Au Petit Hotel Rouge

A splash of color --
much needed by this dark page
and by its author.
Though the winter's temperatures
were mild,
its palette limitations
were severe.
While we can survive on gray & white,
as prisoners on bread & water,
we cannot flourish
without a richer hue.

RM

bowl of hope

as uncertain as

rolling waves upon the sea

the return of cranes

-arem

We Visit the City

A few days of anniversary wanderings, combined with a business meeting, found us in the city - not our natural habitat. I managed to point to the ground under a lot of tall, modern buildings & told Nancy about the great things that used to be there. For some reason, she tires of that after only 48-72 hours. No damned stamina, that's her problem. Still, I ought to be entertaining, so I began to point out the few old buildings which remain, telling stories of women friends who lived here and there, in the days of my youth - in this turret or behind that leaded window - and she was still less than enthralled. Hard one to figure out, she is.

Benediction

Illusions

If life is just an illusion, it’s a
very good one to have you in it.
If you are just an illusion, I’m
glad to have been fooled.
If you have no illusions, it’s good
of you to suffer this fool.

- Ralph Murre

And now: a few days of silent reflection. -Arem

Season

Scenario for a Short Film


Storm clouds part
As skiffs and scows
Ply their trade
Dotting this northern port

Messengers, sailing
Shore to shore
Through veils of mist
Sometimes appear

A piano is moved
To a house on the hill
And played by four hands
Who know it well

Chords of harmony float
To weathered docks below
Where old men tend the ships
That carry their hearts

Sweet berries ripen
In the brambled thickets
Of the hidden
And sheltered coves

While some wait there
And understand
The things that drift in
From open waters beyond

Nightfall reveals
Sistine constellation
Of outstretched fingers
Almost touching and

Those who watch the sky
Shake their heads, for
This is not the season
For these stars


- Ralph Murre

investment opportunity

Not exactly insider information, but I'm betting heavily on South Dakota Coat Hangers, Inc.
Their home office is, appropriately, in Yankton, SD 57078

A Sonnet, they cried, A Rhyming Sonnet!

Inn of a New Day

A green bough hangs over the door ajar,
symbol of life, though freshly cut from it.
Enter here silent, walker from afar,
brave at the dawn, en route to the summit.
Ahead is What Is and the table set,
What’s Not lies forgot, halfway down the slope.
What Will’s still asleep, upstairs in his bed,
What Might Be has yet to be seen. I hope
you’ll eat well and work quiet with What Can,
“life’s too short” is a refrain best unsung.
Do try not to wake the ugly What Can’t,
life’s long enough for what needs to be done.

At sunset, plant a tree for tomorrow.
There’s time to celebrate; none for sorrow.

- Ralph Murre

Leery of Evolution

I like to picture myself as a free thinker, a clear thinker - the sort of guy who crawled out from under the barbed-wire of religion's prison-camp and never looked back. Still, doesn't that kind of person have to believe in something, or someone? We're certainly expected to believe in Science and Education-via-University, and if we possess a shred of intelligence, we absolutely, positively, MUST believe in the theory of evolution. And I'm trying, I really am.

Evolution, as I understand the concept, ought to work for the advancement of the species, right? So George W. ought to be better suited to the job than George Washington was? I'm not seeing it, but that's only a couple of hundred years. Let's increase the time-span tenfold: J. Falwell vs. J. Christ; again, hard for a layman, such as myself, to see the improvement. Madonna ca. year zero vs. Madonna ca. year two thousand ? Hmmm.

If Neanderthals are passe, how do they get elected? If the university-educated are the epitome, why is so much of their poetry so dreadful? Moses could part the Red Sea, but the Corps of Engineers can't handle Lake Pontchartrain?

If Wonder Bread was such a wonder, why haven't you had a slice in years? Weren't loin cloths at least as comfortable as B.V.D.'s or Jordache? Wasn't the Pontiac GTO better-looking than the Pontiac Aztec? Don't the wild turkeys in my woods appear to be as smart as the ButterBalls fattening up behind the fence? How many generations of mosquitos have passed in the last sixty-something years? Thousands, I suppose, but they're as annoying as when I was a boy.

You might argue that we no longer look much like the people portrayed in Egyptian glyphs, with their heads on sideways & all, but I ask: didn't Erasmus of Rotterdam write better essays than this?

- Ralph Murre

a follow-up question: If The Big G didn't like the idea of evolution, why create scientists?

- arem

watersign

as the ocean pulls

at the mountain stream, so too,

at watersign hearts

- arem