lightning reaches back
from Missouri —
above me, stars
Month: June 2009
Fiction: Wishing Well
Skunk Borster hadn’t heard his right name in so long it was no wonder he didn’t remember it. His own mother had practically renamed the boy – “You little skunk!” “You skunk! Get out of there!” “Skunk! Don’t think I don’t know who did that!” – when he was only four years old. Most folk in the area didn’t know it wasn’t his birth name and wouldn’t have cared had they been told.
Skunk fit him like a glove and it had pleased him for forty-seven years to live down to it.
The Depression and the War had both been over for some years, but tell that to the hills. There was still no industry in these parts and the miracles of the post-war boom steered studiously away.
As most people did, Skunk Borster tended his own little garden to help keep body and soul together. Sure, he ate the vegetables, but by and large it served as bait for small meaty creatures such as raccoons. This way, Skunk didn’t even have to go hunting; the prey came within twenty feet of his back door.
He had also made a study of getting money out of other people with little or no labor on his part. He was a wonderfully charming fellow, until one made his closer acquaintance. He could get anyone to trust him once, and maybe even twice.
haiku 66
before summer
two fireflies
light the yard
Preamble for the Copy Editor
We the copy editors of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union of words, establish grammatical justice, ensure linguistic tranquility, provide for the comma defense, promote the gerund’s welfare, and secure the blessings of our First Amendment liberty to ourselves and our prose poetry, do order and endorse our stylebooks for whatever organizations still value us.
Tornado watches and warnings
There are a couple of weather terms that too many people confuse. Let’s take a little time* to set the record straight.
TORNADO WATCH: This means conditions are favorable for the development of tornadoes (as NOAA** puts it). The atmosphere is acting in ways that tend to produce tornadoes. Not a single one has been seen yet.
TORNADO WARNING: This means one of two things: 1) National Weather Service radar has detected rotation in a severe thunderstorm that has either produced a tornado or could at any moment, or 2) someone has seen a tornado and reported it.
When a tornado watch is announced, that’s the time to begin preparing for the worst. Know where you would go, quickly, for shelter if a warning were to be given. Listen to NOAA weather radio or your local news outlets or Internet sources for further updates (again, borrowing directly from NOAA’s own language). Keep an eye on the skies and an ear on the weather radio. Be aware.
When a tornado warning is announced, go immediately to your shelter. Do not pass Go, do not collect your favorite things other than the kids and pets.
Tornado watch means, “Hey, keep watch; there could be a tornado today.”
Tornado warning means, “Holy Mother of God! Here comes one now!”
This is a case when confusing the terms could lead to injury or death. Remember the difference so you can act accordingly.
* I wonder if anyone has ever made a tornado watch; i.e., a timepiece with a tornado motif. Could be extremely popular among the chaser crowd. I claim 10% of the profits.
** NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This federal agency operates the National Weather Service.
Haiku on 42nd St.
Richard Hunt of Clerisy Press found catsignal one day and in the spirit of sharing haiku most graciously sent me a copy of Haiku on 42nd St. You can read about this little book and how it came to be at Clerisy’s site. But I will tell you this: it’s wonderful.
The photography and the colors pop from the pages. After absorbing the haiku themselves, it was (and still is) fun to go back and examine each photo carefully, looking at all the shapes and designs. I was pleased to recognize two or three of the haiku from other collections, and those I didn’t recognize gave me more poets to watch for.
Treat yourself to your own copy of Haiku on 42nd St. today.
And thank you again, Richard.
Fiction: Tag
The handsome young man nervously smoothed his silk tie again. He stood outside the 52nd-floor office of an international trading company, peeking through the door’s small window and waiting until his quarry was in position.
Then he opened the door and strode in quietly. The receptionist barely had time to look up before the man crept behind Gundersen, who was in a conversation with the company president. The intruder smacked Gunderson’s back, firmly but not to hurt.
“Tag! You’re it!” the young man shouted before fleeing the office.
It took Gundersen a moment to extricate himself from his boss, his coffee mug, and the office to chase after his assailant. “I’ll get you!” he yelled down the corridor. “You can’t escape!”
Indeed, there was the young man, standing before a closed elevator door. He was prying the door open.
“No!” Gundersen yelled. “You won’t get away from me!”
The other man summoned every erg of energy he possessed into the muscles of his arms and forced the doors open. He flung himself into the dark, dirty abyss and his laugh echoed down after him. Forty-six floors later, it abruptly stopped.
“Damn you!” Gunderson shrieked. “Damn you!” His howls of outrage now filled the tall space the laughter had vacated.
The young man, William Snyder Craftt IV, left behind a burgeoning law practice and his grief-stricken mother and father, who could not possibly have known that their son was one of a handful of endlessly reincarnated souls who had played tag through the ages and preferred dying and being reborn to being “it.”
But then, children are often unthinkingly cruel to their parents.
Adopt-a-Shelter-Cat Month
Nobody tells me anything. Here it is just over halfway through June when I learn it’s Adopt-a-Shelter-Cat Month. Having had some wonderful pets, both canine and feline, who came from shelters, I urge you, if you’re looking for a companion animal, to head to your local shelter. Give a needy cat (or dog) a forever home.
Petfinder and icanhascheezburger.com have teamed up to promote this important month. Visit both sites!
haiku 65
forecast fulfilled –
southern skies fill
with storms
Fiction: Living on the Air
Lorraine didn’t believe in astrology. Nor did she, as so many people do, open a book, point to a sentence and use that as a guide for the day. Further, she had no truck with runes or tarot or any other fortune-telling schemes.
She had something much better than all those petty and discredited oracles.
On Monday morning, Lorraine bopped the alarm clock and sat up in bed. As always, she felt the sense of the day’s mystery both surrounding and permeating her. She got out of bed, made it carefully, and went in to shower.
After drying her hair, she poured her usual bowl of bran flakes and made two pieces of toast with elderberry jam, which reminded her of her father. Just before eating, she reached into a drawer. Inside were a little transistor radio, a pair of scissors, and fifty-four unopened packages of AA batteries, two to a package. She drew out the radio, the scissors, and a package of batteries. She cut open the package of batteries and opened the radio’s battery compartment. After placing the scissors back in the drawer Lorraine put the batteries in the radio.