The Flat Earth Society

Forty years ago this month, Americans landed on the moon. There are still people who don't believe it really happened. They say it was staged on a Hollywood set to make it look like Americans had the capability to go to the moon. That's ridiculous of course. NASA has the pictures taken on the moon, right?

Only they don't. I read in the paper this morning that NASA erased the tapes from the first moon landing and used them again, to save money. What were they thinking? How could they erase history to save a couple of thousand dollars? Historians everywhere are shuddering.

So here is the joke. NASA took tapes of television news from those dates and sent them to a Hollywood studio to be "cleaned up" so they could be used as the official record of the moon landing.

The conspiracy people will be going crazy.

At the time we all thought that the moon landing would be the start of regular travel to and from the moon. When my daughter was young she looked up at the moon and asked "When can I go to the moon?" and I told her that by the time she was grown up she would be able to buy a ticket and go. Didn't happen.


Moon
by Billy Collins

The moon is full tonight
an illustration for sheet music,
an image in Matthew Arnold
glimmering on the English Channel,
or a ghost over a smoldering battlefield
in one of the history plays.

It’s as full as it was
in that poem by Coleridge
where he carries his year-old son
into the orchard behind the cottage
and turns the baby’s face to the sky
to see for the first time
the earth’s bright companion,
something amazing to make his crying seem small.

And if you wanted to follow this example,
tonight would be the night
to carry some tiny creature outside
and introduce him to the moon.

And if your house has no child,
you can always gather into your arms
the sleeping infant of yourself,
as I have done tonight,
and carry him outdoors,
all limp in his tattered blanket,
making sure to steady his lolling head
with the palm of your hand.

And while the wind ruffles the pear trees
in the corner of the orchard
and dark roses wave against a stone wall,
you can turn him on your shoulder
and walk in circles on the lawn
drunk with the light.
You can lift him up into the sky,
your eyes nearly as wide as his,
as the moon climbs high into the night.


by Dylan Thomas

In my craft of sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages.
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

For Olivia

Twenty five years ago, shortly after I moved into this area, I ended up in the hospital emergency room with a gall bladder attack. I needed a doctor, and Dr. Bhushan was on call, so in one of those lucky coincidences that shape our lives, I became his patient. He’s a wonderful doctor, competent and caring.

Dr. Bhushan has never had a partner, but several years ago he hired a Nurse Practitioner named Olivia who is every bit as wonderful as he. The woman knows what she’s doing. She is careful. She listens to what you say and she laughs with you about the absurdities of life. I never had a problem trusting my health to someone without an MD after her name.

Two days ago I went to see her about the cellulitis on my leg that is healing nicely under her care and she told me she was not going to be able to see me again because she was being laid off. The practice isn’t making enough money to keep her on the payroll.

I know Dr. Bhushan must feel bad about letting her go. She sees 20 patients a day, and her presence allows him to occasionally take a vacation while she keeps the office open. I will be waiting longer for appointments, I fear, and while I am perfectly happy to see Dr. Bhushan, Olivia will be greatly missed.


I have three poems she might like:

Life is no straight and easy corridor along
Which we travel free and unhampered,
But a maze of passages,
Through which we must seek our way,
Lost and confused, now and again
Checked in a blind alley.

But always, if we have faith,
A door will open for us,
Not perhaps one that we ourselves
Would ever have thought of,
But one that will ultimately
Prove good for us.

A.J. Cronin


If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain

Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain.

Emily Dickinson


The Courage of Women

I think of the courage of women,
how they endure,
how they walk miles to carry back water,
silence their pain, apportion
what’s lift of the rice.
Keepers of eggs without shells,
they know how fragile the days are,
how hope can spill into the ground.

Jane Glazer

A Poem for My Dad

I talked to my Dad today and wished him Happy Father's Day. He sounded a little short of breath, but he said he felt pretty good. He'd gotten a Father's Day card from someone at the nursing home, but they didn't sign their name to it. He liked the idea that someone remembered.

This is not so much a poem as song lyrics from a song Louis Armstrong sang. My Dad loved Louis Armstrong. He went to hear him in person one time, and got his autograph on a record album. I like the sentiment of these lyrics, and I'm sure my Dad did, too.

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD

(George Weiss / Bob Thiele)

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shakin' hands, sayin' "How do you do?"
They're really saying "I love you"

I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world

Oh yeah

A Poem for David

The other night at dinner my husband, son and I were discussing the origins of creative thought. How do mathematicians even start to think about string theory? How do writers start to write? Here is one answer.

Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?

by Ron Koertge

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave
your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheap
one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.

Avoid any enclosed space where more than
three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware
any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks
across the muffled tennis courts.

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.
And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle
where a child a year or two old is playing as his
mother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.
The title, the author's name, the brooding photo
on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray
book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher
it gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower
falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."

Then start again.

from Fever, 2006
Red Hen Press

Redecorating

I'm having my office painted, along with my son's old room that will become my husband's new office. So, we went to the hardware store last weekend to look at paint colors. My husband took one look around, pointed at a paint sample on the shelf and said, "That's the color I want". Just like that. No agonizing. No hesitation. I, of course, brought home 8 sample cans of paint to try on the walls, and numerous little paper paint chips to hold against the furniture. I visited Home Depot to collect paint samples, too. I think I've decided on a beautiful blue that looks great with my dark wood desk and bookcase. But, I'll never really be sure.

What color did my husband pick? Something as close to white as he could get - without actually choosing white. There is a faint hint of gray-green in it. I'm sure he won't lose any sleep over whether it looks good next to the color of the hallway.


A poem to share:

Charles Harper Webb
Buyer’s Remorse

I’d hate to take a job teaching, then spend the rest of my life trying to get out of it. –Mary Oliver

No sooner do the ruck of us declare
“I do”, than we don’t anymore. Go out
for football, and we who never dared
stand up on a pair of ice skates, pout
that we can’t play pro hockey, too. The ink’s
still wet on our tickets to France, and we
wish we’d picked Japan or, come to think
of it, Kauai, New Zealand or Tahiti.
Open any one door and we’re deafened
by the roar—loud as the sea swallowing Atlantis—
as other doors slam shut, and their wind
knocks us down. The serpent didn’t hiss
to Adam and Eve, “Hide your nakedness!”
He wore his best suit and whispered, “Look at this.”