![The Eyes Have It: A question for my readers [UPDATED AND BUMPED]](https://americandigest.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/5d1c00bb8da84211fe942644_Cataract-diagram-p-1080-150x150.png "The Eyes Have It: A question for my readers [UPDATED AND BUMPED]")
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Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way.
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles –
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
four-dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.
Gary Snyder
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
— BY THEODORE ROETHKE
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Gerard Van der Leun
Comments on this entry are closed.
This child will fail geometry. He has no natural understanding of lines, curves and forces. After the first time being wacked in the head by the lid he should have turned around and pulled the bin. But every time he ever saw an adult moving a bin, they always push it. He had no creativity to turn around and pull it. Pulling it would have put the wind against the lid, thus holding it down.
I always pull my bins to the street. My neighbors look at me funny. I can pull two bins, one in each hand. Everyone else makes two trips. Go figure…
Question? He keeps looking up at the camera. Does he know that someone if filming him?
Reminds me of the classic Larson cartoon of the fat kid pushing hard upon the door that says, “Pull.” Above the door is a sign, “School For Gifted Children.” The kid in this video is Presidential timber. Men in smoke-filled rooms are taking notes.
“This child will fail geometry.”
=========
Maybe. But so what? I failed algebra. Twice.
What that kid showed was his “stick-to-it-iveness”, the will to keep tryin’ no matter what.
Determination will always be stronger than smarts.
I’d have put a spring clamp or 2 on that lid.
That kid not only had “stick-to-it-ivness,” he also exhibited no crying, whining, or run to momma wimpyness.
“Nobody said it would be easy for Dems to drag their partisan impeachment into the senate.”
That was me at the age of “eleb’un”.
Don’t feel bad Ghost, I was so ADHD that I failed Algebra I twice. Took it again and was failing a 3rd time when a caring teacher pulled me aside and told me that she would help me but that I had to pay attention in class and do my homework. I did and pulled a certain F up to a B. She was the only teacher I ever had from K -12 that actually cared enough to help me find my focus and I’ve never forgotten her.
I’m gonna cut the kid some slack – he’s got the perspiration bit covered, but awaits suitable inspiration.
Future California politician.
Having had the mortifying experience of losing a wheelbarrow full of wet concrete in front of the whole damn crew…
I can relate.
At least I was smart enough to let it go. (why my back still works)
JWM
OK, so the kid ain’t a quick study. But he’s still doing better than some folks in my town, where we’ve had people actually trip and fall INTO one of this big bins.
They were probably trying to feed.
He’s far from being the first youngster to suffer the consequences of trying to handle more than a four-finger lid.
You can tell by the way he hitched his pants up at the end that he wasn’t going to give up.
“four-finger lid”
=======
Ain’t heard that one in awhile.
Ha-ha! – ghostsniper, I’d half-hoped that “four-finger lid” might elicit a reaction from one or another of my fellow dinosaurs. Delighted to read that you got it!
After that plastic can whacked me on the head for the second time I would have dropped a match on it and burned it to the ground.
Turn it around kid! Just turn it around! Oh! Never mind.
You do not have to be a germ-phobe or hypochondriac to know that front of the trashcan is where it engages with the least sanitary portions of the trash truck. No Batman kootie spray is going to get this kid to put his hands on the hepatitis C and maggot infested fecal matter that he envisions on the front of the trash can. Hell, I’m in my mid 50s and still would not touch the front of a trash barrel on a dare with my bare hands in trade for an M-60. FFS.
Auntie – Sadly, it’s be a VERY long while.
“…least sanitary portions of the trash truck…”
======
You got that right Snake….almost.
The entire truck is unsanitary as far as I’m concerned.
We don’t do trash cans, just bags, right before the truck comes.
If they sit out there too long the ‘coons get in em.
Down in Cape Coral, FL the city inspectors make the rounds at about 6am writing tickets to people that didn’t bring their trash cans in from the day before. My brother built a nice wooden lattice fence 4′ high on the side of his garage so the trash cans couldn’t be seen from the street (unsightly) and he used bungee cords on the cans to keep the coons out. The inspectors said you have to take the cords off before putting the cans on the curb because on of the people that pick the can up to dump in the truck got an eye put out when a cord snapped when he tried to remove it. So my brother got in the habit of removing the cords and hanging them on the fence, until code enforcement gave him a $26 ticket for it. Yep, hanging a bungee cord on the fence is an infraction. Just a small part of the reason we moved away.
They have airplanes flying around taking note of the yards that appear to have not been mowed lately and sending a $50 ticket to the owner of record. I once mistakenly received a ticket for the neighbors yard and it took me 6 months of arguing to get my money back, minus a $10 service fee. Our 12yo son got a $10 ticket for shooting his BB gun in our backyard that had a 6’ high estate fence around it.
Seems a nosy neighbor lady didn’t think that was right. Too many people, and most of them minding everybody else’s business.
Your bro’s plight reminds me of that line from the Declaration of Independence… from that long list of grievances describing a certain asshole named George III… “He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.”
‘Life is hard,
harder if you’re stupid.’
John Wayne
Weeeelllllll … that kid still has time to learn. There was a certain person of my acquaintance who was wheeling the garbage bin out to the curb and thought he/she/it needed to take something back out of the bin because surely spousie didn’t mean to throw THAT away … while stretching and bending into the bin, the supporting foot slipped on the icy driveway … said person ended up with a broken hip and months of recovery. Anybody can apply for the stupid human tricks award.
I despair for the species ( HT: Road to Perdition, Aurora speakeasy )
Well I guess the good news is, he’ll never work on a garbage truck.
SPK you can’t pull it from the front! You got to lean it back!
You must be the kids uncle.
Wind + big plastic thing + not understanding you can turn it around = humor on the internet