He was otherwise engaged
as the leaves began to turn
from green to red ablaze,
and thoughts did churn,
while missing October’s display.
Look up! Let your heart yearn
after nature’s artful gift today.
And so it often is to spurn
with thoughts and blank gaze
what God has etched on creation’s urn.

The man sits rubbing the
bumps on his fingers while
thinking about his grand-
father, home from his duties
as custodian at the church,
sitting in his kitchen drink-
ing his afternoon cup of
coffee, pouring the first,
hot drops from the cup into
the saucer and slurping the
then cooling coffee before
buttering a piece of fresh
homemade bread prepared
especially for his grand-
father by the man’s grand-
mother. The man remembers
noticing the big bump on
the thumb of his grand-
father’s right hand. He
remembers thinking that
it was a really big bump.
The man hadn’t thought
about that big bump until
he noticed the bumps on
his own fingers now that
he is about the age his
grandfather was when he
first noticed that big
bump on his grandfather’s
thumb.

He’s just doing what comes
naturally, but there aren’t any
bugs in our cedar front porch.
By now you probably get it —
yes, Woody Woodpecker has
decided to drive me to distraction
with his incessant tap, tap, tap
on my property, my front porch,
my home, my domicile. So, out
comes the wood putty and the
neighbor rides by on his bicycle
as I’m standing on the ladder and
quips, “Always knew you’d get
up in the world,” and I now have
a two-tone cedar front porch and
all because of you, Woody. And
so, it is a battle for survival bet-
ween you, Woody, and the front
porch. Really, I don’t want to hurt
you, which is a hollow threat be-
cause I don’t own a gun or bow
and arrow or even a sling shot,
besides undoubtedly, I would
further destroy the front porch,
so I’m just asking, before I run
out of wood putty and have to
run to the hardware store, if you
would please peck away at the
neighbor’s cedar siding instead
of mine, the neighbor who quipped
about my getting up in the world.

You just can’t think about it.
Seriously. It would drive you
bonkers if you spent all day
thinking about everything that
could go wrong with and for
and to the kids. Actually, I
don’t recall thinking about it
to distraction when the kids
were young. It’s like young
parents have some kind of
built-in filter or boundary,
not like Doris Day’s Que
Sera, Sera, nor turning a
blind eye. No the parental
antennae are still out but
they were hidden under the
hair I used to have. Now
that I’m much older, I see
disaster in every bike ride,
every skate down the street,
every tumble in gymnastics
the grandchildren take. Now
knowing it would drive me
to distraction I just turn a
blind eye and hear Doris
Day blithely crooning away
the day and I simply get up
and walk away.

Cool, clear, dry —
autumn at its best
awoke at daybreak
in the Upper Midwest.
Rain and dampness
fled. The sun shone
brightly, the wind
twirled and swirled
the leaves into a
frenzy of castanets,
the waves whipped
along the shore,
breakers broke with
resounding claps
and I joined the
sun, wind and
waves in common
celebration.

Some evangelical, fundamental,
political types with a pin and

bars dragging down to the floor
for perfect attendance at Sunday

school, continue to contend that
The Donald has been raised up

by God to lead the people, like
Cyrus the Great, the Persian,

who, though a foreigner and not
of the covenant people, was used

of God to keep the covenant
children safe after he secured

their freedom from Babylonian
captivity, ostensibly like The

Donald will secure the freedom
of the red, white and true blue

Christian Americans from cap-
tivity to Barack Obama, the non-

US citizen, Muslim. Seems these
people have tripped on those

perfect attendance bars, bounced
off the pulpit, slid across the

communion table and are going
down for the third time in the

baptismal pool.

Where is Jimmy Carter when you need him?
Sitting in front of the TV watching the fiasco
called The Donald (I thought the hurricane
was named Matthew.), I saw one male talking
head after another posturing shock at The
Donald’s RV beyond “locker room” banter about
wanting to have sex with a married woman in
no uncertain terms. The Donald? Duh. Surprise,
surprise, not. The Donald’s raw, misogynistic,
exploitative lechery, of course, confirmed that
he is a person whose emotional development
was arrested somewhere around age fifteen and
who, seemingly, is a complete stranger to the
simplest formulation of personal morality. The
scary part is that he uses, without hesitation,
male predatory language and actual action all
to the amusement of his sophomoric, short ride,
RVing, male passengers. Jimmy Carter said, in
a Playboy interview that he “lusted” in his
heart. Shock, shock, not. But he didn’t act
on it or brag about it. Wouldn’t it have been
nice if just one of the sanctimonious, male,
talking heads had said, “Well, guys, we all lust,
but beyond the id, we have egos and superegos,
filters, boundaries, moral compasses, not to
mention mothers and sisters and wives and maybe
even a religious faith to keep us in line, and
if none of that works, the fear factor”? Ah, the
Lord looked for one, just one upright, honest
man in Sodom. Jimmy Carter hadn’t been
born, yet.

Little Haiti, we hate thee.
How many have died —
a three hundred times three?
We don’t want to know,
hear or see.
You remind us of that
from which we seek to flee.
You are supposed to be
invisible, but your
beautiful, black
skin glistens in the light
that bounces off the
turbulent sea.
Why won’t the hurricanes
be done with it and
just wash you out to sea
so we won’t have to be
reminded of every, poor,
innocent, little one we
have kicked and every
woman we
have violated
and the damage we have
done to every minority —
every plea
met with brutality,
every denial of
liberty, equality and
fraternity?
Little Haiti, we hate thee
for reminding us, in your
anguished face, of the
Jesus, the real Jesus, we
would rather not see
and from whom
we ever and always
seek to flee.

Somewhere in the cold country
early Homo sapiens and late
Neanderthals met and sized up
each other. The Neanderthals
were large, muscular, hairy
while the Homo sapiens were
more delicate with a bit less
hair. The Neanderthals were
really good at hunting and
making leather clothing; the
Homo sapiens were pretty
good at art and maybe even
music. They actually mated.
The offspring became football
and hockey players who
crochet in the off-season.

I get down, physically
on the couch, emotionally,
spiritually;
my breath goes down
while the darkness doesn’t;
it comes up out of the ground
as Jim Harrison once wrote
in a poem.
Then grace rises like
the sun and moon
and descends near me,
sitting on the slippery
floor, before
sliding down, pushing
the rug a little ways away.
I reach down and scratch
Buddy Baloo
behind his ear.
He lets out a sigh and
falls asleep and then I
do, too.