New ones comming in a while, but since you were nice enough to ask, here's some old ones:

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There is something about a day like this that taunts us. I believe the clouds are grinning sheep-dog grins behind their silver linings.

The wind can't even be interested in it's livelihood. It tries, but knows that today is only a game.

At least the winter cold is friendly; it wants to get next to you, to be intimate.

The summer heat is roudy and loud; you know where you stand with it.

But a day of warmth born prematurely in January - you know it can't live to be a season.

The doves aren't fooled. They're flying low for their nests. No dusting beside the road today.

The pecans aren't fooled. They rattle their bones in slumber. They've seen this Texas trick before.

-----------------

An old watch on a flea market table. An inscription, from her to him.

It says HAMILTON in neat small letters across it's face. The minutes are numbered, one to sixty. The second hand has a precise slow sweep.

I chose it for it's plainess, the style of unencumbered simplicity. Gold and glass and white face.

I wonder if she chose it for it's style, or because it's plainess carried a plainer price.

It didn't really matter, he must have been proud of it; showed it to everyone that day; opened the back to reveal LANCASTER, PA 21 JEWELS. And all the little gears and engraved whorls.

The gears of the steam engine which took him away, and the whirlwinds of the plains. To carry in his pocket and to remind him of home, and her.

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Golden fathoms over sand,

Tendrils pointing to glint of gold.

Silver chain on skeletal hand,

The treasures the dead men hold.

-

Blood red, the gem of kings,

Emerald, the prince's share.

Regal seals and royal rings,

The raiments the dead men wear.

-

Bones of ships with those of men,

Lovers, in the clutch of sleep.

Silver laughter, golden sin,

The vigils the dead men keep.

Silent vigils we dead men keep.

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-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), April 08, 2000

Answers

Thanks, Lon! Your words stretch my mind and enrich my life.

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), April 09, 2000.

Come on, you guys. I started this thread, but I'm not the only one who can do this. I love to travel, and I'd love to see some of your favorite places through your eyes and your words.

Or just a stroll around your garden. Or, tell me about your fat old cat, lying in a sunny spot in the yard.

You all have some favorite travel views or memories. And I know we have some excellent writers here. But even if you don't think your writing is "excellent", we still want to hear from you.

Try it, you'll like it.

:

-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), April 10, 2000.

Thanks, Lon, for sharing these. I'll try to come back with a few from Colorado. :-)

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), April 10, 2000.

I took a trip to Chico yesterday. Lemme give this a try.

Roses are red

Voilet are blue

Iz in Chico

Wher wuz you.

.

It just don't seem the same, maybe I'm not cut out for this after all.

-Greybear

--Got Rhymes?

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), April 11, 2000.

Well, GB, it *doesn't* sound quite the same. But, while Lon's stretched my mind, yours stretched my lips :-)

-- Got laughter?

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), April 11, 2000.

In my mind's eye I see my favorite redbud tree. It flings forth branches in every direction, a low one inviting me to sit, stretch my 16 year-old legs and ignore the trials of that day. The redbud nestles in the holler away from the pile of old junk left by decades of my ancestors; the evidence of their physical life, frugal and practical.

I am high enough up to escape any wild boars who might roam by (in my fertile imaginings) but not so high that I interfere with the birds that I hear singing nearby. Mockingbird in his grey pinstripe amuses me with his singing. I try to count the sounds he mocks and wonder why God didn't give this bird his own song. (I decide that if I were God, I would have chosen just this same aria for the mocker.)

It's peaceful in this aerie, just me. No smelly or sweaty chores haunt me here. I pick the thorns off the stinging nettle pods to eat the seeds. I have my bottle of water. I'm a princess entrapped in a tower, reduced to a bread and water diet but I need nothing more because I have my sheltering tree, the mockingbird to serenade me and the wind to keep me cool.

These memories I see in my mind's eye. Can I recreate them? The longing is there to move to a similar place. Forget the cows, pigs, chickens that inhabited the mundane part of my life and find that serenity. Would I sit on the porch forever listening to the mockingbird or would I eventually feel refreshed and be able to return to "life?"

-- Linda Mc (jcm@telepath.com), April 13, 2000.

Rocky Mountain high...
Snow-covered mountains abound.
What an awesome place!

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), April 16, 2000.

LOST MAPLES CANYON, TEXAS. APRIL 2000

I was sitting in the early afternoon shade, my binoculars, my birding check-list, and a glass of survival beverage on the picnic table in front of me. Suddenly, a dusty little SUV slid to a stop in the gavel road nearby. Two young people flung the doors open and jumped out without bothering to close them again. At first, I thought they must be on fire. Either that, or they had discovered a rattlesnake in the glove box.

But then, my natural talent for observation took over. I noticed they were wearing cargo shorts and heavy duty hiking boots. The kind of boots that Eddie Bauer makes for treks through the Namibian desert. And they wore identical gadget vests; you know, with a dozen pockets, and hooks, and clips, and D-rings to attach all the necessary gadgets for your jaunt through Outer Mongolia.

But the real give-away was the binoculars. No-nonsense, rubber-coated, sonar-guided, laser-pointed binoculars. The kind made in some tiny European country by a tiny European craftsman whos mainstay is rifle scopes for hit-men. The kind that cost roughly as much as a quadruple by-pass.

Thats when I knew; they were birders! REAL birders, in full Spring plumage.

In her haste to abandon their car, the female of the pair mistook me for one of their own. Well, actually, I was wearing my cargo shorts, and I did have my old binoculars ($19.95 at the Army-Navy store) on the table. But, had she been more observant, she would have noticed the worn-out boat shoes. No real birder worth his suet would be caught dead in worn-out boat shoes.

But, as I said, she was caught up in the aggressive behavior common to the species at this time of year, and called out to me, all the time scanning the tree tops with her mate:

You know where the Scotts Oriole is around here?

Now, Im actually known as somewhat of an outdoorsman and naturalist of sorts. So her question didnt catch me entirely off-guard. My immediate reply established my niche in the community of avian appreciation:

Huh? A what? Where?

A Scotts Oriole!

I glanced quickly around, just to assure myself that I had not missed a sign proclaiming SEE THE SCOTTS ORIOLE, with an arrow pointing in my direction.

How do you know theres one around here?

Why, cant you HEAR it?

Silly girl. Of course I could hear it. I had been hearing it for half an hour. I just didnt have a clue as to what it was that I was hearing. But I was fully prepared to look at it through my binoculars if necessary. You have to remember, I was effectively handicapped by wearing neither gadget vest nor hiking boots. Besides, it takes a lot less energy, and considerable less smarts to be a bird hearer, than it does to be a bird watcher.

I was preparing a short dissertation on the subtle differences in these two disciplines, but she and her mate had already flittered off down the canyon. Ill never understand how they can fun so fast while all the time looking at the tree tops through binoculars. I tried it once. No, really, I did. I can show you the scar.

Anyway, I did want to tell them about the two sparrows and the buzzard that I had checked off my list, but unfortunately, I was in the camper making pop-cicles out of the last of the margarita mix when they returned. I guess Ill never know if they saw the Scotts Oriole, but there was a bright yellow bird sitting in the tree above the picnic table when

-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), April 18, 2000.

------they returned. It had pooped in my drink.

(Damn internet explorer!)

---------------------

-------------------

-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), April 18, 2000.

The land here is basic. It appeals to me. Rocks and water and sky.

The walls of the canyon are sheer. Purple and grey-brown. Cut through by the deceptive trickle of the Sabinal.

Rough old cedars and pin oaks cling among the rocks on the rim and down the crumbling shoulders. Wayward maples drop their leaves into the crystal riffles.

Soil is born here, where roots gnaw the granite, and limestone dissolves in the rain of eons. It rests like black snow drifts in the lee of stream-side boulders, or gathers itself up in roots of grasses taking advantage of last seasons bounty. It doesnt get comfortable. It is a gift of the river, and the river is fickle. Soon the water will regret its gift to the canyon and rise up to take it back and give it to the farms down below the escarpment.

But today, the Green Kingfisher watches for the tiny fry in a calm pool, and the Canyon Towhee flits among the orange berries of the agarita.

I stand ankle deep in blue sky-water and my bones whisper to me of their kinship to the soil, and of their resting place in the pecan bottoms below the escarpment. A pebble moves in the current beside me, and continues its imperceptible journey down the canyon. Then it finds its grasp, and holds. And waits for

-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), April 18, 2000.

me.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -

(maybe THAT will do it!!)

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-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), April 18, 2000.

Linda Mc,

Thanks for the picture from your memory. Mocking birds and stinging nettles reside in my recolections of childhood in Texas also.

What I remember most clearly, is listening to the "bluebonnet rain". On nights in mid-summer the bluebonnets would be drying out and their seed pods would snap open in the dark and scatter the seeds. They would hit other dry pods and sound like a steady rain. I often went to sleep by their music played through my open bedroom window. Sometimes it makes me sad for the air-conditioned, televisioned, computerized, sanitized kids today. What will they remember, I wonder? And then again, what favorite memories of our parents did we miss?

-----------------------------------------

-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), April 18, 2000.

Lon, thank-you, thank-you and thanks again. LOL 'til I cried

Linda, thank-you, thank-you! I've never seen a redbud tree (at least not that I know of), but I could smell the cut hay ;-)

I've been wanting to add to this collection, but a) I'm not sure that I can and b) I can't decide what scene to describe. Hmmmm, the copse of bamboo? the elven mushroom? the mountains.... I don't have the words for any of them. I think I'll work on it off line for a while.

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), April 18, 2000.

April 19 memories: the sight of indescribable destruction, bodies both live and dead carried from rubble, American's sense of security violated. Frantic phone calls to locate friends working in Oklahoma City; seeing a good friend shredded by shrapnel. Him thinking he was going to die-determined to get as many people out as possible before going to heaven. He survives but shredded in body and soul. Grief and horror, why. Children, parents, spouses, dear friends, all senselessly slain.

Calm music plays now while those who walk wounded come to find peace, closure, to remember both the departed and those who sacrificed time and emotional, mental health to assist in the rescue efforts. As with all grief, we are never the same. What tender lessons we have learned...not to separate in anger, to appreciate the time we have with our loved ones, that life is short; man temporal and God eternal, that "things" have very little meaning while relationships and God are what sustain us, that grief is part of life and lends fullness of character to those who will allow it.

And now bagpipes, men and women in uniform...the sight that never ceases to stir my soul. Dad would have loved to see the ceremony, the discipline of those serving our country. He would have loved to be in the middle of this day, lending dignity and honor by his erect stance and single-minded attention.

Oh the fierce pain and sense of honor that comes from the presentation of the flag to be raised! The stars and stripes held lovingly, never allowed to touch the ground, step by step unfolded to it's full length, ceremoniously held in place until time to be raised. (They only need play taps for me to dissolve in remembrance of the flag I received "on behalf of a grateful nation" at Dad's funeral.) Absolute silence from the crowd, that last slow salute as the honor guard retreats. What wonderful ceremony, how honoring!

Amazing grace is played, how apt as we see that God has given us grace as a state to continue on.

May God sustain us and remind us to turn to Him as the source of hope and comfort.

-- Linda Mc (jcm@telepath.com), April 19, 2000.

A malingering cool wind came in from the west last evening. It hit the great wet clouds from the warm gulf, sleeping just there, past the cypress and salt grass, and their struggle lit the darkening. Lit the darkening.

The rain on the tin roof of the little bayou shack played a Wagnerian accompaniment to the dark Valkyries come to claim the forgotten ghosts of moss shrouded boneyards. Of moss shrouded boneyards.

And I, at dawn, walked out into air from the far mountain homelands of the Ancient Ones. The faint smells of pinon pine and sage lingered in my imagination beside honeysuckle and swamp lilac. I closed my eyes and breathed in memories of mountain meadows, and canyon walls. And the shadows where my soul was formed in another time. In another time.

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-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), May 20, 2000.

Beautiful, Lon!

I've been missing your postcards. Thanks for sending this one.

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), May 21, 2000.

Tricia,

I can't tell you how pleased I am by your comment. Here's a simular one, actually from the road many years ago. I didn't know why I stopped to write it then, but now I do. It's just for you:

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The skies over Kansas

Were changing that day

The wind of late summer

Turning the grasses to hay

I had traveled miles, but

In realitly, my life, you could say

To reach this moment

To witness this battle

Of blues and gre

-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), May 21, 2000.

......

Of blues and grey

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-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), May 21, 2000.

Thank-you, Lon!!

I'll treasure that (despite the hungry gnomes ;-).

I'll even work on developing my own postcard to share with you when you get here on your mega-trek. (Hint, hint)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), May 23, 2000.

Sleeping giants, the mountains lie. Harsh lines softened by blankets of green, with clouds like white lint fluff stuck to their sides. Pausing among the trees, their slow heart beats thrum through me.

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), September 06, 2000.