He heard the Salem witch trials

mentioned on T.V. and

he thought about the college prod-

uction of The Crucible in which

he portrayed Judge Danforth. At the

time, he had no idea who Arthur

Miller was and how Miller was using

the trials as a vehicle to expose

Joe McCarthy and American fascism.

He didn’t know anything about

those things either. What he knew was

how he hoped the makeup would

make him look a hundred and ten years

old while keeping his hair intact.

And so, ignorantly, he played the role

and the college news editor and

art critic, a fraternity brother, mercifully

omitted any reference to Judge

Danforth in the review, even though Judge

Danforth was a major character in

the play. He was hurt for a time, but in

retrospect, even while he had

been ignobly ignored, he went, mercifully,

unscathed. In old age, he has

learned to give thanks for small favors.

He doesn’t know if his Chocolate

Lab is a music critic.

He doesn’t think the dog ever took a

course in music appreciation,

but he has only had the dog for a year,

and the dog isn’t talking about

his previous life. It could be that the

five year old, an estimate by

the vet, which translates to forty-five

in human years, an age by

which most seeking a Ph.D. attain it,

obtained his Doggie of Phil-

osophy degree in music appreciation

before they ever met. All the

man knows is that when he pulls out

his guitar to strum and sing

some old Peter, Paul and Mary or

Kingston Trio tunes, the dog

quietly, but resolutely and rather

quickly rises, lowers his ears

and leaves the room. When his child-

ren were young, they did the

same thing, including a metaphorical

lowering of the ears. What

was disquieting for the man was that

they were in elementary

school at the time – a long way from

obtaining any degree in

music appreciation let alone a Ph.D.

He didn’t know his heart could

fill with so much gratitude that

it would spill out of his eyes.

He had been so weepy, he couldn’t

watch PBS programs about saving

orphaned baby elephants whose

mothers had been hacked to death

by poachers looking for ivory to be

made into trinkets for people to buy.

He almost gave up the ghost as he

watched one of the babies die

from separation anxiety, not from

its own mother, but from its surro-

gate human mother who left for

awhile to handle her daughter’s

wedding. He watched the once

guilt-ridden mother of humans

and elephant babies choke-up

in front of the camera forty-years

after the death, and while

he would have cried about that

situation any time, he realized

that this was about something

other than baby elephants, horren-

dous poaching and wonderful

surrogates. It was about entertain-

ing friends from grade school days

for a few days who are still friends

sixty years later, and then a week

later, entertaining other good

friends on a warm, wonderful, summer

evening and singing good, old, gospel

songs in what they thought was

four-part harmony and, while laughing,

knew was sung in respect for a

time past and a solid

foundation, while lifting glasses of French

wine and top shelf bourbon, gin and

middle shelf vodka in celebration.

Not to mention the thought of a really

great buddy on the West Coast

who is one of the finest followers

of Jesus he has ever known. Then

he thought about his wife being

invited to show her mixed

media sculptures, started from scratch

five years ago, at a very prestigious

gallery and then the reality

finally set in that he, in partnership with

his artist daughter, published a book

of his poetry and her art while

she put the whole thing together and a really

good review came in. For a little while,

he listened to a nasty, negative

voice and thought that was why he was

weepy, but, with a little help from

his wife, realized it wasn’t.

That was why he was angry for a little while.

No, he was weepy, really weepy for all

the great stuff in his life mentioned

in reverence above.

The earth will recover from

us when we are gone.

It is resilient.

There are signs right now.

There are many, many

acres of nature

areas crowded with old,

red pine forests that

belong much

farther north where high

branches could breath

and thrive in the

cold, crisp air and ward

off the diseases of

the south, so

clear-cut they were gone

to lumber leaving

war-torn

devastation for the hikers,

joggers and their dogs

not to mention

the flora and fauna. Two

years later, native

plants and white

pines shine in the sun

and the hikers,

joggers and

their dogs have returned

along with the flora

and fauna.

With a little help from her

friends, Mother Nature

healed herself.

In spite of everything and

everybody zipping by faster

than a guy zipping up after

being seen relieving himself

in the forest along the jogging

trail, he breathed deeply of

the forest, especially the pines.

He gave thanks for the opport-

unity to jog slowly on a glorious

July morning and he smiled as

he thought of the guy who then

acted as if he were just stopping

to tie a loose shoe lace. He

thought of all the times he stopped

to pee along the way among the

pines and got away with it, some-

times by just a split-second and

a hare’s breadth. He jogged slowly

out of the forest to the parking

lot with his Chocolate Lab who

peed regularly and often along

the way without any apparent

personal embarrassment. Nor

was the dog particularly concerned

about public mores or matters of

modesty while cleaning his privates

while under the outdoor table at

a local coffee shop while his master

sipped a cup of gourmet coffee

after the run.

Calls for Californians to use less water

in the face of a prolonged drought

have resulted in water use going up

with the temperature.

Botta bing.

Condo Association Boards in Phoenix,

in the light of significantly rising water

prices and limited water availability,

continue to vote for Kentucky Blue

over desert rocks and cacti.

Botta bang.

In light of the indisputable scientific

evidence that greenhouse gases are

burning up the land, big vehicle

drivers in Michigan zip along the

interstates faster than ever.

Botta boom.

Are these all the kids that sat on either

side of you, in front and behind in fifth grade

— the ones, who when you looked around,

prompted you, another fifth grader, to say,

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”?

Reminds one of the lyrics, “Clowns to

the left of me, jokers to the right. Here

I am, stuck in the middle with you.”

Well, I really didn’t mean you.

He has a front row seat in his great

room.

A slim dancer in black and white tights

flies a kite on top of a tall curio cabinet.

The dancer dances close to a return

air vent so there is enough air to keep

the kite flying.

Just below, on the top of a railing of the

steps leading downstairs, a dancer in

black and white tights holds onto another

dancer in black and white tights who

leans out over the stairwell.

On the very top shelf of a corner hutch,

a very tall, sensuous dancer in black and

white tights stands on point with back

arched, arms uplifted, the other leg pointing

skyward and black hair flying.

On the shelf immediately below the top

shelf a dancer in black and white tights

lifts another dancer in black and white

tights holding that dancer suspended

in mid-air.

Given the matching tights, the man guesses

the dancers are all in the same company

and are there to perform for him because,

after all, it is his great room.

In the silence, he hears Debussy, Faure,

Ravel, Copeland, Brubeck, Stravinsky,

and, of course, Tchaikovsky.

For a moment on the summer evening,

the man sees his daughter in the kitchen

when she was eight wearing black and

white tights dancing and pulling a sleigh

through the snow.

An anachronism wandered down the street

being led by a dog on a leash, sounds

like the start of a joke and,

perhaps, it is. The anachronism muttered

vacuous phrases into the breeze

like, “Nobody

pays any attention to me anymore,” and

“Nobody cares what I think.” At these

utterances the dog

wagged its tail. The anachronism, heading

home like a horse trotting back to

the stable and an

anticipated bucket of oats, smiled as the dog

led the anachronism through the

doorway right up

to the green, leather chair in front of the flat

screened T.V. where the anachronism

would sit for the rest

of the evening smiling vacuously at the commentary

on conservative news shows that

SCOTUS was sticking

up for anachronisms and anachronistic

anachronisms, too. Unfortunately,

that isn’t a joke.

sometimes the cauldron of little places,
with little people fussing around
with little things becomes an impossible soup …
best to push the bowl of soup away
and let it cool,
or maybe just congeal …