Month: March 2025

On the Bright Side

Rita Sommers-FlanaganLeave a comment 

Let’s keep it light today, I suggest to The Interaction. 
Great idea, she nods happily. You go first.
Right. Me. Well, I could fill this day with music.

The Interaction feigns interest. I laugh. I have a playlist called
Music for Dogs Riding in Cars. This is because the dogs I know best
like to ride in cars and get treats from drive-through vendors.

The drool of a dog on the dashboard speaks to anticipation
and delight. Even the managers at the landfill keep a supply of treats.
Perhaps defensively, perhaps lovingly. Doesn’t matter to the dog.

Our senses evolved to perceive the fragile majesty of creation.
The earth has thus evolved with unspeakable splendor.
Perhaps defensively, perhaps joyously. Doesn’t matter.

How am I doing? I ask The Interaction.
She is a spritely old woman, prone to praise and bouts of hilarity.
I’ve never been sure of her sanity. Neither has she. Doesn’t matter.

Oh, so good. So tasty.  So dangerous, she says. Irreverent in the extreme. 
Real people have been martyred for less. She pumps a fist. You go, girl.
Okay, I smile. You Daughter of a Drooling Dog. Let’s roll that stone.

I’ve never been sure of my own sanity or the point of it all, 
and I don’t know if we’re opening a grave or joining Sisyphus. 
But we only roll stones that are ready. Stones that want to be rolled.

We begin this new endeavor with glee. We’re at the County Fair.
Guess the weight of the stone, the Barker barks. Win a Teddy Bear.
That would be cheating, I tell him. We already know the weight of the stone.

The Interaction and I link elbows. We’re drinking dialectical lemonade
squeezed from a stone I painted yellow. Sweetness mediates bitterness.
None of this matters to the imaginary lemon. We savor every sip.

Neuropathy

Rita Sommers-Flanagan1 Comment

Photo copied from random internet search

The cold hands of March are not easily forced into the welcoming shape of April. March is in denial about her advancing neuropathy, made worse by the chemicals of decay around her. She pretends to be warm and comfortable, but she’s not.

With a pointed glance, the God of the Floral Sofa tries to shame me for dust, crumbs, and smears of yogurt. “No!” I glare and turn up the music. Thanks to a blogger managing Opal’s Farm in Texas, I recently discovered James McMurtry. I don’t love country music, but an old cowboy dressed in drag to protest the absurdities of the small-minded, hard-hearted Neanderthals among us is worth a listen.

The Beloveds on Okinawa gather each year to pray for peace and health. On Easter Sunday in 1945, a battle began there that would end three months later with 200,000 people dead.

“How many enemies? How many friends?” God asks.

“That’s a false distinction,” I snap.

“Yes. But remember, you’re a false distinction,” God laughs. “And so am I.”

I gather my blankets and beer and sink into the Dark Place. False distinctions parade by in cosmic drag: Life/Death. Love/Hate. Evil/Good. Black/White/Red/Yellow. The air is thick with unexpressed longings. I can’t breathe. Hunger smolders from the sunken eyes of nursing mothers. My own well-fed eyes sting like crazy, but I can’t seem to cry.

Without being requested to do so, my phone organizes my photos into artificial themes so banal I am appalled. The shallow joy, the uncritical eye—these uninvited invasions attempt to pacify and define my little life. But I resist. “Isn’t that your job, God?” I sneer. “Define and pacify my little life.”

“Yes. Absolutely,” Floral Sofa nods. “But no.”

I am terrified by the erosion of compassion around me. Neuropathy of the soul, caused by willfully telling or believing lies, is epidemic.

The ship of which I am captain has sailed. I’m floating over a sea of faces that, like the Mona Lisa, have been artistically blurred, thus removing the sharp lines most of us need to recognize ourselves. We are rendered ambivalent. Our feet flop when we walk, and falls are more frequent. “Take heart, Little Life,” Floral Sofa whispers. “It is in the falling that you find salvation.”

“That’s not the way I want to be saved,” I answer angrily.

“Oh, but I think it is,” the Sofa says. “Either way, I’ll be around.”

I sip my beer, pull my blankets tighter, and plan my elaborate but futile escape.

Remember Your Lines

Rita Sommers-FlanaganLeave a comment 
Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing.
Wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king?

The king was in the Whitehouse counting out his money.
The queens, in Mar-a-Lago, eating bread and honey.

The maid worked for the government hanging out fake clothes,
But down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose.

There was DEI commotion, but Little Jenny Wren
Flew down into the garden and put it back again.

Outside my window, four and twenty blackbirds form an undulating carpet of wings. From them, I take hope. From me, they take grain. We do not begrudge each other these small takings. Is that enough?

“That’s a fair exchange,” the Unimagined whispers. “It is enough.”

As far as I can tell, I’ve lived in this one body my entire life. I’ve not thrown it on a grenade, but if needed, I think I would. I’ve not run it into burning buildings to save those unconscious from smoke inhalation, but if needed, I think I would. But would I?

These are my fantasies and aspirations. When I grow extra beans or beets, I share. Once, I was walking with a friend in the city late at night, and a mugger knocked her down. I chased him, but he got away. How are we to know if we are bit players or heroes?

“It’s your story,” the Writer says. “Remember your lines.”

My heart breaks for the runner who stumbles or the farmer whose tractor runs out of fuel while plowing the muddy field. The glancing back. The long walk home. The crowd dispersing. The rich preparing to eat themselves alive, knives sharpened, bones strewn everywhere. “Wait!” I shout, aware that I, myself, have stumbled and looked back. “Are those my bones?”

The Living Companion laughs. “Those are the ancestor’s bones. You still have flesh.”

I still have flesh. I still have carrots and dried kale. Oh, Force of Life, give me the audacity of blackbirds singing from the center of the pie. The king cannot partake of singing birds. And may I borrow the tenacity of little Jenny Wren, putting the faces together again?

The Bane of My Existence chucks me on the chin. “Sure, but keep in mind, some things broken cannot be fixed. And don’t sing alone if you can help it, honey. The harmonies will help you remember your lines.”

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.



IT IS AND IS NOT TOO LATE

Rita Sommers-Flanagan7 Comments

Do not think you can abdicate.

–W.H. Auden 


The Great Wrongness is upon us. Again. 
Do not wave white flags. Being taken captive is inadvisable. 
Seek shelter. Provide shelter. If you cannot go to places 
where the earth is less wounded, take comfort knowing
there are such places. Do what you can to protect them.

Put your hand over your beating heart, 
not to honor an arbitrary set of lines 
called country, but to remind yourself of Mystery. 
Breathe and move in wonderment. 
If your eyes still focus, 
send and receive the greenness of early spring.

Invite yourself in where you belong.
Make yourself a simple supper. 
Be generous to those who give others simple suppers. 
Sprout seeds in the moist darkness
and then plant them gently 
where they will get enough light.

Go through the motions of love 
even when it doesn’t feel like love. 
Teach your children honesty and courage. 
Teach them to share. Teach yourself to share. 
The Awfulness eventually comes apart 
when people share what they have. 
Break the bread and watch it grow.

It is and is not too late.
Help is and is not on the way. 
It is and is not up to you.
You do and do not know what to do.

Life is pain, your highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

From The Princess Bride

Delusions to Die By

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

Though historians may beg to differ, it seems that humans have never been this close to self-annihilation. While wars rage and the earth gets trashed, the most pressing moral inquiry of the masses is this: “How can I get a better deal?”

A derisive snort and mocking applause announces The Presence in the corner.

“Hello, Holy Contradictions,” I mumble.

What I tease into words in the murky dawn might be the wind or a mouse scratching in the wall, but I feel certain something beyond is lurking in the cosmos. I offer greetings most mornings.

“Good day,” HC says, emerging from chimera to full status as a citizen unto itself. It has wings. It has legs. It has a beating, bleeding heart. “You aren’t wrong,” it adds from a perfectly formed mouth.

“You mean my sarcastic comment about the morality of acquisition? The Art of the Deal? Or the nearness of extinction?”

“It’s all rooted in selfish genes and the wrong-headed notion of survival of the fittest,” HC says with scorn. “You think you want fat lives, herd immunity, and evidence of superiority as indicated by possessions and an address on Easy Street.”

“True,” I admit. “That does sound good. Makes me want to be the fittest.”

HC snorts again. “Have you thought that through? C’mon. You’ve got the brain power to get beyond your genes. In the end, the Fittest will stand armed, paranoid, and alone. The winner of the rat race is a rat.”

“Nice platitudes,” I say. “Got a better way?”

HC shrugs. “Stop deluding yourself. No one survives. It’s Now that counts.”

“Thanks,” I snap. “I feel so much better.”

“The ultimate measure of fitness is how you love and protect the unfit. It’s time to break the light into itself, hold the Face of Anger in your hands, and let her bite you.”

My hands are fisted. “You are certifiably nuts,” I say in a low, edgy voice.

“And you are certifiably angry,” HC says with authority.

“Yeah. So, I’m supposed to bite myself?”

HC nods. “And hold the Faces of Joy and Justice but be careful. They’re elusive and explosive.”

“You’re seriously insane,” I say. “I can’t do any of this.”

“Oh, but you can,” HC insists, not at all sympathetic. “Hold all the Faces of Insanity in your hands and let them bite the hell out of you.”

I stare at my weathered hands. The biting has begun.

“I’d rather hold your face,” I plead, frightened.

“Oh, my little mosquito!” HC says gently. “What do you think you’re doing?”

A grim hilarity takes hold. I slap myself silly, and for now, we get on with it.