Mad Cow Disease, revised

   by Marilyn Jaeger

       (I really meant this as a joke, but Dick thought it was far too negative an ending...)

Grandma  J took the girls out awalking

In a red wagon, they fit oh so fine.

Up Sawmill Road, back through the green fields

Finally bumping ‘cross corn in a line.

Molly was four, and Lia just two

Wide-eyed and precious as gold.

Mom and Dad Potter, gone on a date

With Grandma in charge, safe, we’re told!

Of course the bumping soon brought a spill.

No problem, and the little girls giggled.

Small problem, the field was full of manure,

So into a suds bath they wiggled.

Now years later we always can wonder:

Were there really latent effects?

Mad cow disease?  Can that be their excuse?

If ever met with less than success?

Two teens, achievers, lights in our sky,

Expanding their learning wide.

Even failure is a teacher, sometimes the best kind,

But no mad cow we will ever abide!

Mad Cow Disease

Mad Cow Disease

by Marilyn Jaeger

Grandma  J took the girls out awalking

In a red wagon, they fit oh so fine.

Up Sawmill Road, back through the green fields

Finally bumping ‘cross new corn in a line.

Molly was four, and Lia just two

Wide-eyed and precious as gold.

Mom and Dad Potter, gone on a date

With Grandma in charge, safe, we’re told!

Of course the bumping soon brought a spill.

No problem, and the little girls giggled.

Small problem, the field was full of manure,

So into a sudsy bath they wiggled.

Now years later we always can wonder:

Were there really latent effects?

Mad cow disease?  Can that be their excuse?

When things fail to turn into success?

Conquered the Capitol!

Results are in:

 

For Saturday night's 10K: 52:33, 183th out of 1138, 11/33 in my age/gender division (M50-54), 8:28 pace.

For Sunday morning's 1/2 marathon: 2:04:10, 991st out of 2166, 38/70 division, 9:29 pace.

For the 19.3 mile overall challenge: 2:56:43, 59th out of 245, 3/7 division, 9:09 pace.

 

The half marathon was tough, and a sore throat took its toll (not to mention hills and age and a late night hockey game to watch), but I got through it!  Saturday's 10k time boosted me up in the overall standings, but for humility's sake, in that race I was 14:30 behind the best in my division, and 17:00 behind the leader.  But there is a smile on my face!

 

Thanks for cheering me on!

 

 

 

Mirror Test

Ben saw results of the first: a woodpecker corpse

in a tuft of grass he would have mowed down

but for his eye for things unseen (and perhaps just

a trace of remorse for mowing so close to the guinea pig

cage some summers before—the roar, not the blade,

put an end to that pet). So Ben stopped this roar

and planned for its grave. Meanwhile, while pruning

the roses a stone’s throw away, I spied results of the second:

woody’s twin sister (or brother—the head too young

to be red); I called out for Ben to double the plot.

He’d already gone to wash up for lunch, and no one

discussed the deaths in our yard. I chalked it all

up to an orphaned nest, fledglings too young to fly,

sufficiently fed for the days they had grown, their mama,

not anywhere known, leaving the rest to fend for own.

Imagine instinct-less leaps, where hunger may

trump teen-age dreams taking world by its tail, and

somewhere is mama, a worm, or a prayer. One fell as far as

the tuft in the shade of the tree; the other to roses, a

flight in its own fragranced right, nose-divingly.

Results of the third, after lunch, caused concern: how

many birds would be killed off today? This one lay

beside the thick trunk, the spot Ben had chosen to dig

the mass grave… My wife blamed the magpies that ravage

our yard, chortling riff lines like Jimmy Page, Radioactive

with actual rage. Be smart in a dog-eat-dog world

and make any upstart go down—so the magpies believe.

To think we play host to Bonnie and Clyde, staking their claim

in our bonny backyard with results of a fourth: one of us!

Toss out a mirror—they can see self—and reflect.

Heaven On My Shoulder

(Inspired by a misheard line from “There There” by Radiohead

Heaven on my shoulder,
if the burden I should bear,
will be my undoing,
a magnificent obsession
that could prove, to the delight
of my detractors, to be fatal.

But heaven on my shoulders,
if as wings by which I’m carried,
will be my unburdening,
the uplifting and sustaining
that will be, to the core
of my belief, my vitality.

Heaven on my shoulder
as a whisper in my ear
will challenge my attention
ever straining to listen
past the buzz of the world
and through the noise of mortality.

But heaven on my shoulder
as a quiet voice to hear
will sing softly in the background
as a constant reminder
that I can know, now,
the music of eternity.

Heaven is believing
that life is worth living.
It would be hell dwelling
on some life ever after
without celebrating
the life we are given today.

Heaven in the distance
is the dream of flying
and escaping the gravity
of physical weight,
a load not on my shoulder
but from the ground.

But heaven in the present
escapes the weight of waiting
and takes flight in knowing
now, that life is for living,
forever forgiving,
and death will not hold me down.

Heaven on my shoulder
with a whisper in my ear
will keep me on this journey
provisioned and encouraged
and will move me through each day
towards tomorrow.

Parlour Game--nicknames!

So, Em and I attended a vintage car exhibition at our quaint castle in Roztoky and, wuddayaknow, we found Del's Mustang. On the same day, for whatever reason, I was reminding myself of erstwhile baseball players and came upon Von Hayes, whose nickname (apparently) is "five for one" based on the speculative trade that got him to Philly for five players, including Manny Trillo and Juan Guzman. Got me thinking:

What are the nicknames in our family tree? What would we appropriately propose?

Mustang Del seems right.
Grandma Bunny, too.
Smokin' Joe..., could use review.


At Mantrap Lake my elder cousins called me Boris, because (obviously), "Go play somewhere else, Dan, you bore us!" Little did they know I'd go on to be an aficionado of Russian literature! Revenge! So, for the purposes of this parlour game, I'll consider "Boris" appropriate (but call me "baldhead", I might pray for she-bears to maul the offenders a la II Kings 2:24;)

Back to sporting celebrities, we'd wonder if Carlton Fisk smiled at his moniker "Pudge", or if Sandberg wanted something more imaginative than "Ryno". Some, like Paul Pierce "The Truth" self-nominate. And that is fair fixings in this suggested parlour game.

Let's use the comment feature--I'll demonstrate:

Prospect Heights

It’s May, and Labor Day, as

Irish blessings meld with eastern

Europe’s wishing wells—Mácha’s love

brigade, ’midst cherry blossoms rife

from Tokyo to Jefferson’s lagoon,

if love defines the tides of how

a country comes to be. Meanwhile,

May secures modality—the should and

could and would of might and may,

the underlying undergrowth of

winter dreams in states of disarray;

summer’s quick to compensate:

heat and freedom demarcate the

ground control of budding, breaking

pestilence. Anticipate another

Labor Day, end of summer, start of

stacking wood—‘May roads rise up to

meet you’ as a gauge of doing good.

Lutherans know the road is less

mechanical, more a pebble in my shoe.

I heard this Godspell rhapsody

at Wagner’s, ’73, when ‘where are

you going’ meant vastly more than

what I’d count as true, starchy

famines we might labor through. May

God hold you in the palm of His hand.

May we see each other in familiar,

interim points-of-view. May we

shirk the politburo protocols and

weave instead the silken threads

we use to mark the liturgy, ‘finally glad

that you are here, by my side’—singing

softly to the child in me, May and

sometimes martial months as they’d

unfold, all told, graciously. I had

brothers, cousins, sister-on-the-way,

friends and dogs to guide me through

the machinations of a million signs

and what they try to say; I had two dads

and due theology to wordsworth poems

and plans; I had a thousand questions

for John 1:14. Whatever labor brings our

savior to ourselves, it’s cause to celebrate,

from cherry trees to routeless roads.

A pebble whispers, ‘take me with you,’

callouses and corns too readily reduced.

We know the footfalls hurt, but now

it’s First of May, with ample proof

we’re blessed along the way.