"The Makers of Things"

And they said President Obama's inaugural speech had no sound bites.

It's been a long time since any politician has mentioned "the makers of things." President Obama put "the makers of things" on the plus side, in the constructive column, flagged as the good guys.

The makers of things -- as in not the paper-pushers, the number crunchers, the sales people, the MBA's, but the people who actually create something. 

The people who add to the world, who transform nothing into something, who put something before you that wasn't there before.

The makers of things imagine something and work it into reality. Maybe it's made in a factory, or a farm field; a theatre or a canvas. Maybe it's made of paper or steel. Maybe you can hold it or stand on it or sing it or read it.

More than piling up money. More valuable than money. Taking the invisible from the inside and making it a contribution to the outside.

"The Makers of Things." It's a perfect sound bite.

Starling Salon

They love the leftover water in my gutter and squish in together to get wet. In the early morning from my bed I watch my window speak like a ventriloquist. Starling squeaks and squeals mingle with their rumbling skinny feet. I'm too drowsy and sleep-eyed to get out of bed to look and can only smile at the window seeing in my mind's eye the pointy-beaked speckled comedians making a vaudevillian fuss over a puddle.

The Dark and the Light of It

I heard recently that astronauts train (used to train?) deep down in caves. Caves present that extraordinary phenomenon of complete blackness. They call it TCD: Total Cave Darkness. It's the kind of darkness astronauts encounter in outer space. Inner Earth. Outer Space. They have the same lighting, or no-lighting. When we close our eyes we see black, too. But usually not all black. I see light patterns, sometimes moving shapes, and one persistent design that has followed me my whole closed-eye life - a perfect 35mm frame of an amoeba burning in a stuck film projector. Sometimes faces fade in and out. Faces of no one I know. Sometimes carnival-like with exaggerated features. Not very friendly folk. Who are these people?

We don't usually like the dark. Maybe for sleeping. When you can't see you don't know where you are. But even so, you're right there. Being blind is not disappearing. What the blind see is the inside. Inside the cave. And outside. As large as Outer Space.

Makes you wonder where light comes from and why it decides to barge in on darkness. Is light the extrovert, dark the introvert? Light loud, dark dumb. Dusk, twilight, dawn. The wedding of the two. The romantic blending of extremes. The much more personable "grey."

Eve

Like standing at the edge of a precipice. Toes at the end of the road, peering down, leaning just a bit to see just how far down is. Imagining the jump, the fall, the flying part. Pulled by gravity, that great equalizer, dream killer, necessary rock, your pal for life or otherwise life would be in space...or no life. How well can you play with gravity on the ledge, teetering, deciding to leap, or maybe just backing up and going home? The Eve is the edge. Growing toward evening, leveling, toward the balanced mix between light and dark. On the Eve of a new revolve of the earth, now we start again...but first we have to jump into the dark new, into what we can only imagine but never ever never know until we're there landed next to gravity, our arms around each other like pals, meeting again in another new year after tipping over from the eve of the last.

O Christmas Tree

Aren't the real ones the best ones? Pulling a tree indoors, into your house, they bring with them the chill of outside, the raw smell of open spaces, they look out of place, bark, hard bark, green needles used to wind and night and sun, used to weather. They seem a bit uncomfortable (from the little we understand of tree communiques). There's a ceiling. There are walls. And strange inorganic shapes like a sofa and chair, a table that looks familiar, the wood of it has a grain, but the shape, four right angles propped up on sticks. Looks all wrong. Like the world has shape-shifted and indoors is king. The world has shape-shifted. And indoors is king. The tree stays a while, wears a collection of funny hats, is wired to be lit. It stands and watches the life of humans moving from room to room, passing by, sniffing deeply. They love that pine scent. And then after a few days the hats and lights are removed and out you go. Please make yourself invisible now. We don't want you indoors. You no longer have roots so you can't live outdoors. You're tossed somewhere or chipped up. Your short life, considered by some to be a celebration, is really just a short-lived casualty of room decor.

Walk On By

The crunch of grit fills the soles of your shoes with tiny earthquake sounds and avalanches. (The grit settles from the busyness of goings-on, from urban madness to rural quietude.) Grit on the ground, sidewalk, or shoulder collects on our boots...magnetizes each step to follow the other. The body swings forward in tune with the blood pumping there. Muscles are up and awake, feeling their oats, knowing aliveness. Joints jive beneath the surface of motion. Up. Lift. Down. Swing. Wind in your hair. Counting stone slates, eyes absorbing passing dandelions, don't step on cracks, scuff, a heel catches a grating, here's some mud. (If you would walk on and on for days and days, you'd be far away, each inch you pass would get to know you and you know it.) Physically touching the planet, noticing it's there, visiting it stroll by stroll, taking it in stride, mobilizing upon it as it sideswipes the universe with its own spinning strut.