Ma
Mother Nature, spiritually speaking.
Watching loons at Massabesic Lake while other people fall in love.
Pastel dusk sky.
Orange is only ever beautiful next to lavender.
Traffic. So much at once.
People and problems come in clusters.
Headlights off the water brings
The Night Sky whisper close.
He’s got a message for you:
It’s The Secret of The Moon.
He’ll tell you if you stop.
He told me, of course,
But asked me not to tell.
Next time stop,
Listen as if your life depends on it.
It does.
~ Wynn ~
A Claw arm.
The kind short people use to get the last jar of peanut butter in the back of the top kitchen cupboard. The kind children don’t use to harass other children. And the kind the volunteers who walk the shore of Front Park use to pick up trash.
First thing in the morning The Volunteers of Mercy Patrol begin with plastic grocery store bags in one hand and robotic arms in the other to clean up our mess.
Everyday.
All-day.
Many people say, “Thank you.”
The patrol always replies, “Helps keep us out of trouble.”
...
I slowed my approach to the morning picnic to watch a man walk straight at Phil, the largest of the Great Blue Herons who live at the lake.
So much for our picnic.
Phil didn’t fly away.
The man stopped 15 feet from The Great Blue Heron, draped the plastic bag over the handle of the robotic arm, then with the freehand raised his camera phone.
Phil turned and posed.
The robotic arm pinched up a large blade of bottled glass.
I said, “Thank You.”
He said, “Helps keep me out of trouble.”
I said, “Helps keep us all out of trouble.”
Phil agreed.
...
The Fisherman from last night is back.
Phil is near me on the opposite shore.
The Fisherman struggles. Twitches. Cusses.
I’ve watched the largest, wisest, and regaled heron of Massabesic Lake fish almost every day this year.
I’m no Phil.
But I know Phil.
So, I know where the fish are.
It requires listening. Not the kind we learn so we can memorize rules. No. The kind that happens after all the sound goes away. When quiet is just the way it is. Like meditation with a notepad. Like how Phil sees the world.
Follow his bill.
That’s it. Do you want to know where the fish are? Follow the heron’s beak. Simple.
I only saw one of so many fishermen do it. Phil watched that man catch one fish, then flew off to a large rock towards the center of the lake.
A Forfeit of the Inlet? No.
The man threw every catch back. It wasn’t the same fish. (Not every time.) A particularly large one made many trips back.
I saw it up close the next morning.
What type of fish?
A common one called: “Phil's Tired Breakfast.”
...
Another Fisherman.
An awful one.
Phil is near me on the opposite side of the inlet. He won’t even acknowledge the guy. It hurts to look.
If you want to restore your faith in humanity shout for help.
People will help.
Not all of us. Some of us are assholes. But the majority of us will help.
PSA: A jerk is a jerk because, like non-jerks, they feel the pull to help but, unlike non-jerks, deny it. They laugh to themselves, ‘survival of the fittest.’ As if they built their iPhone.
So…Bad skipped worse and went right for “Help.” I didn’t answer his silent cry.
PSA II: If you make it to 40 without being a jerk at least once, you’re a jerk of a whole different league. But we’ll get to the cormorant soon enough.
Phil’s beak slow swept then steadied north-northwest.
I saw the signs minutes ago. Certain swirls in the lake.
Follow the Heron’s beak.
The ‘fisherman,’ of course, was noisy. Fish flee noisy.
Phil was hungry.
Another cry for help from man-with-string-tied-to-plastic-stick.
I packed up, put the chair strap over my shoulder, looked at the certain swirls of fish, then waved to the man, “Goodnight. Hope your luck changes for the better.” Setting my chair in the trunk, I heard a familiar thwap!
In the fisherman’s footprints stood The King with the biggest bass of the year in his beak.
Luck did change things for the better.
+he Ghos+
Wynn
Massabesic. The water isn’t the same.
Last year's drought’s displacement dried the shore. This year's excess makes mud, murk, and mired green.
Color of smoky glass. Basement windows in early Spring.
I’m not sure what’s real anymore. Such a haze; the LCD needs cleaning.
The full clouds are quick spread cake frosting.
My eyes make distillate pixels from the 7:30 pm heat.
Dapples of rain.
The clouds are a thousand quiet children with eye-droppers of rain.
Near the sailboats the Sun grabs a slice of vanilla cloud.
The sponge breaks free from the poorly spread icing.
There! A pink fire swells in the batter, then dims.
A duck jets by... steadies as much as a duck can... gets a better angle... no… a better one… hold on… another… Crash!
2021 and ducks still can’t park.
To hear the bird rear smash-butt-splash-crash the water is a temple bell.
Finally, I remember the meaning, the measure, and the majesty of meditations on Massabesic Lake.
The cake batter cloud grabs more of what’s left of the late Sun.
Duck teenagers prank ducklings in reeds.
Last year those reeds were a shore where a shoeless toddler picked up a twig and tossed it!
The stick stuck to his windbreaker, too slow to fall, only touched his toes. Only made him laugh, a maskless laugh.
Kids in the clouds drop their eye-droppers and dash with the Sun behind- no- into the batter.
Their wake is the breeze that breaks the humidity.
I’d stay longer but nights go dark, lovely and deep around here, and there's still those miles to go before I sleep to tend to.
Actually, it's about an eight-minute drive in an air-conditioned sedan to my house or Frost’s Farm.
Rob's ceiling is more museum-sy.
Under my roof it’s more muse than seem, so naturally, that’s the way to go.
Good to be back home, but nights still go dark and deep, and my bed is under a smaller roof, where the only chance of an eye-dropper kind of rain is in an eyes-closed kind of dream.
+he Ghos+
Wynn
Dusk orange paints the silhouette yawn
Of a great blue heron atop a rock the drought announced.
Sailboats float the indigo under a great orange blue sky,
Slide the serene by the great grey bluebird.
Autumn wears an every-color shawl starved for green- envious of blue.
She fires orange at the sky, the heron, the slow blue bottomed boats.
But Indigo eats even autumn- though she spends her fire fast.
Nights come quick now. Nothing lasts faster now.
I should take a picture.
But what good are words if the world is only contour lines full of color?
What good is color without words to celebrate each hue?
How do we talk about the light without a language for the light?
How can you know what I see if you only see what we see?
The scene is worth a photograph.
Take my word for it.
~ Wynn ~
Flashy Inside People
My people.
The small dirt lot across the street from Massabesic North plot point, Route 121.
Cars and pick-ups go by 40-50 mph.
A few slow to 20.
I have a few friends.
Slow to 20 people.
We stay friends awhile.
40 wish it were 50 people gotta go…
Bigger engines to rev if they just could go a little faster.
60 plus people are too busy
With traffic cops and broken stocks.
I stop.
The lot is paved by people that stop.
Paved by pensive people,
Introspective people,
Deep people.
All flash on the inside.
Who know only a few steps to the shore
And their reflection off the lake puts them in the sky.
And it’s not a choice.
Not for these people:
My people. Flashy inside people. Firework sparks within people.
Shock to awe outside people check off lists.
Do they have no choice?
The lake won’t let us keep a grocery list.
Who has time with so much divine?
~ Wynn ~