Follows The Sun

When they asked her later, Madeline couldn’t really explain what was wrong.
Maybe it was the smell of wet pollen in the air,
or the cracked streetlight globe.

Maybe it was the blue glow of the television the night before,
or the words her mother had spoken to her on the phone,
worried and inspirational.

A walk around the neighborhood seemed like a perfectly rational idea.

Nobody was looking.
(She found out later she was wrong about that).

It was wet and the tree wanted to be climbed,
And the leaves that she plucked, numb-fingered –

they wanted to fall.

And fall.

And fall.

About a year or so ago, I met a friend of a friend who runs a pretty successful internet start-up. We chatted a bit online for a few weeks, during the course of which, he googled me. He found some of my KinkForAll videos.

He proceeded to give me stern warnings. Much like the one mentioned here, only with a stronger overtone of “I am a Successful Person and know about these things.”

I didn’t do a very good job of saying I don’t care. And I still don’t do the best of jobs explaining why, for instance, this blog is still linked to my professional page.

You all like XKCD, right? You all think Randall Munroe is a pretty smart guy, and it’s worth paying attention to the stuff in his comics?

Yeah. So do I.

PS thanks to Sara Eileen for re-pointing me to this comic.

It was easy to tell myself
that I didn’t like roses.

It was easy to look at their long leggy stems
and their few graceful leaves and their manicured petals,
inhale their anemic, gentrified scent,
and dislike them.

But we all know that isn’t the truth.

The truth is as simple as nature intended:
I like a rose with hips.

I like a rose with briar-patch thorns and raggedy petals
and bright yellow stamens alluring the bees.
I like a rose with branches and thickets
that push at the fence.

But most of all, as the summer starts waning
I like a rose with bright red and shining,
sassy and swollen, tangy, replete –

I like a rose with hips.

There is nothing like the privacy
afforded by a tall-tree perimeter
around the edge of a large pond.

It is not as private as your bathroom,
with the door locked and the shades drawn
and the shower on as hot as it will go
pouring solace onto you.

It is not as private as your car,
where you can sing as loud as you want
and say the mean things you think of other drivers
and ignore what you know:
That they have lives and circumstances too
and might be in a hurry for good reason.

But don’t try to tell me that
or remind me that just beyond the edge of my miopia
those lighter patches around the curve of this tiny peninsula
are other humans having their own day out.

Honestly. I’m not listening to you.
I am listening to the lapping of wavelets brought up by the wind
and the sound of my skin forming goosebumps.

I am listening to her laughter
and the sunshine
and the pollywogs and dragonflies and snakes.

I am listening to being naked in the water and the sunshine
In the perfect privacy
Of trees and sky and pond.