Cyclopean

"...And then, in her harum-scarum way,
She left with a passing traveller-man..."

From "Kalamazoo" by Vachel Lindsay

***

Still poky on posting, but I have a couple of good excuses, now including Kalamazoo. (Woo-hoo!)

Busted chairs

"...I’ve been wandering
where the cold tracks of language
collapse..."

From "To the Reader: If You Asked Me" by Chase Twichell

Contrail and shutters

"...There are days when the whole world
feels like somebody else’s collection.
Even your hands. ..."

From "Drifting" by Shirley Kaufman

***

The rehearsal presentation for the paper I am to give in two weeks for these folks went well, and I was glad to hear that my nervousness didn't show.

After, two of my friends and I went out for a post-rehearsal snack. And now, here I sit at the keyboard, thinking about the essay I need to write tomorrow.

Horizon line

"...I’m always racing off,
passing through, as though the present
were a dying town I’d rather flee. ..."

From "Road Report" by Kurt Brown

It's the weather, man

"...Early on, distant relations kept calling.
Now, nothing: sound of water

tippling a seawall. ..."

From "Radio Crackling, Radio Gone" by Lisa Olstein

***

All's fine in Central Texas post-Ike...but not (yet) for my friends in Galveston and Houston. Thanks, all y'all, for your care and concern. Stay dry.

Storm front

"... I hear the vacant rain before it falls.
It's like the murmur of a spiraled shell. ..."

From "The Dowser's Ear" by Wilmer Mills

***

Yes, Hurricane Ike is coming to visit.
I believe we're in for at least some heavy rain and wind in Central Texas.
Please keep my friends and neighbors on the Gulf Coast in your thoughts.
I'll post again once the storm clears.

***

Update 9/13 10:41am

Windy but not badly so, and overcast, here in the Austin area -- see how wide Texas is to get an idea of how large Ike is.

The storm center seems to have nudged further east as it smacked into the coast, so not as much going on in Central Texas as we thought might. No heavy rain, all is well so far.

However, I have friends who left Galveston to stay in Central Texas through Ike, and am hoping their home is not too badly damaged. Will meet them for brunch tomorrow and hear more.

Just FYI, a Twitter feed from a Galveston-based reporter.

International Rock-Flipping Day 2008

Find it.
Things are dry enough here that flipping a wet rock was more likely to uncover some critters.


Flip it.
Hoodwinked! The yellowing foliage tells the tale -- the plants hadn't grown around the rock, the rock had been placed among the plants.


Flip it back.
Oh foo, I couldn't get it in exactly the right place. As I stretched and tried not to slip into the scum, I noticed some glassily invisible fish no bigger than my pinkie-nail, and one very tiny black fish baby, scatter.


Back up.
Well. A typical beige limestone-flat scum; what is that plant, I wonder?


Back way up.
No more flippin' flipping -- people wandering around. As the couple off in the distance passed by, I could hear them discussing her finances. Their dog was listening to the mockingbirds instead.

***

"Maybe no one can distinguish which voice
Is god’s voice sounding in a summer dusk
Because he calls with the same rising frequency,
The same rasp and rattling rustle the cicadas use..."

From "The Creation of the Inaudible" by Pattiann Rogers


***

Learn more about it all here.

Links to other Rock Flippers below:

Pohanginapete (Pohangina Valley, Aotearoa/New Zealand)

Blaugustine (London, England)

Nature Remains (Ohio, USA)

Pensacola Daily Photo (Florida, USA)

KatDoc’s World (Ohio, USA)

Notes from the Cloud Messenger (Ontario, Canada)

Brittle Road (Texas [?])

Sherry Chandler (Kentucky, USA)

osage + orange (Illinois, USA)

Rock Paper Lizard (British Columbia, Canada)

The Crafty H (Virginia, USA)

Chicken Spaghetti (Connecticut, USA)

A Passion for Nature (New York, USA)

The Dog Geek (Virginia, USA)

Blue Ridge blog (North Carolina, USA)

Bug Girl’s Blog (Midwestern US)

Riverside Rambles (Missouri, USA)

Pines Above Snow(Maryland, USA)

Beth’s stories (Maine, USA)

A Honey of an Anklet (Virginia, USA)

But wait! There's more!

Wanderin’ Weeta (British Columbia, Canada)

Fate, Felicity, or Fluke (Oregon, USA)

The Northwest Nature Nut (Oregon, USA)

Roundrock Journal (Missouri, USA)

The New Dharma Bums (California, USA)

The Marvelous in Nature (Ontario, Canada)

Via Negativa (Pennsylvania, USA)

Mrs. Gray’s class, Beatty-Warren Middle School (Pennsylvania, USA)

Cicero Sings (British Columbia, Canada)

Pocahontas County Fair (West Virginia, USA)

Message and no bottle

"...A paradise of absence,
the dreamed of freed
from the dreamer..."

From "24/7" by Alan Shapiro


***

Also: In praise of disambiguation which doesn't.