lost keys
from either a piano or home
signifying the way
music will wash
over us
even after
any pretense of ordinary living has
turned to furtive or else.
Science and the myths of gentle souls
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Author Archives: Elea Lee
John 20:16
Tree King
The before and the not-yet
Become the metaphysical geography of a mid-afternoon discourse-
What is the last holiday of a person’s life?
Passover? Kwanzaa? Thanksgiving? Cinco de Mayo? Christmas?
Christmas-I know you love Christmas!
As do the trees
Poised as they are, impatient,
On the far tether of human reckoning
Waiting for the signal
To clap
Clap before their King
Feminism for ordinary stones
After giving the human mothers ample time to choose
The-would-be-has-been-will-be-stone-mover turned to this sea of
quiet rocks
Paced among them
Raised his arms wide
And spoke words of life over them-
Sing, cry, stomp, holler, embargo, resist, advocate, articulate…raise
these your newborn voices
for all these
very little girls
curled without defense-
half-a-billion muted, crucial
Question marks
as each loses
one simple, brutal
Round of rock-paper-scissors
in this place we have marked “private”
then left alone.
Thin (Fake news:real girls)
After the 911 call, the sirens, the knocked-in door. After the 2-for-1 autopsy, the souping-out of ballistic shards in layers of mother, curls of child. After the sewing up, the tissue samples, temporary storage in this antiseptic place.
After this near-final totem of mother-and-child.
the cool and empty morgue fills with an emanation of light, softly cupped voices, perfumed flurry, fairy godmothers. A little late she thought as they scooped and coddled the baby-little late she thought as they lifted her from the crook of each bent elbow, inexplicably washed and free of blood. Here child, they murmur, try on this, try on that. Blur of organza and tulle.
After the day she’s had she goes along with all the fuss. Come on, child, carriage is waiting!
And there they all are bippity, boppity, boop! Apartment lot for courtyard, uncajolable vermin with no intention of donning livery or pulling pumpkins. No signs of princes.
Unfazed she realizes that even here, in the weird, magic-less limbo yonder, even here the grownups believe in magical fairytales..
which still end up
doing no good for the real girls
Living then dying
Alone.
Fake news for real girls
once there was a real girl
who (lucky for her)
Lived in a city with superhero dolphins
So when the humans she lived with began to
Bruise bones beneath skin
Pull out hair
Leave signs of trauma on shared walls
Well.. the
The magic dolphins of San Antonio
leapt to action!
Circled the child
Nudged her to safety
with their silvery, bottle-shaped snouts
Clicked and nodded their unequivocal attention to all
The days of her distress
Used their shear numbers to buoy her up
Brought her
bits of fish and garlands of seaweed
And in an unanimous decision
Ferried her to their own
blue, cool comparatively safe
Under-water-kingdom
far from the
city where these human mothers had
Failed her
Mike Pence and mysogyny accusations
Just the day before the 2016 presidential election I told my friends I feared that this election was like two toddlers fighting over a single ice cream cone. The loser was going to fuss.
This has proved true beyond my wildest imagination. And since 80 percent of the national press was unabashedly on Clinton’s side of the ice cream fight, the tantrum that has ensued has been both instructive and embarrassing–watching grownups with real jobs behave like the stepsisters in Cinderella.
Nowhere, and I mean nowhere, has this been more apparent than in the sly criticism of Mike Pence’s diligent faithfulness to his wife, and as an extension to his family and his community.
I dare to say that given their druthers, Bill and Donald’s family would have benefited from Pence’s honor rules.
So to call a man mysogynistic for honoring his wife seems to be a bellwether of the ice cream tantrum situation–better to call up down and left right than to report real objective news?
It seems that way.
The American public deserves better. So does Pence. If more men followed his rules, women in this country would be safer.
And as journalists in places like Russia and Mexico pay with their lives for their autonomy and journalistic integrity, ours have devolved into middle school bullies.
Kicked off doc 1
Kicked out, part 3
If you read either part one or two, you may notice that the kicked off part is not there.
Hence, part 3:
I did not realize that the ropes were separating from the handles on a regular basis until I was riding and two riders-one very good, one pro, hollered at me from the water–I lost my rope!
I was not sure what they were talking about so I let go of my rope and asked them.
They both told me the same thing-they had been riding when suddenly the rope separated from the handle and they were left in the water with only a handle.
Weird.
I then quizzed a group of good riders, the cable operator, the cable manager, and one of the owners about how the cable rope was affixed to the handle.
The answer is-like a Chinese handcuff the rope is threaded through itself.
Which means that threading it right is crucial.
The cable operator told me his safety policy was to let everyone know they should expect to lose the rope.
The owner said the manager sometimes said stuff without thinking it through.
The manager said I was being a troublemaker.
The owner said I brought too much drama and was taking up too much of his employees’ time.
But by the time I had quizzed a dozen people I realized that 80 percent of them had a rope-loss story within the last two weeks.
I realized I might have had one as well…
There are falls and losses in wakeboarding all the time. These things often happen in isolation. A rider, even a good one, may not realize that a fall is due to operator neglect or park negligence unless they know that it is happening to other riders, sometimes with alarming regularity.
Within the two weeks following the refunding of my family’s membership the ropes continued to separate from the handles while in use.
I hope that someone remedied the situation eventually.
Kicked off the ranch part 2
It is a basic tenet of writing lists–of you have a part one you have to have a part 2.
So this is it: how I went from dragging my kids to the Texas Ski Ranch every day –to-how I was told to leave no matter what.
First, the bikini contest-reminiscent of nothing more than a stock show. A stock show to sell price inflated Corona?! Treating beautiful young women like commodities?
Then there were the poorly attended juvenile detention peeps.
And last there were falling ropes. It seemed to be clear that either through operator negligence or rope defect the ropes were separating from the wooden handles–off the dock, in mid-air, on structures riders were falling because their ropes had failed them.
Safety has to be a paramount concern in extreme sports. When it is not taken seriously, people get hurt.
So that is how I was kicked off the ranch. But just as interesting as that is the waiver that TSR and Springloaded require participants to sign.
Worth careful perusal.
Carrying Light 