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Showing posts from May, 2018

An Expedient Remedy

       Standing at the edge of a precipice, a man looked down.  There was much that needed doing, getting down the cliff for one, and he did not know where to start.  It was information he lacked — was there, for example, a path down?  For another, just how much of the cliff face would he need to explore before the way made itself clear?  And what would he eat in the meantime?              His stomach rumbled.             All about him were ripe red berries on shrubs and mushrooms on and under trees; but which were poison and which were safe?             A fine mess, this.   All his own doing.   Naturally.   Not so much in a direct sense, but rather indirectly.   He had, after all, chosen his own friends.   There was little that he could do when plunked in the middle of the wilderness, and well did his friends know it.   And having been set down upon this cliff face by the jest of old school chums, he felt his lack of skill intensely.   He could, if worse came to worse, go

A Poem of the Purple Tulip

If a purple tulip could talk she would say something calm cool and wise, without the flash a soothing, ready balm She would listen to cares and woes and nod in regal fashion her words would have steady care to psychologic questions She'd listen with careful ease and forgive all lowly faults finding concealed buried worth hidden in secret vaults 'Let all come forth,' she'd say with no hint of jealous eye and bring forth truth and good and right from tangled messy ties One would feel encouraged having in her presence been saluting her majestic head with courage for one's kin.

An Ode to Spring

       When Red burst on the scene, it was all he could do to keep from lording it over the others.  It wasn't entirely his fault; he could not help a perfectly timely arrival.  White had already arrived, indeed she was the first to arrive.  But it was readily agreed that she was far too showy and demur.  Too stately for her own good, Red thought.  The only reason why she held her place was only because she arrived first, and no other reason.  Everyone was simply too glad of her presence to notice her lack of vibrance, for she made the barrenness seem all at once more bearable.          Purple came next, and he wasn’t half bad.   He dressed well enough, Red gave him that, taking careful pains, and going so far as to borrow a bit from Yellow (not a bad chap, Yellow, always happy to share a bit with any of the lot).   Most took well to Purple, to the sheer solidity of him, if nothing else.   After all, when one has only experienced White, Purple adds a real robustness that canno

Dandelions

       Two girls sat on a rock and stared out at the wide expanse of sea and sky that met their gaze.  They had decided to spend the day philosophically.             'Do you think, Jo, that something could drop out of the sky big enough to empty the entire ocean in one splash?'             'Oh, sure,' said Jo, easily enough.  'But if that happened, we'd all die.'             ' All of us?   Everyone?’ queried the asker.             ‘Definitely,’ said Jo.             ‘Even if someone was right in the middle of the continent sitting ready in one of those boats that can flip the right way up again?’             ‘They’d probably die, too,’ Jo said.   ‘Listen, Lily, do you think there could be a disease so bad everyone on earth would die within an hour?’             Lily sat thinking for a moment, then said, ‘If the disease travelling in something really fast, like through light, then yeah, it could happen.’             ‘Light as the bearer o