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Third Sunday in Advent
At the start of this post, I need to make a sad announcement. Our friend Laura Wood, host of the excellent blog The Thinking Housewife, has shared tragic news. Her 18-month old grandson, Trevor Joseph Wood, died yesterday morning of a sudden illness. Please remember Laura, and Trevor’s parents, and the entire family when you say your prayers. I cannot imagine the grief and loss they are enduring right now. I keep thinking of the little fellow’s Christmas presents that he will never open, of the family meals he will never attend, the books he will never read, the life milestones he will never reach. At times like this, we…
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‘Tis October
The hurricane/tropical storm took an eastward cank as it approached the eastern states and so most of the rain missed us. We had some on Friday evening, then overnight that night pretty hard, but yesterday it only sprinkled a time or two, and today is dry but blissfully cloudy. Friday night, Mrs. Orr was driving home and texted me, “Look at the rainbow.” I went outside and looked west, but saw only a golden sky, lit from behind the rain clouds. When I turned back to the house, there it was, a double rainbow in the northeast of our little world, and my heart sang within me as I stood…
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Into The Void Before Sundown
The first time I met Len, he had just arrived at our elementary school, a transplant from California, which made him interesting and exotic to someone from Pig’s Knuckle Junction like myself. He was taller than me, Nordic blonde, and bore a resemblance to Glen Campbell. Len had a great line of patter and that flat, explosively-bitten-off accent that Californians flaunt. We became fast buddies and palled around together from the get-go. We both loved tetherball, which was the rage in the elementary schoolyards during that age. We would race to the poles when the recess bell rang and play furiously until time to return to class. Len had been…
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For The Maid
One of the more tedious things I encounter when reading blogs is a blogger mentioning or quoting someone, then adding the disclaimer, “Now of course, I don’t agree with everything he/she writes, but this specific thing was profitable…” This sort of thing strikes me as terribly unmanly. If one doesn’t have the courage to quote or share the work of a particular individual, one should probably just keep quiet. The whiny “Don’t judge me because I quoted someone or read a book by someone who doesn’t dot all of the eyes or cross all of the tees” is a sort of false-humility-cum-virtue-signaling, and I dislike it strongly. It’s the sort…
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Nineteen
Nineteen I am standing, I am watching on the strait of southern grass through which the fickle current of fogs undulates in the early part of day before the skyfire lifts enough to sear it off. I do not notice the hawks above until I see my dog’s muzzle tracking them; the most sky-aware dog I’ve ever seen, heart all witched with things that glide and soar and perch and sing. We move along and bees begin their sorties across our path, seeking the remaining sweetpea and Rose of Sharon, saddlebags packed with gold, hourglass ever before them as they try and outfly the time when frost will sheet their…
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Last Week Of Spring
Dog in my rear-view His stare pleads with me to stay But he will wait there. Black cows belly deep In the jade-surfaced stock pond Comfort found, taken. Deer leaps in my path Legs trembling, eyes beseeching Go romp one more day. ~ S.K. Orr
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Slumbering Oaks
Slumbering Oaks and the Outworking of Probate When did it happen, you ask? Look, It’s easier for me to walk outside These days, to walk out either door and stay For an hour, and I’m working on it, Working on extending my time. I’ve come Out into controlled sunlight, down to this patch Of yard, my pocket clicking with acorns and my Hand clanking with a bouquet of soup cans And the bladed pressure of the trowel Against my hip. In a while, I’ll kneel And put my grip to the stubby maple Handle and feed the cans with granulated Planet, topping them off and then thumbing Small graves down…
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In These Tiny Mounds
We are the flowers, now particles of fragrant dust, The stems and stamens and structures in between, The upright ones he picked along all those Morning fences and brought to you, oblations From his silent yearning to present To you entire the chaste and rooted reality Of his love. We gave ourselves with gladness, And we rest now in these tiny mounds Beneath the needles and blades around your house, Watchful and anticipating the wraithing Of your youthful voices yet again. ~ S.K. Orr
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Weeding Waltz
Weeding Waltz Before the sun could turn its engine over I worked my blade between the rows of plants My shoulders pulling, slicing weeds and clover The rhythm of my motions like a dance; The earth my partner as we spun and dipped And music, green between us, urged us on Until I balked, surprised the hour had slipped Away, renewed and blinking sweat at dawn. ~ S.K. Orr [inspired in part by Francis Berger’s musings on manual labor]
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Ten Haiku
I thought I would share — or inflict — some of my original poetry. These haiku were written over a period of a little more than three years. It’s interesting for me to re-read them and see the similarity in theme and tone, almost as if they were all written together at a single sitting. ~ S.K. Orr Ten Haiku I. Message from above Martin on telephone wire Communicating. II. Red dog in green grass One will brown, one will whiten Frozen now in spring. III. Purple martin sings Flinging notes of mercury Droplets on the air. IV. Regiment of weeds Fence marches across meadow The battle is lost.…