Progymnasmata

I remember my grandmother reciting excepts from the the New England "fireside poets": Whittier, Bryant, Lowell and Longfellow. And I remembered reading some of their works in high school. Later, when I studied literature in graduate school in the late '90s, I was told that scholarly focus on those poets had faded and that, essentially, they were only novelties to skim on the way to the more sophisticated slave narratives and, later, to Whitman and Dickinson.

Nothing they ...

Summer's here and with it come summer projects and, any chance I can, time on the water. This summer I bought a new kayak and I've been foolish about it ever since, taking it out three days this week alone.

Recently, I've enjoyed paddling the backwaters of an area reservoir; it's filled with wild life and most motorized boats don't go near it because, unless you are expert at finding the deep river channel, the area is far too shallow and unpredictable to navigate safely. But kayaks ...

I can trace most of my joys, pensive moments, and profound decisions to a body of water: I asked my wife to marry me as we sat beside a lake in a state park. I spent hours skippin' stones along the length of the "crick" back home. I know the local waterways as I know the road to work.

Here are some fragments water and me: beers with my brother and a mess of rainbows on a stringer beside us; walking on the frozen reservoir and the terrifying thrill of hearing the ice crack ...

Yes, I Love Big, Boring Books

I'm a contrarian
by nature and by heart:
authoritarian
of the dumb and the smart.
So, you say that "Moby-Dick
goes dully on and on"?
And Dickens' *yawn* Pickwick
Papers a marathon
of tedium and woe?
For me such dullard cries
bestow a golden glow
of heavy levity
upon those boring books
of noted gravity.
Of Kindels, texts or Nooks --
I am ...

So our old pot,
It rocked a lot:
When you had to "go",
It swayed to and fro.
Both the bowl and basin
Did much water wastin'.
A miserable crapper
With a broken flapper!

"Enough!" I said.
So off I sped
To the big box store.
Hoses, pipes and more
They had in great supply.
And potties! I had to try
To pick one with the perfect flush.
But I was in such a rush!
...