L'aura del Campo

Summer: 12 Asma (August 31)

Amazing what can be done with the letter 'd'!

TREASURE OF THE DAY

dining on pain and dreams of tomorrow
delving in shame and droplets of sorrow
drifts of sadness, silence, fatigue
dancing in shadows, secrets, intrique

from: "Destiny? Doom!!!"   [ASR] by Rebecca Laffar-Smith


2005-08-31
late afternoon, 89 degrees. 89 in Lake Placid, FL.

The difference between here and Florida? The heat index is 92 here, 99 there. I don't do well with the mix of heat and humidity. One or the other, not both.

I've decided to spend less time at WDC to read more and write more. If I concentrate when I'm on-line, I should still be able to get a lot done.

2005-08-31
mid-afternoon, 89 degrees. 66 degrees in Quebec City, QC.

Katrina has left WNY with a sprinkle for some and a bit of a flood for others. No word on my cousin Barbara in Mississippi. She went from her wood house to her daughter's brick house in a reenactment of "The Three Little Pigs". She'll be okay, but her sister Betty in Salamanca, New York worries. There they needed the rain. Been very dry. They got some, but not much. My mother reports local flooding in Buffalo. Clay soils that used to be swamps do that. Quebec City is now feeling the effects of Katrina. Barometer was 29.41 and falling. It's rising in Montreal.

Lake New Orleans sure would look prettier if it weren't for all the flotsam and jetsam in it. It needs a cleaning out. It may not be polictically correct, but Nature is natural and these disasters are human made by the choices we humans make.

My condolences go to the survivors. Few are talking about the trauma that will linger for years. Letting go of a loved one because you can't hold on any longer? Watching your husband die due to lack of air? No way that anyone can tell me that folks ain't hurting. Deep in the heart, beyond any reasoning of it.

The community of poets could assuage some of the pain by giving it a poetic voice. The more the better, as there are thousands of stories to be told and a zillion perspectives.

Prof. Klayder gave me an extra copy of dear old Norton yesterday. Now she didn't say I had to read it. But I'm not stupid! At least not every day (That's someone else I know whose brain is giving the hampster in it a vacation. No one's home.)

So today, I started reading:

William Stafford.
         Because he writes of the heartland and rural communities. He has a positive attitude.

June Jordan.
         Thinking of Tsigeyu in Tahlequah. Strong urban voice of the underclass. May make me read
         Whitman at last.

Gwendolyn Brooks.
         One of my poems reminded the prof of her and Langston Hughes. I consider that a
         compliment indeed.

When I'm done with all 1,700 pages of Norton-baby, I should throw a party. I don't approve of burning books or a bonfire would be appropo. I'll have to average 20 pages a day to be done by December.

OVERHEARD

"No, it's a mystery. They'll make a movie out of it some day," Rick Holleran, in response to the question "Have you solved the assassination yet?" Rick was reading "All the President's Men".

SENSED YESTERDAY:

Licked by a puppy; beetles; sweet and sour chicken.