I Blame Daktari

Daktari  is one of the first television shows I remember watching.  Mostly, I remember Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion and the Jeeps, Range Rovers, Land Cruisers.

In today's current state of affairs with gas costs and environmental concerns regarding traditional motor vehicles, I can't really justify having a vehicle like that of my own.  If I were more mechanically handy or had unlimited income, I would look into some of the specialized dealers in these type of all terrain vehicles that have been retro-fitted or designed to burn bio-fuels.  But alas...my auto-eroticism leads me to fantasies of Ford re-issuing their iconic first generation Bronco with a Prius-type engine at a $15k price tag.

Here are two photos taken in the last few weeks of vehicles I've seen around.  It's like porn for auto -philiacs.

Going Dust

This is my favorite poem.  It was in Yankee magazine years ago.  Apparently Yankee is my go-to source for poetry...I still remember a phrase from one poem, that I think, was about early spring...the sun picks at scabs of snow...


This one captures the beauty of this time of year so perfectly.  Enjoy.

GOING DUST

This is mine, this calm and modest
      twilight
When night begins early to filter
      between
The flaps of gray sky and the
       evergreen
Mocks the maple.  The kaleidscope
       plight
Of leaves, the cold end of summer
        roses, blight
On the garden that comes in the
       unseen
Hours of frost, to others, these things
       may mean
Sorrow:  to me, they are joy and joy
       outright.
I hope to die in such young November
 as this and be laid to rest under just
Such a sky, to finally, peacefully lie
In the scent of apples that will
        remember
How I gazed on them once, when
       going dust
Was a dream that living could not
       mortify.

-Paul Smithers, Cottontown, TN

I Dream of Slumber

Soule Mama recently posted a story about falling asleep in the woods. There is something that seems so decadent about napping, Rip Van Winkle-style, in the forest in the middle of a November day ablaze with sunshine.  It is beyond sad for me to think I am that far removed from the simple joys of following my cicadian rythym and my heart into the wild.

I have tasted the sweetness of a purloined cat nap out in the open.  I have fallen asleep lying scrunched up on the floor of my kayak. The waves lulling me to slumber much the same way they did when I was a child  under the decking on my parent's teal blue Starcraft run- about. I have slept soundly on a beach under an azure October sky near Mt. Blue among the tracks of raccoons, fox, and deer who had ventured to the lake for refreshment. That is one of my fondest memories actually.  It felt so ...good and familiar. Tired, rest. Rested, get up. No clock watching, no alarms, no schedule.

I have been taken with the notion of sleeping out in a snow trench in the back yard as soon as we get snow and I get a winter sleeping bag.  This idea was planted in my consciousness years ago by my gear- headed and happiest- to- be- sleeping -on -the -ground -in -the- unfettered- night -air best bud.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Here is a book by Rebekah Raye and a poem by Wendell Berry to inspire you to find your wild resting place.

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry