Monday, March 7, 2016

Birth, optimisms and


I deeply respect Warren Buffet. I read The Snowball. Loved his insights into the history of my own time; and ironically wished the same were not to be true,  like "everyone else says a recession will be short and shallow, but I would say long and deep". During the recession I helped my employer merge and down-size. 

My retirement decision enabled a person in Maine with family to be retained, a small upside. I often tried to add value concurrent with mergers so the people elimination quotient could be lower. I thought, at the time, it was the intensity of the job and the value conflicts that kept me from sleeping well.  I have come to know differently.

Last night was another night with unrest; processes, decisions and value questions poking my lack of rest. Thirty years prior I was in like-fits of sleep because my son was born on this date. That day I also had seasonal sinus headaches, muscle spasms in my legs (I gave birth standing after wrenching my left ankle) and a reputation that I was trying to keep in tack.

This rumination is to say: that nothing is for certain, relationships need to be stronger than processes, without the relationships all the good you put into the world can vanish.  

A few months ago I woke with an idea about immediate family with which I lived. It was "Once you leave, I will likely not visit you."  It was an odd feeling to have since I had opened my home and had some level of human interaction daily. For me it was authentic, giving more than I had but for them (the adults) there was no investment, no true sharing nor sacrifice.  

Five minutes of direct truth can topple illusion.


But what can bring about sound sleep?






Saturday, February 27, 2016

MAN IN THE PARK

Edgerton Park, New Haven, Oct. 1992 (a true story)

Man in the park
shares a bench, feels a breeze, hugs
the landscape.
the sun, warm.
~ the companion fine and fair.

birds whistle, small creatures
are watchful

Man in the park
approaches a bench, feels the heat, hugs
the high hedge.
the sun, light.
~ the companion far too fair.

birds take flight, small creatures
are watchful

Men in the park
embrace, dust clouds the sky, hugs
at the ground
the sun, burns.
~ the companion ashen in despair.

birds caw, small creatures
are watchful 

~ the park.
A bench. No breeze relieves the heat, hugs
through a gun --
the sun, blisters. 
~ the companion, innocent dare.

birds migrate, small creatures
are watchful

Each season returns
the park to the man.

~~~
Decipher: A white man buys a gun to use when he comes upon the unacceptable. In a city park enclosed with very high hedges that he has chosen to make his home he comes upon a man of a different color talking to a women he would consider pursuing as his own. He clears the way for his intentions with a gun shot to the other man's stomach. He gets 30 years behind bars. The other maintains a fragile, distant inter-racial friendship because he survives the surgery. Both friends have 'a day in the park' PTSD. 

Being Better than we use to be

Ironically found this note written in 2005 to a family member; it could have been written this month to a different family member. 

This is not judgement it is merely identification of the realities of relations at home.

Deception/ Disrespect/Disregard
-         so impersonal that we suggest family meetings
-         plan to save, but lifestyle of spend
-         secrecy
-         intentional distractions, misrepresentation 
-         filth
-         insertion of your being into time and space with ‘me’ attitude
-         intentional disregard of request that are made for everyone’s health & safety
-        debt calls – unmanaged thereby causing others to be bombarded by them
-         blame for things in your control

Two years of underwriting saving you rent & utility and helping with vehicles all we got was a Hot Tub that cost us maintenance & upkeep for a decade thereafter and Hot Attitude. 


Saturday, February 20, 2016

From my phone

Can I do a poem a day? Unlikely since I failed at a poem a month.

Open messages
In unspoKen
Exchanges

Hot. Avoidance
Of adulthood
Heaves.

Lungs
Collapse. Motion
less.

Tomb sealed.