Cave Sedem!!!!!

Cave Sedem!

Beware the deadly Sitting habit,

Or, if you sit, be like the rabbit,

Who keepeth ever on the jump

By springs concealed beneath his rump.

A little ginger ‘neath the tail

Will oft for lack of brains avail;

Eschew the dull and slothful seat,

And move about with willing feet.

Man was not made to sit a-trance

And press, and press, and press his pants;

But rather, with an open mind,

To circulate among his kind.

And so my child, avoid the snare

Which lurks within a cushioned chair;

To run like hell, it has been found,

Both feet must be upon ground.

Theodore F. McManus (1800 something until he died.  )

(probably of too much exercise.)

To Sleep, Perchance

Sleeping Woman, 1890

Artist:

 Theo van Rysselberghe (1862-1926)

To Sleep, Perchance

When I rouse at night—

Mired in bedclothes,

Twisted in pajamas,

Wrestling every wrinkle—

Then I understand better

How it is to tire of the body—

To think it might be time to wake up.

To wake up and finally

Get out of bed.

 Rhonda Palmer

Our Valley by Philip Levine

We don't see the ocean, not ever, but in July and August when the worst heat seems to rise from the hard clay of this valley, you could be walking through a fig orchard when suddenly the wind cools and for a moment you get a whiff of salt, and in that moment you can almost believe something is waiting beyond the Pacheco Pass, something massive, irrational, and so powerful even the mountains that rise east of here have no word for it. You probably think I'm nuts saying the mountains have no word for ocean, but if you live here you begin to believe they know everything. They maintain that huge silence we think of as divine, a silence that grows in autumn when snow falls slowly between the pines and the wind dies to less than a whisper and you can barely catch your breath because you're thrilled and terrified. You have to remember this isn't your land. It belongs to no one, like the sea you once lived beside and thought was yours. Remember the small boats that bobbed out as the waves rode in, and the men who carved a living from it only to find themselves carved down to nothing. Now you say this is home, so go ahead, worship the mountains as they dissolve in dust, wait on the wind, catch a scent of salt, call it our life.

The Visitor

The old rebbe lay dying in his narrow bed,
face toward the sky.
High clouds became letters of light,
and thunder sounded on a distant hill.
The family changed his name then,
hoping to fool Death into looking elsewhere,
but the old man traced invisible letters with his breath.

Death came to him then,
not fooled by the name,
not concerned with tears.
Death came to see what the old man
had written in the air.
When he presented himself before the old man,
Death bowed low and respectfully.
"I saw your name in the sky,"
said Death, "and came calling on you,
as anyone would."

Flight

It never occurred to me that
getting rid of the cocoon meant
getting rid of both form AND substance.
It wasn't so bad losing my spleen, (who needs a spleen?)
or the extra kidney (key word: extra.)
But when I lost control,
and righteous indignation,
my certainty,
my youth---
I wondered if the losses were really necessary.
I wondered---
just how badly did I want those wings?

The crack in everything

How many dawns have I seen? 

There was one in Tennessee over a bridge and a lake, seen from a canoe.

Another from a fishing pier in the Yucatan: 

so many dawns with water, and scattered sunshine. 

Some with dolphins.

One spring, Don and I spent a night behind the union hall

talking about the world and our hearts 

(mine wayward, his congenitally large)

and Oceans we might see. 

The sun rose that morning with no thunder. 

I didn't kiss him and there was no movement of earth or sky,

only clouds of exhaust from a nearby highway. 

And when he died not long after (oh yes—death and the sunrise)

that morning became the essence of all mornings in this world.

Mornings we sleep through.

Missed moments. 

People we ignore on the street. 

Poems we forget to write. 

So when I stop my car on a busy interstate to watch an eastern light,

You may shake your fists or honk as you will. 

I am learning to pay attention to this very dawn.

The Gift

Every child slides wet from the womb with a hidden gift,
this sweetling handing you
the dearest of little somethings they bring
for the new parents---
A birthday gift of sorts.

They hold out their need.

They give you their ravenous,
never-ending
howling
need for everything.

Food, love, warmth, information, toenail clippers,
hair-ribbons, shoe-laces, car insurance--
They need it now.
They need it from you.

This gift is not given lightly.
Do not despise what they give you--
with their untouched fingers,
their curled up arms,
new from a nine-month stint in the cave.
They hold out your salvation.

They hold out to you the only thing
your Lord every really asked you
to give to Him.

--------------------------------------Rhonda