L'aura del Campo

Maple blossom time. Creating disability.

Morning: maple blossom time

No colors rim his world today
the grey of mist of fog
resists the sun's display
and frogs that scrambled up the bank
jump in again.
The black lab looks their way.
It's morning
and the mist resists dull echoes
from the call of passing cars.
The stars have gone to bed,
a place he'd rather be.
Above his head the maple blossoms
shed red casings of their flowers
and it's Spring again,
arriving each day earlier
not with the sun but with the fog,
the frogs, the mist, the crimson tips
of maple blossoms.

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L'aura del campo

Spring: 5 Bahá 164 (25 March) 79º.

'é a lua, é a lua, na quintana dos mortos'
♣ Federico García Lorca ♣

Creating Disabilities

As a society we create disabilities when we put barriers in front of capable people.

In the field of writing this can be as simple as not allowing a writer to teach based on a lack of academic credentials. Or dismissing a poet because they are not from the right religious, political or ethno-linguistic background. When there are alternatives, some barriers are merely inconveniences and can hone our strengths.

Social barriers based on traditional racial, gender and religious prejudices are well documented and for the most part illegal in U.S. society. Obvious disabilities such as blindness and loss-of-limb are understood as such, but unseen disabilities based on mental and emotional disfunction or unacceptable social categories such as homosexuality do not elicit the same sympathy and little empathy.

Otherwise able people (all disabled people have abilities) are then confronted with barriers to jobs, housing and the hard-to-define pursuit of happiness. Some are faced with shunning and lost of all relationships. If they do not have an inner or outer sanctum they die.

And these disabilities are created by a society that claims compassion and then limits it to those they approve of.

This is just a first attempt to express how we can manufacture disabilities in the same way we create disease (need to work on that analogy). I'll need to expand upon this paragraph and rethink it of course and give specific examples. But my experience in this town has taught me that there are many well-meaning people who in attempting to help people, create new barriers and turn ability into disability.

WRITING

When I can't write serious, I write silly ... so that's what I've done.

I'm also working on a bluesy piece.

Recent blog poems now reviewable/ratable: "The moon is blue ice" , "Song of an Age" , "Plain cover jacket" , "In search of Iris" , "Crow feathers" , "Like water for chocolate," , "Love-lies-bleeding" , and "Spear" .

Me, my friends and my family

Called mom, aunt Dot, my friend Carol in Grand Island.

I walked through South Park and even took photos of the magnolia. Warm, but now I'm sleepy.

K.U. lost the game, so no need to worry about them winning the national basketball championship! My brother-in-law called as he said he would. He was a bit down from the Sabres' loss, but they are still on top of the NHL.

Daily Scripture

O YE RICH ONES ON EARTH! The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My trust, and be not intent only on your own ease.

— Bahá’u’lláh

from Hidden Words of Bahá'u'lláh, Persian #54, link: http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/HW/

WATT'S GNU!

Well, they are looking for that dang ivory-billed woodpecker again. Wonder if galinago has been called upon to join the search. Deep swampy woods sounds like his after dinner dessert.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070325/ap_on_sc/apn_woodpecker_search

Now, all I want to know, Bruce, is where the dollar-billed ones hang out.

IMAGES and RAMBLINGS

Lavender carpet of phlox; a pinch off the old catmint; purple striped leaf tulip - six petals of vermilion, yellow anthers; soft plush of new lambs-ear; silky, fleshy scented pink petals of magnolia.

The weather was windy and warm on Saturday. Warmer today. Should hit 80. The news from the North East is that the deep freeze is over and that Spring is clambering north.

READING

The Lost Garden by Canadian writer Helen Humphreys has grabbed my interest. Within the first two pages I thought ... Virginia Woolfe, and sure enough she shows up! The novel takes place at the time of her death during WW II.There are passages that echo her writing style and the protagonist feels a connection with Woolfe as well. The references to gardens and flowers speak to me on a personal level as a gardener. And such a beautiful spring day to read it.

BLOGVILLE

Someone voted for me and I ended up as BOTM and got a merit badge, too ... I asked Ms. Scarlett where my crown was. No delivery yet.

Five reasons why I won:

5. BOTM really means: blogged out the mind.
4. I know how to count to 5: one, two, four, five. I never liked three.
2. Somebody hit the submit button ten times and ... oh well.
1. I played with Crayola crayons as a child and know how to use my colors.

UPDATE 3/26: I was the second person to solve Kraken's Kode. There are still gps out there for the next three lucky people to solve it. Go to: "Crack Kraken's Code Contest [Round Over]"  to unravel this kryptogram!

Very important notice from the SM I found over in schipperke's blog entry: "Invalid Entry" :

"Rating Requires a Review" will eliminate feedback from readers who do not wish to type-in a textual review of your item. The item's average rating is shown only to you.

In other words, we-all have a third option for review/rate!

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 Kåre Enga
~ until everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go.
~ Elizabeth Bishop,
The Fish