head and bamboo rod in hand I smirk at what I must look like; an absurd westerner’s attempt to recreate a Vietnamese farmer tramping through a rice paddy. I am after fish, not grain, so once I commit fully and venture waste deep in my wilderness spa I begin to whip and weave my rod through the air and miraculously my fly falls perfectly. It skitters and dances as I bring in line—a hapless grasshopper frantically treading water. Then, with the stealth of a prowling leopard, an iridescent sunfish flies from the underwater jungle of a weed-bed, calls my bluff, and mauls my fly in a violent splash. Of course in my listless contemplation I am taken completely unaware by this occurrence and heave my rod, knee-jerk style. My yellow popper whizzes by my head, missing by the smallest of margins. I see the perch fly back into the jungle in a flash of gold, orange and yellow. The leopard has shown the “Great White Hunter” who is the true predator.

Pumpkinseed Sunfish
http://www.dictionaryoffish.com/freshwater_fish_directory.htm

Undeterred I once again wave my rod towards the cover and I don’t even have time to blink—the panfish is incensed and swallows my fly whole. This time I manage to arc my rod correctly and feel the surge of the fish on the line. I forget the heat. I forget my allergies. I forget where I am. All that I know is that I am locked with something powerful beyond reason. This tiny fish, ounce for ounce, is unfathomably determined. I manage to bring him to bear without capsizing myself (quite a feat) and behold him in the August sun. What a trophy! The sheen and color of a sunfish outshines any bird of paradise. I gently lower him back into the depths and he parts company hastily. I continue my antics until dusk. Somehow, despite it all, I have found my own small paradise.

If you want to try your hand at panfishing, this is one of the most productive patterns ever. I think I paid .35 cents a piece for mine (I bought them in bulk).



[Picture from D's Flies http://www.dsflies.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=66]

The Most Hated Demographic

I am a white, Republican, straight, Christian male who lives in rural Oklahoma. Now that I’ve got that out, I’d like to tell the few of you who remain (countless others have fled away in fear, no doubt) that I am not the embodiment of evil. Really, I don’t jest. I know what you are thinking, and no, this is not some cunning plot for me to take your land and forcefully convert you to my religion.

The assumption these days is that if you are like me you are practically born with a silver spoon in your mouth and that your success is practically guaranteed by the structure of our society. What is more, common knowledge would have you believe that such an individual as myself is wholly incapable of understanding what your life is like. This is especially true if you happen to be a homosexual, feminist or an ethnic minority. You and I (again, according to common knowledge) are as alien to each other as conceivably possible. I’m sure that you’ve been told that if you sit next to be in a coffee shop the sheer vastness of my own sense of superiority and self-worth would instantly combust you into flames.

That is a complete and total load of horse crap.

I know that you don’t think so, but hear me out. First of all, I would like you to consider the innumerable experiences that every person has in their life—there are millions upon millions of personal interactions that each of us experience. How then, are you able to account for all of my experiences and know with certitude that I have not had at least a minor experience that is similar to those that define you or define the difficulties that you face in your life path? The simple answer is that you can’t. To do so would be to act in the greatest measure of egotism and arrogance. We cannot account for all of each of our peers’ experience no more than we can trace the life of a drop of water. Now, certainly each of us may or may not have an experience with racism or sexual discrimination, but each and every person has an experience somewhere in the hazy depths of their memory where they were wronged because of a personal trait, be it physical or ideological. The gist of these experiences is the same.

We have forgotten the true meaning of the word equality. Equality once was a concept of level-footing and equal opportunity. Equality now is a perverse rendering of this concept. Instead of focusing on equal opportunity and fair chances we are geared towards equal results. That is not the same thing. In fact, by pursuing equal results we corrupt our purpose to the point that we have in our efforts created the very thing that we sought to forego, inequality. This concept is one that is extremely controversial and I have no delusions that I will convince you of what I am advocating. Nonetheless, I would like to demonstrate this concept to you with an example. Equal opportunity would be me running a marathon and starting at the line with everyone else at the beginning of the race. Equal results would necessitate that I (a large, slow, clumsy oaf) should begin the marathon 100 yards from the finish line. Now, I wouldn’t want to do this for numerous reasons (the least of which is that I hate running). Firstly, I would be altogether denying real competitors their deserved victory. These individuals would have been the people who lived to run, who practiced daily and who had the will and determination to win. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t do this for any reason. In the end, pursuing equal results in our society is the same thing. Let us, instead pursue equal opportunity.

White men in our age are far too often portrayed as Rhodes dominating Africa, or as the sneering, greedy industrialist who seeks only his own gain. This is by no means the truth. Humanity is shared experience. We all have experiences that we can share to find a common ground. That is how progress is made. I recently revisited Ayn Rand’s writing on racism and found myself nodding in agreement as I read. You may or may not view Ayn Rand with any love, but I would highly suggest that you read her thoughts on the subject. The overall theme of Rand’s view can be summarized thusly: “Racism claims that the content of a man's mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man's convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical forces beyond his control” (http://freedomkeys.com/ar-racism.htm). Rand also contends that racism is a form of collectivism. In essence collectivism assesses human worth, value, and bases societal actions around the group. The problem is that such a group is composed of individuals. It is the individual, not the group that we must examine and assess in our daily ventures. If we accept Rand’s concept of racism as a form of collectivism it is apparent that by assigning the white, male, Christian, and heterosexual demographic a specific personality (or set of beliefs) then we ourselves are guilty of racism. Even though I am a member of the demographic I am wildly different than my peers. I love poetry, sing to myself all the time, quite enjoy musicals, and really don’t find sports that interesting. How well does that fit into the schemata of the white, male, Christian, heterosexual? It doesn’t. That is because such schematas are inherently flawed. If you take anything away from reading this, let it be the following:

WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS
NO ONE IS EXACTLY LIKE US
OUR VALUE IS DETERMINED BY WHAT WE DO

Now that I have spoken my peace I would like to say that you are welcome to disagree with me, and I still would like to sit down and have a cup of coffee with you.

Song of the Whippoorwill

A poem of nature and folklore---of me, really!



As I lay fighting the descent of sleep,
A voice, like soothing waters begins to weep.
A dapple grey with mottled wing,
Nature’s own lullaby so sweetly sings
The lament of summer and lofty things,
Like time.

Echoes from my country home,
What spirit roams these woods
And brings to me this enchanting psalm,
Which June alone provides?
I roust and wake and seek her song,
In dew and darkness dwell,
What can this fowl of holler and crick,
mean to raise the frail?

A well worn path I trod and search,
My prying eyes can’t find
This soulful and beguiling bird
Whom flies o’er hill and dale.
Come forth to me,
O Guard of Night,
Whom nature’s secrets keep!
What in thy voice,
Thy riveting tune,
Doth wake me from the deep?

I wouldst not cage thee,
For my own gain,
But suffice to behold thy grace.
Why dost thy fly from oak to pine
The nocturn air to taste?

From on high,
A flittering glance,
A leaf cast by the wind---
Or twas some angel passing by
In haste, abrupt, descend?
Not leaf nor seraph,
But holy fowl,
alights on yonder post,
I kneel to it to hear its plight,
How Will gave up the Ghost.

It speaks to me,
From ages past,
A sage beyond the years:
“Thou shouldst not rise,
with haggard eyes,
in dusk I come to call--
let all men know,
that moons may wane and cities fall,
but nature has no fears".

To really appreciate this poem you have to listen to a Whippoorwill for a bit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXnnfg1CepE

How beautiful!

Everything I Ever Wanted (Or Is It?)

Satisfaction.

Tires that don’t go flat.
A boss that doesn’t have bad moods.
A dog that doesn’t chew things.

Yeah right.

Why do we seek it when we know it will never be?
Like addicts---always grasping for more.
Never shall we be satiated.

Given Frankincense, Gold and Myrrh
I ask for salt.

Why isn’t there salt?

That’s all I really wanted.

Then I get salt.

What, no pepper?
See how it goes?

And worse---
I am cognizant of this flaw,
Yet fail to correct it.

I am told that God completes a person,
Fills the gaps.
Yet, there are many gaps to be filled.
I am a dam made of Swiss cheese.

See the waters rush through me?

I plug one hole,
And rupture ten others.

Desire.
The great crippler of man.
An old friend he is.

When will our wants cease?