Tag Archives: stone

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Many stripes

Yesterday I hiked Echo Canyon in the Colorado National Monument. The first part is a shared hike, with the Devil’s Kitchen Trail, No Thoroughfare Canyon Trail and Old Gordon Trail. Old Gordon and Echo split off and then they split.

I did not start hiking until ten yesterday and it was already heating up. Echo Canyon is partly shady, once I am in the canyon. The rocks are gorgeous and there is a plethora of stripes. How beautiful!

At the head of the canyon and all through it, you can see where water carves. It would be amazing to see this waterfall, but since there are flood bits in the tops of trees, it is probably way too dangerous.

There is a pool at the base now and there was a small stream above ground in part of the canyon and a swampy bit.

And am I seeing faces?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: plethora.

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Yes, but no cigar

The photograph is from one of my hikes in Palisade in the last few weeks. The rocks are gorgeous.

The title is from an old joke.

I climbed at the gym again yesterday after work. I really like the immediacy of the walls. I do not like the auto-belays. The ones at this gym let you down pretty quickly. I climbed up one wall and then down. I tried the easiest boulder route for the second time and made it! I am a bit stiff this morning but not too bad.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: cigar.

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Favorite

I used to have a favorite agate, chalcedony nodule
found on the beaches here, during Covid. Surprising me.
I did not expect anything and only long to find something
to sustain me, just a little. I find a stone shaped heart, agate hard
and not clear. Not chalcedony, murky with impurities.
Yet the stone sustains me and I keep walking.
Even when I see that the impurities are on the outside too.
Camouflage, refusing to be washed clean, refusing change.

That one is lost, back in its’ native mud and sand. Someday
it may be polished clear, but it shrinks as it is tossed
among the other stones. It is running out of time and surface area.
It may not be heart shaped any more. My favorite now is clear,
a rich red with tiny streamers of darker red inside. I carry it with me,
I carry it in my heart. It is more nearly shaped like a heart,
a real heart, then the conventional one that is lost.

Be warned, then, that that one may be on the beaches here.
Or it could be that it has already been picked up
and taken, the finder hoping to wash it clean and see
the clear beauty as the light shines through.
Transparency is rare. I walk a mile of beach to find even one
clear stone. Don’t be fooled by that one: the dirt is embedded.
I won’t say never, but the chances of transparency and love
shrinks as it is worn away by the restless tides
and crashing against all the other rocks.

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Love tale

An older couple comes to me in clinic. She is losing her memory, they explain. They are looking for a doctor who will respect her wishes. Once she goes in the nursing home, no intervention. No antibiotics, no shots, no iv, no hospital.

Yes, I say.

It is about a year before she goes in to the nursing home. I do my regular visits.

After a number of years I happen to meet her husband in the hall. “She is talking about her twenties.” he says. “She lived in an apartment and ran errands for her uncles. I am hearing all sorts of stories I never heard! I go home and type them and send them to the family.”

“That is wonderful,” I say. He visits daily.

I go on to her room. She says, “That man comes to see me. He says he’s my husband. I don’t remember, but he is such a nice man!” I think she falls in love with him again daily. He visits and is where she is in her memory.

Some time later the nursing home calls me. “She has a fever of 101 and has not eaten for two days.” I go visit and call her husband. “Should I do anything?”

“No! She’d kill me!”

“Ok. She might die.”

“I know.”

She doesn’t die. The fever comes down and she gets out of bed and is thirsty.

There is a year between my years at the hospital and setting up my private clinic. We send out postcards, trying not to send them to anyone who has died.

Her husband comes to the clinic opening. “She died last year,” he says.

“I am so sorry! We tried not to send postcards if people had died!”

“It’s ok,” he says, “I wanted to come and thank you.”

He dies about a year after she does. I hope they are together again.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: true love.

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Control

If control is the goal
this is not love.
If I listen to others
yet don’t share myself,
this is not love.
If you hoard information about others,
this is not love.
If I reject people I can’t control,
this is not love.

If you have to be the smartest,
this is not love.
If I have to know the most,
this is not love.
If you keep everything secret,
this is not love.
If I share nothing with others,
this is not love.

Is it fear that keeps me from loving?
Is it anger that keeps you from loving?
Is it hate that keeps me from loving?
What keeps us from loving?

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Deleting spam

I still think of you occasionally
when I pay the bills, I think of you
when I clean the catbox, I think of you
when I clear the spam, I think of you
it’s the Get’a’super-sized’rod’ ones
that make me think of you and laugh
I want to send them to you every time
I still think of you occasionally
Get’a’super-sized’rod’ and poo and bills

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stone

stone shaped heart
refuse to love me
refuse to let me in

I don’t try to change you
I am here to change me
not you

not to bury or change or rewrite my past
but to unearth past feelings
to examine them without prejudice or fear

to hold them with love and care
so that they don’t inform the present
so that my feelings are now and not mixed with past

I listen to what you say
I am here with you to learn
what are you saying to me?

you say you are always truthful
but you break laws
you smoke some stuff, legal now

you say you do not speed
sometimes you do not speed
sometimes you do

you say you never watch series
when I suggest a series
now you tell me you are watching a series

you say you never try to hurt me
mostly you never try to hurt me
except when you do

you say you never lie
you seem to believe what you say
I don’t

I try to pay attention to what I say
I try not to say never
I try not to lie to myself

I watch you and wonder
what lies do I tell over and over
to myself and others?

_______________________

Written 6/22/22