Sunday, November 9, 2014

See What You Don't See

One of the fun aspects of blogging is coming into contact with individuals that use their talents, skills and interests in ways that benefit others.  Not everyone has discovered the hidden poet within themselves.  In the following reflection I am offering you some images that I have compiled from my grandma's garden. They are not the most beautiful or noticed things, but I have found poems for each one to emphasize their inner beauty.  For those who overlook things and are stuck on observations that seem meaningless,  hopefully I can help you draw forth the poet in you.
Taken by me 10/25/14



Perspective

Imagine a plane, endless, and open
Every point named, as hopeless, or broken
Now picture the world in which we exist
Just as easily dammed to cut at its wrists
This body is nothing but an image
This life not but a matrix;
A single possibility causing contention

By Conor Oberst
         
          When I look at my Grandma's garden at night I see a whole new world. Her solar garden lights mark the perimeter, giving light to all her beauties. If I could see her garden from up in the sky I would picture the signal lanes for a landing plane down at the airport. That is what I see.
Taken by me 10/01/14
CACTUS
Thorns are my language.
I announce my existence
with a bleeding touch.

Once these thorns were flowers.
I loathe lovers who betray.
Poets have abandoned the deserts
to go back to the gardens.
Only camels remain here, and merchants,
who trample my blooms to dust.

One thorn for each rare drop of water.
I don’t tempt butterflies,
no bird sings my praise.
I don’t yield to droughts.

I create another beauty
beyond the moonlight,
this side of dreams,
                                               a sharp, piercing,
                                               parallel language.
                                               By: K. Satchidanandan
  
         Cactus are always thought of as ugly and dangerous just because they are covered in thorns. This is unfair, it is like criticizing a young teenage girl because she is covered in pimples. Your appearance has a great effect on what others think of you but it does not mean you are useless. Cactus are a great reservoir of water which is beneficial in a dessert area. My grandma sees beyond appearance, and throughout her garden you can find many casual plants.

Taken by me 10/15/14 


The Wind Chimes

   Two wind chimes,
   one brass and prone to anger,
   one with the throat of an angel,
   swing from my porch eave,
   sing with the storm.
   Last year I lived five months
   under that shrill choir,
   boxing your house, crowding books
   into crates, from some pages
   your own voice crying.
  Some days the chimes raged.
  Some days they hung still.
  They fretted when I dug up
   the lily I gave you in April,
blooming, strangely, in fall.
Together, they scolded me
when I counted pennies you left
in each can, cup, and drawer,
when I rechecked the closets
for remnants of you.
The last day, the house empty,
resonant with space, the two chimes
had nothing to toll for.
I walked out, took them down,
carried our mute spirits home.
By Shirley Buettner  
          A lot of times you tend to hear noises you never hear before when you are in an unusual mood. When I hear the wind chimes that are hung off a Sycamore tree in front of the porch, it is either because I am tired and silent or eating. I hear the dings (just another language of the wind) outside and I wonder, why do the chimes not sound harmonic? It is not a melody or tune it is just noise scattered and unorganized. Wind chimes represent emotions.
Flowers In A Vase
A bunch of flowers
Sat in a vase
Colourful and lonely
A mind looks at them
Wondering
What is it they have to say
Are they a thank you
Or a gift of love
Are they an apology
Or given in remorse
Perhaps they are for nothing
Given to bring a smile
The mind looks on
Wondering for a while
The flowers sit in their vase
Unmoved by thought
Or the reason given to them
                                                A little water at their base
                                                To keep them fresh for a while
                                               They are the end of the day
                                               Just flowers in a vase 
                                               by: Matthew Holloway
         
         Do you ever receive flowers and just stare at the vase and tell you admirer "What a pretty vase!" ? Why is it that the flower is the gift and not the vase? The vase was probably more valuable than the flower in the first place and it will never vanish. The flowers will dry up and be forgotten but the vase can be kept, and why not, used to hold other flowers. My grandma has an infinite amount of vases, none of which match in color nor size. There is no theme or structure they just pile up in different areas. Some vases are decorated, others are plain, some have been spray painted and others say 'to the best grandma in the world'. Vases are the beholders of the plants, they will hold their soil and water. If these plant were all on the native Nevada grounds they would parish. These grounds are too dry and harsh, so give thanks to the vases.  

Look beyond the usual and boring structures around you. Don't take what you have for granted, look at it and you will see much more than I. You are a creature of wonder.  You are a poet.  You are a poet not because of what you write but because of how you see.


Sunday, November 2, 2014

Vacant

There comes a time in life when you'll have to leave everything behind and start something new. But when that times comes many of you will have your future set. Some will be ready for college others for marriage, but what happens when the person you have decided to spend your life with packs up their bags and says "Honey, let's go." Do you go and leave everything you already had planned behind like if it was a meaningless chapter of your life? Or do you say goodbye and let them go knowing your lives will never cross paths again? Many years, days, hours of hard work all for the purpose of survival are all now a meaningless time of your limited life, all because one very powerful person has pulled the leash on your neck and said "This place is not good enough, lets go."
         
          As I ventured around my grandma's wonderland one evening, I decided to take a closer look at her array of decorations. Her ceramic vases and figures are all of different themes, colors, and sizes. She has frog, snake, bird, gnome and all other kinds of ceramic dolls hanging around in interesting places. None of which have any purpose but to take up space. She likes to hang most of the ornaments off trees if they are small enough and others just sit in the shade of plants. Well anyways, on this particular evening I observed her ornaments and wrote a list down in my field-notes journal. When I was half way around the garden (most of my observations are made as I go counter clockwise around the garden) I was taking note of all the ornaments she has hanging off a particular tree. She has two wind bells, a baby sleeping in a hammock, and a small watering pot. The inside of the watering pot is hollow with a circular entrance in the middle of it. I am pretty sure it is meant to be a bird house or something. Well as curiosity kicked in I peeked inside and saw the silhouette of two spheres. Using the light of my cell phone I realized I was peeking in to an abandoned beehive. The honeycombed spheres rested next to each other unattached from anything(I know this because I moved the watering pot around and they rolled from side to side). The spheres had the familiar hexagonal shapes of honeybee hives and were a light grey color (already sucked dry). I never expected to find something so cool like that. As the excitement passed away I thought to myself why it is that the hives were abandoned? Was it the cold weather? Did the bees run out of interest for the delicious flowers in this little garden? I just had to look this up because I knew my findings would be just as surprising as my grandma's reaction to the hives(my grandma FREAKED and at the same time was happy to know her flowers had their personal pollinators).

Taken by me 10/27/14
          On Wikipedia I found a more accurate description of what a beehive is. The website explains that a beehive is a dense group of hexagonal cells made of beeswax used to store food(honey and pollen) and to house the eggs. The most important purpose for a beehive is to protect the dweller kind of like how a bird's nest protects the bird and its eggs. Another note I found interesting was about artificial beehives(those boxed thingies that hold swarms of angry "domesticated" bees). Artificial beehives are used to pollinate crops in some areas and aside from honey production sometimes they are used to limit the effect of "colony collapse disorder", which pretty much helps manipulate the bee population so it does not collapse. As I continued to read I found out that all beehives have similar blueprints. They consists of layers(like floors in a hotel) that starts with honey at the top, pollen follows under, worker-brood cells next followed by the queen bee's cells in the lower edge. Who would have known that in the bee world upper class gets the bottom floors. Though this was all very interesting it still did not answer my question. Why do bees leave their hives?
          The next website answered my doubts. This website is pretty much another intricate blog by a dedicated blogger. The author of the blog spends time posting all her information on artificial bee hives. After reading her description I came to find she has bees as pets. Weird... The bog name is Honey Bee Suite. In the blog post I read, the author, Rusty Burlew, talks about reason why bees tend to leave hives. It was most definite that the queen bee is at complete fault. Wherever the queen goes the others will follow, no matter what. Her solution to this problem for those who keep bees in artificial hives, was to keep the queen captive for a couple of weeks. The other bees will stay put and begin building a hive which is when it is safe to let the queen out. I found this funny but also very surprising. The rest of the colony has so much dedication towards the queen bee that it is almost insane how "beenapping" the queen prevents all the others from leaving. This is another demonstration of human manipulation. She talks about how if the queen does not like what she sees she will leave even after all the hard work her workers have gone through. They will let everything behind to rot and follow her wherever her wings may take her. She is the boss and manipulator of hundreds of bees. So when it is your time to leave everything behind to start a new life, think about it. Are you the boss or the follower? What is convenient for you?