Seeing Me Seeing You

Do you still see me?  I still see you.  You are right here, in this place, in my head.  I see you.

I lost you for awhile.  I was stuck in me.  I was stuck in you seeing me.  I was stuck here, in this place, in my head, only in me.

I didn’t see you.

You needed me to see you, only you.  I needed to see you.  Me seeing you, out of this place, in my head, only you.

I see you. 

I do.

Febreeze

So like there’s this perfume thingy in my place you know and it like sprays stuff out when I walk close to it.  The smell is nice but it is weird and I like hate the sound as it comes.  Ya know that phewt noise.  It squirts without letting me know so sometimes I like get so surprised and it squirts all over my clothes.  Ewwww and that smell sticks to everything.  I like that smell but on my clothes, well like no way.   Sometimes, when a friend comes to visit who might be allergic or not like the smell I move the perfumey thing to a closet.  But it hides waiting for me in there cause after awhile I open the closet door and it goes phewt and spreads its smell all over.  If I am quick I can close the closet door before the phewt sprays all over me but then the smell goes phewt all over the towels and the toilet paper and the paper towels and the cleaning stuff and stuff.  And that smell can be so like intense.  It makes me feel sick all over but then I put it back again on the shelf in the living room and I try to sneak around it so it doesn’t phewt all over me again and again cause the smell is like nice when it is in the air but not too much right and like its lousy on my clothes and especially my skin.  I like this thing cause it is cute but in a weird way cause it also phewts stuff out.  It is cute like a skunk is cute but not as stinky but still stinky you know.

This Snows Last Gasp

The ducks, normally a cacophony of squawk as they perform their mating rituals through the night, have gone silent.  The geese normally flying and gliding in paired acquaintance seeking nesting places, have landed in wait.

Snow, it falls lending an aura of clean to the city’s grey blue night light.  It falls spread thick and wet upon the roofs of cars and buildings below.  Grass newly awakened by recent warm sun is smothered into a new blanket of bald moisture.  It attaches, providing a thick white silhouette to branches of elm and oak trees planted into the flood waters of the river.

The waters have gone smooth in the still cool air.  Cold waters warmer than space surrounding release their mists mixing old waters with new only to return again as snow cold, clean, and beautiful.

Light from houses, from street lights, from buildings pierce the mist and falling powder.  Glow is sharpened in the still misty air, beacons of welcome, radiance of familiar.  Two crosses, from hospital and school, illuminate their faith into the mystery of this spring fall.

Warmth and optimism remain in season as our prairie again renders reminder of our place.  This too will pass, this snows last gasp.

Stroke

A brush will provide clarity

To life’s long brevity

Experiences, community

Friendships, affectionately

Behold be held

In weakness meld

Blood stress pressed skull

Hostage, life may be killed

Fortune of care

Position place to pair

Chance peril now aware

Life’s risk is to share

Caution to wind not so

Future known not yet, lo

Life’s interests, love to know

Deep caring love’s wondrous show

It is so worth it

Face forward no longer sit

Recovery’s exposure writ

Life’s love experience wit

Companion

The sun spreads morning light filling the dark voids

Luminance bounces from the east reflecting from surface exposed

Into the open sash glazed refraction to his rooms

They wake together light and he, begrudging slumber last sleep

It drives last dark from furniture and fittings, cloth and structure

Revealing pattern, his neatly contained and lonely world

His eyes they open always east, morning invading from behind

Fitful sleep succumbs to days first words: “good morning”

To space divan, had space been filled be space divine

This place is neat, this half bed made, pillows fluffed, always there

It never moves for this mans slumber reveres this place his morning eyes

Seeking sadly his companion, his life’s partner, where does she lie?

Scratch

I shall pen my words rapidly

Seeking and picking for meaning

The evidence in my learning

I relieve my itch of yearning

For joy and depth of loving

Commence again my life's dignity

My skin is torn so sorely

The pain dredged ever hoary

The relief of decision, a clarity

I scrape the surface ever sharply

Seeking solace in deleting

This harshness self imposed, my penalty

The search though is not aimless

Grateful I am not blameless

I learn assembly build anew

This, nothing done by me previous

The ingredients in new mix

Pressing forward to learn, I renew

Joy, I find it in you

We’ve nothing save self-history

We approach in each other, curiosity

Friendship, care, companionship

Betrothed my truth to you

We seek comfort in blurred boundary

A closeness, trust, and fearfulness

Foundation struck we comfort we

Meals, wine, ambition shared

Dreams they grow, together bared

Growth in life, imaginings compared

Emotion logic is shared to meld

Start anew, ingredients mixed

We build on friendship, upon respect

This new life is mixed to hold.

And be held.

Fort Smith

Through the nineties I travelled a great deal throughout northern Canada and Alaska.  My trips frequently found me in Fort Smith, in the Northwest Territories.  This community is located in a picturesque area of the country near Wood Buffalo National Park.

One overnight stay is particularly memorable.  On this trip I stayed in a hotel new to me but most assuredly old to the community.  It was located in the business area of Fort Smith, a common country hotel formula of concrete stairway through a wooden door to a small lobby with the beer vendor to one side of the glassed in desk and the beverage entrance to the other.  Narrow stairs lead to dingy even narrower hallways.  The smells of decades of travelers mix and waft through the air.  My room was small with an especially quaint view of and punctuated by the incessant drone of the local telephone company’s microwave dish complex.

The overly soft and sagging single bed was located near the windows.  The hum of the transmission dishes, the summer night light, the chill in the air, and the mattress sag conspired to leave me very tired in the morning.  When I finally deigned to rise it was with the personal conviction I was going to have to shower long to drive the exhaustion from my body.

The small bathroom was dominated by an ancient cast iron, porcelain lined, claw foot, high sided bathtub that stood majestically upon a pedestal, a feature common in the north to allow plumbing a warm chase as an opportunity to survive the creeping chill freeze of winter air.  The effect was the sides of the tub were near waist high.  A small step stool was provided for one to climb into the tub.

Above the tub a chrome structure of tubes suspended from the ceiling in symmetry above the sides of the tub.  Hanging from this structure a very heavy dark green rubber shower curtain with big brass grommets.  The obviously very old shower curtain looked like war era surplus army material and was completely impervious to light.  It was attached to the chrome tubing by surprisingly flimsy curtain hooks, the clip ends strained apart under the apparent weight of the curtain.

The plumbing was an unusual mix of brass fittings and copper pipes.  Two large pipes come out of the floor to the hot and cold spigots.  Spigots are industrial style, rubber covered handles, designed to be all on or all off.  Attached to this coupling of pipes is a single even larger pipe leading to the showerhead.  The industrial handle for the shower is located just below the bend in the pipe to the showerhead.  With the tub on claw feet upon a pedestal the shower spigot was located just beyond my reach while standing on the bathroom floor.

My usual process is to turn on and set the water temperature to a comfort level, and then turn on the shower to clear the pipes of cold water before stepping into the tub.  With the shower spigot located above my reach I found it necessary to wait until I was in the tub before turning on the shower.  I was going to have to steel myself for the initial stock of cold before the glorious spray of warm water.

The showerhead itself was the size of a pie plate and had the look of a rain style water saving device.  Past experience with these types of showerheads was enjoyable and in spite of the dubious look of the tub and array of devices to support the shower itself this showerhead gave me pause to believe I was going to enjoy the pleasure of a gentle rain like event.

I stepped into the tub.  The large pipes were rapidly filling the tub and water was already ankle deep by the time I had climbed up the step stool and stepped through the heavy rubber curtain.  Gaining my balance I reached up to the shower spigot and in one deft motion opened the shower.

The pressure coming from this showerhead was a shock.  My gentle rain was in fact a torrent akin to an open fire hose.  The epidermis stripping power of the water was a shock.  Every pore on my face and body was bombarded clean by the pressure.  Water was pushing me back across the slippery floor of the tub.  The high pressure of the water beating down upon me encapsulated as it was by the heavy shower curtain had the causal effect of a vortex of air that began to swirl about me. 

This air vortex tugged at the shower curtain suddenly causing it to pull in and latch itself to my wet skin.  In my panic to release myself from this unexpected grip I twirled around to turn off the spigot further causing the curtain to wrap like a tourniquet around my body.  I slipped on the wet tub floor tumbling over the edge of the tub, my fall slowed, suspended by the curtain hooks as they individually popped from the curtain tubes, finally leaving me stranded on the floor cocooned in a straight jacket of dark green rubber curtain, trussed from ankle to above my head.

Removed from the containment of the shower curtain the high-pressure head spread much of its water outside the tub.  I spent an anxious few minutes extricating myself from my rubber shroud leaving me panting and confused in a rising level of water in my bathroom.  After turning off the water and opening the bathroom door to a drain of water across the carpeted floor I dressed and scurried down to the glass secured lobby desk.

My brief explanation of shower adventures was met with a blank look and simple response, “oh that’s okay, it happens all the time”.