Soul

When I was young but oh so old
I drowned within a drought
As my skin was burned with winters cold
And the man who came in went out
As I climbed down to the attic
I smiled myself a pout
And I wrapped through the door paper thick
As the man who came in went out.

T'was my birthday today, so I'll put up a poem in celebration. Today's most morbid of topics is one that does plague the mind when another year turns away-- death. I often muse to what happens to the soul once one is dead, a morbid exercise you will agree. I believe after death we go to a new place, a good place, where we can see once more all those we love. Of course, one is allowed one's own beliefs. Just have to wait and see, I suppose.

Staple

I bought a stapler today. Little metal bits holding other things together through a couple of well placed holes and just the right amount of metal. It’s definitely related to a staple, then, the thing that is the centre, the main of it, the indispensable, basic, fundamental core of an item or an object or an idea that holds the whole of it together. It was a red stapler, very clean, very needed to gather the papers that hold the words of my life together into little organized piles, ready to be accounted for as I try to buy my new house. It got me to thinking about what the core is, although I’ve already discussed the core of life in general, and what used to be the core of my own life in particular. But what about the present, for it is in the present where we live. What of it?

I look out the window as I type, and it’s beautiful out there, you must know, city lights and rain are the best things, because they’re life. City lights may drain the environment but they point to people living, and rain gives life to everything it touches, even the dead things. And I look out through the rain onto the darkness of the streets that are only lit by the lonely lights of insomniacs such as myself, and I wonder what the fundament to my life is. Probably little Penelope, my granddaughter. You see, Penny is, well, the last of my grandchildren. No parent should outlive their children, but especially not their grandchildren, no matter the circumstance. I have to take loss with the grace of God but that can’t stop me from weeping, especially not for Penny. I’d rather not talk about it myself, at least not unnecessarily and not yet, but Penny needed to talk. She lets it all ball up until there is nothing left but that ball.

Dear Penny is in the hospital for it, and all. She was injured out of the fire, but the injuries to her mind hurt more, needed more attention and care. So she’s staying in the hospital, away from me, her only family. I do go and visit as much as I can. It’s a difficult task though, what with my knee. She always seems pleased to see me at least. She draws all the time, quite the little artist, but has a much greater fondness for mathematics, probably from her father. I never had much of a head for the stuff, but she laps it up. She’s a smart little lass, our Penny.

Balderdash

One bright September morning in the middle of July,

The sun lay thick upon the ground, the snow shone in the sky.

The flowers were singing gaily, the birds were full of bloom;

I went upstairs to the cellar to clean a downstairs room.
I saw ten thousand miles away a house just out of sight,

It stood alone between two more and it was black-washed white.