Loves -- Another Poem

I felt like I needed to post another poem to counter-act the other. Maybe I'll eventually post all my poetry. I've written less than a dozen. I'm not an oober poet, just a dabbler. I first drafted this in high school and it won some high school award, I forget, and then wrote a new version of it maybe 3 years ago -- perhaps when I knew a little more on the subject? Still learning, though. The "after Stephen Dunn" thing is a homage because he wrote this really excellent poem also called "Loves", and I am a bit borrowing his unique idea. It's sort of like when an amateur repaints a master's work to learn from his techniques. If you walk through the Louvre you see tons of aspiring artists doing it. Anyway, here it is:

Loves
(after Stephen Dunn)

Love is what I love most,
the kind that sweeps me off my feet
and jitterbugs me around the hall
with just a kiss of the eyes.

There’s something majestic to love
in a cloud of stars, and something
in a crescent moon, reminiscent
of an obnoxious grin
from a Cheshire cat.

I love the absolute dark--
the liquid blackness
that pools in my eyes,
inking out the whole world,
and me with it.

Of colors, I love purple. Of foods, Mexican.
Who does not love emperor penguins?
They waddle about,
beaks pointing to frigid blue skies,
as if they know it all.

When the trees come aflame, I love the fall,
and when thunderclouds engulf the sky,
and summer afternoons become pregnant shadow,
rain is coming,
I love that anticipation.
I have never loved the winter,
but it earned my respect back home, in Chicago,
with frost that burned my fingers through thick gloves.

I love words, especially those
that communicate
and the ones that lift me up
just by seeing them against the page
like, light … lithe …life,
maybe I love the letter l:
its slender grace, its lilt, its cursive loop.
And love, of course, such a dazzling word,
to see it, to say or hear it,
to mean it,
I love it more each time.

Soilies Descend on Indianapolis

We're here. We're dirty. And we ain't leavin' till the last soil organic matter compound structure has been projected on a powerpoint slide and gawked at!

Yes, it's the Soil Science Society of America conference. Why Indianapolis, you might ask? Well, someone told me an interesting anecdote -- about 25 years ago one of the first of these annual meetings was held in Las Vegas. They've never returned. Why? They were banned by the city of Vegas. "You took up every single hotel room in this town. And your people don't gamble." True that. Drink, yes. Gosh, yes. But why zone out in front of a slot machine when you can geek out with some other soilies? Actually, I think if it were just the soilies, Vegas would've invited us back. We know how to party. Soil Ecology Society conferences: nuf said. The problem is really the agronomists and the crop scientists that share this meeting with us, they can be a little old school.

Favorite things overheard at this meeting:

"This soil has 75% base saturation. That's 75% B.S." (pause) "Kind of like me."

"Soil scientists do good science with bad methods."

Speaker: "Some of us are still teaching our students the lignin theory of soil organic matter formation. In my opinion that's right up there with teaching creation science." Audience: "oooooooooh."

Soil scientist trying to get others to help him finish his cake: "Come on, you guys have got to help me sequester this carbon."

Name of 3-dimensional mapping program for soil: "Blob3D"

Name of factor describing how constrictions in soil slow down soil water flow: "Retardation Factor." (Sort of felt like this factor applied to me and how well the presentation was entering my brain. I think it may have been slowed by this retardation factor.)

Abbreviation for mineral hydrolyzable carbon: "HyMin."

Name for particulate organic matter that is separated by flotation in high density salt solution: "Floaters."

Naive me to renowned scientist: "Oh, you're at OSU? Awesome. Is that in Columbus or Cincinnati?" (pause) Renowned scientist: "Heavens! Oregon State University, not Ohio!"

Renowned scientist visiting my poster who is keynote speaker at this conference and has written many classic papers and books and is doing me a tremendous honor by visiting my poster: "Are you familiar with my method of permanganate extractions?" Me: "Um. No. Refresh my memory."

Postcard From the Outer Banks, North Carolina

There are three crabs on the bottom of the little swimming pool behind the beach cottage. They pace the floor, wall to wall. Today a Nor'easter blew down the banks and I went and stood on the beach. I watched a sea gull fly with all its might into the wind yet not move an inch. Sometimes I feel like that. The ocean was in white caps. I watched the sand blow down the beach, swirling like fog, just below knee level. It was almost ghostly. Footprints evaporated before my eyes.

We went to the top of the Currituck lighthouse and I was terrified of the wind. We were 160 feet off the ground, and I felt like the wind would like nothing more than to pluck me up and drop me into the sound. But it was beautiful. The trees are just beginning to turn here. And the red brick lighthouse stands out against the blue sky.

My favorite lighthouse was Cape Hatteras. It's painted in fanciful swirls of white and black, and is so tall. Where the Currituck's red stands out against the sky, this one leaps. They paint the lighthouses distinctively here so that they can guide people in daylight as well as at night.

I tried hang gliding on the sand dunes, just down the road from Kitty Hawk. You attach yourself to the center of the kite, pick up the kite, and start running as fast as you can down the dune, until your feet don't touch the ground any more. We were on the hang gliding bunny hill, so not very fearsome. I was a bit more concerned about climbing the lighthouse than the hang gliding.