when all is said and done- really we should be thankful for our health..a friend had complications from a previously "simple" surgery, somehow I was here...alone with no language trying to deal with insurance ..and now he's in the hospital with a second operation to try to clean up the old one, and seeing him like that, made me realize really to be grateful for your health (and have insurance)..which of course I don't have..

Childhood...

Snow falling in heaps, children sledding,
red cheeks, hysterical laughter! Lost in thought, it's easy to miss the sheer innocent enjoyment of snow..until one child, one sweet-(this one is!)little six year old child stands up and peers out the window..and there is no need for language...forlorn he stares at his friends, whilst I book in hand, go over the days of the week, Monday...silent tears streak down his face, and for the first time, I wonder what am I doing...I want with all my heart to say, go have fun play in the snow, who needs English at this age! Yet I can't...I try to quietly get him to go wash his face and relax, but here language is needed and even his sister stares blankly at me, and tells me why he's upset (in czech) yet I understand why...I leave the book it's useless now, and try to find a game to make it up to him..I do not know why I felt so bad, perhaps because he was so quiet and resigned, unlike some other children who misbehave and I can feel some indignation! I could empathize with his sorrow, yet I know there will be many days of snow, and many more tears to come...life is hard, if only I could be sure that at least he IS learning something....

late night foolishness

Chronicles of the heart-
pass the time between love and passion,
opening towards the sun, absorbing all the light and warmth.
Needing no guidance, listening to no one-
consumed in their own little world, they gravitate and grow in the heat of passion.
The little betes! condemns the brain, if only they would listen to logic's common sense, they would be safe! Yet the heart knows no restraint-it trusts and loves...and loves again...Condemned to repeat the same mistakes over and over, sighs the brain. Perhaps yet a life without passion is a life which is over before it began, proclaims the heart. Safe in its own cocoon, it never feels pain! Yet safe in its own cocoon, sighs passion, it fails to feel the shiver of a harsh kiss on a cold windy night,
in Chronicles of the heart.

To rest unencumbered in this world, free from thought and pain...finding solace
in a glass of plum brandy..slivovice..softened with fruit tea..
too easy to get lost in its depths,
No headache, no nausea, simply a release,
...too easily addictive...
purely a release,
which solves nothing..
in the light of day, it all remains the same...
Yet I know
I am not the first
nor will I be the last to know this..and still search for release..

Ahh the younger generation!

Are we (the book people) really this old!!! :)

p.s. click on the cartoon, it's a link. (It's the first time I've tried this)

Home sweet home..

A portion of an article I found in the IHT, African section, dated November 14. I'm beginning to lose what little faith I had in humanity again, I often try to restore it but then it is quickly diminished.. why is it that greed always wins, and simple people always suffer the whims of those who hold power? This article depicts the destruction of a forest in Kenya, starting with the British colonials in the 1930's, and ending with those in power now, and a small tribe of people who are simply trying to keep their home (the forest) and their way of life...(nothing new I know).

This could be a problem because the Ogiek are not great record keepers. Recent reports indicate that 8 of 10 Ogiek cannot read. Their total population is estimated at 5,000 to 20,000, many of them balancing their traditions with the trappings of modern life. It is not uncommon to see an Ogiek man with a quiver of eagle feather arrows in one fist and a cellphone in the other.

“I have one question,” said an Ogiek boy in a village near Marashoni. “Will the government evict us or not?”

Another young man tramped off into the woods to check a honey trap at the top of a tall tree. He was carrying a smoking coconut — “to make the bees sleep,” he explained — and wearing an antelope skin pouch and a pair of muddy sneakers. The last thing he did before shimmying up the bark and disappearing into the leaves was to kick off his shoes, a symbol of the world he was leaving behind, however fleetingly.

Three words lost forever in the dead of night,
softly uttered words
caress your back...
you never notice...
only words
they hold no physical substance,
yet linked to the heart...
they yearn to break free once broken they can not be tied down...
foolish words,
some
take them so lightly..
never imagining the joy or the pain they can bring...
would that I could utter them freely
three words
lost forever in the dead of night...