I Eat Impossible for Breakfast

Double rainbow, Mauzac, France 2007

I eat impossible for breakfast

There’s nothing I can’t do

If only my mind I put to the task

Of believing it’s possible, when of me my spirit asks,

             “If you are alive on this Earth count one, two, three!

             Breathe deep, again and again — it’s free!”

The air holds the answer just wait and see.

Where once there was molten lava and ash

             Curdling, burbling

In space did it dash

Round in orbits elliptical

Till seasons appeared quite cyclical.

             The day from the night emerged sure and strong

And earth from the waters along and along.

Small creatures microbial

And algae quite jovial

Simmered until there was oxygen stew.

Along came the plants, the fishes and Pterodactyls

Saber-Tooths, Mammoths,

Then man, woman, child with fire and other practicals.

The oxygen moved from stew to sea

To land and air across the centuries to you and to me.

So the O₂ that’s here once lived before

Perhaps in the nose of a dinosaur.

Across the millennia, mountains and desert

Ice age and new age, from castle, igloo and yurt

In the wind, oxygen whirls to animals and plants

It even invades the holes in your pants.

So as impossible as forever may seem

If you but breathe deep of the air

You’ll be on the same team

As the sun and the stars and the moon by night

The tadpoles and polecats and butterflies in flight

You’ll cross eons of history ancient and old

Inhale the courage of heroes and heroines goodly and bold.

So breathe, breathe and breathe again

You’ll find nothing impossible for women and men

And children too

Because the possible is right there in the oxygen stew. 

                                                                ~ 1/20/2014

Chinon Story

Chinon: marché

M. Roland’s pale cheeks flushed ruddy from the cold rain pelting his face in the breeze as he stood beneath his flower tent in Jeanne d’Arc square. The scent of mint, radish leaves and squash combined with the diesel exhaust of a chugging camionnette and the nerolis and rose perfume from a woman of Italian extraction, gracefully picking her way over the cobblestones back to her stand. There, her cousin stood guard over her merchandise—flowing tunics, hand-sewn blouses, skirts, and Capris—gently swaying in the same breeze that pelted rain on M. Roland’s face.

Roland’s eyes followed her with a surreptitious sidelong glance from under his thick lashes as his mouth puckered in greeting to the grey-haired M. Bruno and his wife Elise slightly leaning upon each other against the breeze, the diesel fumes and the ardors of doing the morning shopping. Aches and pains pulsed through their limbs producing winces that went imperceptible beneath their matching felt hats–his a Fedora, hers more of a cloche–set firm against the rain.

M. Bruno chortled his greeting “Bon, ben, Salut Roland!” as though a stiff puff of air escaped through bellows across his tired larynx forcing out the syllables with a staccato rhythm that jolted M. Roland from his reverie. Mme Bruno’s eyes, tinged grey, reflected a puddle on the pavement, her blue-green cataracts formed misting clouds across her irises, making her sway back and forth against her husband. She gazed down with a slight smile nestled deep in her soft wrinkles that met a small reddish brown mole on the edge of a dimple. Once alluring, it now sported a defiant black hair.

M. Roland’s Italian flower floated across the square between the stalls of lettuce, fennel and zucchini. The cold, dark spring had delayed the tomatoes this year and the aubergines were just the length of the zucchini—miniature imitations of their full-grown selves. Bernadette only visited Roland when the tomatoes were ripe and the eggplants sat heavy in the hand and sprang back when touched, leaving no fingerprints.

She wore a pale pink scarf loosely draped around her neck that set off her rich olive complexion; her dark curls framed her face and flashing brown eyes as she joked with her cousin whose overalls sagged and billowed over his white T-shirt in the spluttering rain as he repaired one of the support poles of the tent sheltering her swaying clothes. She made a point of not looking at Roland, but could feel his sidelong glance caress her cheek from across the square as she wondered when the tomatoes would ripen.

~*~

 

Lying around on a snowy evening

Kurt Vonnegut and Pumpkin.

                                               

         Because It’s All Material

My intestines went on holiday. Food passes through them in a tsunami carrying leftover debris. It’s a microbial cleanse. I should be happy. Eupeptics pay health spas major bucks for this experience. Otherwise, I’m in fine fettle. The sun shines. The dog romps. Optimism reigns as long as I don’t venture too far from the loo.

The etymology of looky-loos, those with a prurient interest in purgations; specifically, the private lives of others — the demographic of the memoir market. Let purgations lie. That’s what I always say. Lying and damn lying purgations.

Maybe purgatory is just a WC for what your soul doesn’t need.

                                                                                                                                   ~ 01/27/2014