He thought he kept the universe alone;
For all the voice in answer he could wake
Was but the mocking echo of his own
From some tree-hidden cliff across the lake.
Some morning from the boulder-broken beach
He would cry out on life, that what it wants
Is not its own love back in copy speech,
But counter-love, original response.
And nothing ever came of what he cried
Unless it was the embodiment that crashed
In the cliff’s talus on the other side,
And then in the far distant water splashed,
But after a time allowed for it to swim,
Instead of proving human when it neared
And someone else additional to him,
As a great buck it powerfully appeared,
Pushing the crumpled water up ahead,
And landed pouring like a waterfall,
And stumbled through the rocks with horny tread,
And forced the underbrush–and that was all.
When all Earth’s seas shall Levitate,
Dark shawled within the skies,
Upon our eyes will Starfish dance
Their waltz of Blind surprise.
The sun will Rise within wine Dark
As Argonauts imbibed,
Whose drunken arms embrace that sleep
Where Phaeton’s horses Stride.
Upon all of Earth’s wind-sanded shores,
As dolphins Learn to soar,
All we once were on the land
Shall be sealed behind the door
Of Ivory and Chastened Gold,
That the Mystery solved complete
Shall never til the seas’ Long fall
Wake mariners from their sleep.
— Van der Leun
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
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
— The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
Gerard Van der Leun
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I lived on the island of Mauritius for about 9 months. On the street outside my apartment complex were Mango trees that created a canopy like the elm trees used to in the midwest.
You had to be careful walking under those trees. Mangos would just fall and hit the street with a thud. If they hit your head, they would’ve knocked you unconscious.
I likes me sum mango’s.
The perfect fruit if I say so myself.
Guess I was just lucky, some people – not so much.
My sister in law for example.
She’s from Hoosiervile and when visiting Florida she ate a slice of fresh mango and swole up bigger’n Stuttgart, had to get ambulanced to the hospital – was critical for a few hours. Took weeks to get back to normal.
But not me. I could eat mangoes everyday and have, in the past. When I was a kid living on Lagg Av in Fort Myers we had mango trees in the yard. So many mango’s that never got ate, landed in the yard. Hit em with the mower and the giant nut would go flying. Would take out the neighbors windshield, if you were lucky. If it went backwards it would blow a foot off. Careful there hoss. Russian roulette with a mower. Same sister in law hit a rock and it burned a 3″ hole all the way through her calf. That left a mark. Diff hospital.
Buy a mango and just hold it and stare at it. A perfectly ripe mango is a treasure to the eye. Try it. Study the coloration, up close. Amazing. Nature is the original Rembrandt, on steroids. red-orange-yellow-green. WoW!
Peeling a mango is an art. Like filleting a catfish in midair. The farther you go the harder it gets, til your done, or the whole thing hits the floor. Hold both over the sink, damage control. I’ve wondered if a mango is a hybrid. Peach, cantelope, and something else. Can’t figure out what the something else is. And the cantelope part is specious. Don’t like cantelope. The very thought makes me heave. A shame too, cause the best cantelope farm in the world is about a mile from here, right next to the Bean Blossom covered bridge. Bud Smith’s place. They sell em for $3 along the road. As big as basketballs. My wife gnaws on one for a week as half the fridge is rented out to it the whole time. Maybe I ought to try a cantelope again since I haven’t tasted one since I was a kid half a century ago. Maybe I will, this year, when I see Bud out by the road. If I like em, and eat enough of them, maybe I’ll start to look like Trump. Nah. That wouldn’t be good. Who needs the bullshit? So I’ll alternate. Cantelope 1 week, Mango the next. All summer long. And orange juice all down my front, all the time. Where da honey bees iz?
That…was actually kind of fun. Kudos to them.
The mango is a lie.
Okay, you can only see the picture if you have your tablet in portrait mode. Otherwise, the full picture never loads, and you cannot scroll down to see it.
Weird.
Mangos make the fart grow stronger
The. Silliest. Thing. that I’ve seen in a long time…
Re: mango allergies, mango skins that are unripe contain urushiol, just like poison ivy and (ripe) alligator pear skins. Also mango stem sap has it.
So if you pick mangos, wear gloves, and if you eat mangos, make sure they are totally ripe. And don’t eat the skins.
Of course, some people do not have any problems, ever, just like some people never get poison ivy.
Despite the date, I’m assuming suburbanbanshee is not pulling our legs (stems?) about the poisonous mango skins.
Loved the Mango Tango!
Yup, the mango skin thing is true. But although I did once manage to get itchy fingers from peeling a produce sticker off an alligator pear, I have gnawed mango off the inner side of a mango skin before, with no ill effects. Apparently the ill effects can get impressive with unripe mango, so I was lucky.
Anyway, that is why you see tv chefs chopping off the skins or even using frozen mango. They do not want to be That Guy.