Dumbcember

[rejectomorph]

In summer my brain overheats and quits working. In winter my brain freezes and quits working. I forgot about the lunar eclipse early Saturday morning. It wasn't going to reach totality here until the moment of the moon's setting, and from my house it would have been obscured by trees quite a while before that, but I still could have watched much of it. Now I can't even remember what I was doing during the eclipse, but I'm sure it wasn't anything of any importance.

Total eclipse of the brain.

Last night's power outage began and ended about on schedule, and I stayed fairly warm in the den with the gas heater on. Unfortunately, I feel asleep while reading and slept in an odd position for an hour or so, and now my neck is sore. It just got adjusted last Tuesday, too.

Then I went shopping today and the stores were once again entirely sold out of my favorite beer. This has not been a good weekend, and now we're heading into what will be the coldest week of the season so far. Once again I regret my inability to hibernate.

Now for my belated dinner, with my less-than-favorite beer. Hurry by, December!



Sunday Verse

A Blade of Grass

by Brian Patten


You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
You ask for a poem.

I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.

You say it is not a poem,
It is a blade of grass and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.

You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.

You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,

And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.