Beetle Juice

Cucumber Beetle rides the Zinnia.

Not sure if its a Cucumber Beetle because of what it eats or its general color, though it looks kind of like a Gentlemanbug, in complimentary attire.

Ps.  Starting Oct 1, look for a pic a day, here an on Flickr.



Harvest Moon and Jupiter.

Historic Event in need of photo!

I hear this was an historic event --  Harvest Moon, falling on the last day of summer as equal day and equal night (eqinox) trade out to greater night.   Beyond that, the moon and Jupiter rode the sky real close, and  -- If I have my facts right, both closer to us than normal.   If you look real close you can see the rings.

Ps.  I have a tool that shows what people are searching for when Google sent them here.  Now I imagine the odd looks for all those looking for Harvest Moon/Jupiter.



Zinnia Down

For friends of the Mighty Works Project.

Starting October 1, You should get a picture and line or two of poetry per day.  Turns out I have joined a Flickr group, consisting of Arkansas Photographers, who have committed to posting a picture a day.  I'd like to do the same with poetry, and hope to scratch and catch something each day.

The Moving Garden

Broken Poem 9/18/2001

Lord

Don’t hear me wrong:

But how do You hold humming birds

aloft, or blow

feathered clouds

across the azure skies –

Even as the panther pounces

Even as a baby bounces – in his little bounce machine

Even as -- 200 feet of flying tube

frays into

a deafening array

of steel and boiled blood?

Again

         And again,

                                         And again.

I would have thought

the Universe should flicker

Like a drain upon the sun,

I would have thought the birds would drop

like tar from the sky –

I would have thought to hear each

voice,

lag behind the mouth with tape d e l a y.

And,  I shouldn’t have been shaken

if electrons died.

But Lord

this ability of yours

the hear one mother giving birth

with joy,

then watch

another broken in a smash of glass and heat

600 mph to 2, in a blink

Is break-

ing me.

I know this feeling can’t be new,

Moms have pulled their sons

by the tons from ovens, cars, and rivers

or this foul aftermath of war ..

And yet the flowers bloom.

And lovers kiss a world away,

in the heat of your blessing.

And stupid children laugh.

I have played these games before.

Once there were too many stars

     for my local God.

Ten-thousand stars is one thing,

         but what about ten billion

in my cluster, with some billion clusters more.

I doubted You, but found

You grew bigger than my doubts,

And I swooned beneath the breadth of Your enormity.

But Lord, do you mean to stretch

my mind, till there is nothing left to stretch?

I like my lines of pleasure, clean

against the evil world –

But they are swirled and jabbed and glued

and I must close down now

Or find You bigger still, till

I have no place

left to hold You …

So will you please hold me?

911 Trilogy (original post 9/11/03)

Not even a sparrow falls...

be it blown

from the sky –

Unknown.

Not a single hair remains...

be it thrown

to the wind

of oblivion and flame

Un numbered.

Not a single hurt...

or heart
or missing voice

Unheard –

Indeed...

Not ever a drop did fall,
Nor did someone heed the call,

be it not KNOWN

before the Throne

and

remembered.

----------

For more poems by Kirk see

http://startledbyexistence.squarespace.com

(911 - hOLE IN THE wORLD)

(written Sept 12/13-2001)



A totally inadequate poem

So, here we have it. I want to share with you a world. I want to tell you that the world is at once an unapproachable glory, the outlands of heaven in our midst. I want to tell you that the world is alive with ongoing miracle and that the trees are like hard seaweed on the bottom of the Numa Sea . (Where did that come from?) I want too, to tell you that the thing is broken, the world has veered, and the code has been rewritten. I want you to sell your car or house, Finally, I want them to tear down the World Trade Centers… or better yet, convert them into apartments for the poor, or if not that, build some huge barn between them and make them into the front spires of a very grand cathedral.  
From the Journals of the Kirk--Why do I take pictures 1985

I’ll admit,
this thought isn’t safe
or a thing I say too loud (but hear me out.)


I have seen them with a foreign eye
like turrets on a godless-church,
silvereen, and soaring high
But missing the cathedral --


Testimonies to the arrogance of man
against every rule of nature,
TALL with vertigo and force,
streaming upward like
welded boxcars --


Two silver fists
in the face of God:
Like spikes in a rotted apple.

But today, I weep
and if you will, let me
with imagination

bleed.

(a Google image)

Bleed for pagans

and believers,

the bearded business men, the

brokers and the broken,

the silent mimes and firemen,

sisters, daughters, mothers, fathers, and

these ever-feuding sons of Abraham --

Indeed,


Father Abraham
has many sons --
those who walk in faith and seek
a city
made by God;
But don't we weep to see
Faith twisted into obscene forms.


---


Today,
I see with different eyes,
and I repent .. for wearing monocles.


Could it be
that a THING might be
MORE
than any ONE thing
at once?


Today, I see what were


twin trumpets,
Blasting out a tune to
to the majesty of man.


I see
two trees
mightier than redwoods,
brushing stars
and brushed
in lemon light
like a sky-house hotel
for Leprechauns.


I see
mighty rivers decked
in vivid commerce;


Old-world villages
replete with jugglers and silk –
boats on ropes whizzing up the ditches
laden with exotic wares from foreign lands
like some grand-market
tipped upward.


I see twin
Towers,
like thin lanes of light,
Bars of gold, beacons on the rim --
shining out a tale of
industry and might
and incomprehensible blessing --
leading a parade.




I see within,
and on each floor
(stacked above each other like coins)
a little town from Arkansas
complete
with hatted men
and football teams,
the smiling bells (now wearing jeans)
and the bee-hive ladies yakking
at the hair salon.
I see faith in the 24the century.


Indeed,
We saw a universe
with fifty-thousand centers
anchored in a common block.


We heard the twine of beating hearts
like a ten-thousand drums, then
the lull,
and now, the tortured
patter of the few,

And we felt within ourselves
the stuff of horror.

Veins, and brains
and towers like slit arteries
collapsing into bloody dust
before our eyes.

..


They say, on the radio today
that this is a different country.
And we believe it.
We will never feel the same.
We are all new Yorkers, wearing black.



***

Once there were two towers
Tall as titans
Full of grace
She wore the moon within her hair,
He wore the sun upon his face,


and they walked with the I-AM
in the garden
without shame.


Then some devil of a serpent
slashed the air,


One tower fell, and then…
 
 
 

Floaty Line Oplusion

Well, I know it’s not much of a picture, but this optical illusion makes it look as if the white stripe is hovering over the asphalt. Truth is, both the white line and darker parking line are painted directly on the ground, side by side. (The zoom of the lens during exposure intensifies the effect.) As is, I have seen this same thing done with people and oil spots, but I came by my picture purely. It was a pure accident.  I only saw the op-pop afterward.

Questions for Steve

This is an odd place to post, but news of Stephen Hawking's book - The Grand Design -  in which he argues for the spontaneous generation of the cosmos, got me to to thinking...about stuff I've written in the past.  This content below is something I wrote some 10 years ago as a book idea for my kids (which in turn, is in need of radical edit.)   Not sure I would ever want to get in a tangle with Stephen, but I think my questions near the end are worthy of his consideration.