[Note: My daughters' school is running a Clay for Adults class every other week. In the first class, I hand built a square "sushi plate" and soy sauce dish. When I returned for the second class, I discovered that I had neglected to make certain that the base of the plate was level, and so the plate wobbles. "Great," I thought, "unstable sushi." And really, how can you not make a haiku out of that?]
Unstable sushi
upon a wobbling surface
still tastes just as good.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Pedestrian Club
Distances are deceptive.
In Cambridge, thirty minutes' drive
into Harvard Square
translates to forty-five minutes
of walking (an hour if I'm in
no rush.)
In Beverly, nothing is more
than fifteen minutes away by car,
but that time encompasses
more distance.
Ten minutes to my daughter's school
turns out to be more than three miles,
an hour's brisk walk.
Repeatedly, I am deceived
by easy drives along the Bass
or Danvers Rivers. Everything
takes far longer to walk to
than I expect, leaving me footsore.
It's a lonely pursuit. Excepting
downtown, sidewalks are generally empty,
unused, clean, devoid of the small marks
of the surrounding human population.
Not having to concentrate
on weaving through human traffic,
I notice things along my path:
a perfectly manicured lawn,
a collection of cigarette butts,
the gnarled bark of an enormous,
ancient locust tree, a stack of
spectacular mushrooms, lining a stump.
Roughly once each mile,
I pass a fellow foot-traveler,
and every one I pass greets me,
smiling, wishes me a good morning,
as though we are old friends
or members of some secret society.
I smile back, nod, give greetings,
happy to be counted among them.
October 13, 2011
In Cambridge, thirty minutes' drive
into Harvard Square
translates to forty-five minutes
of walking (an hour if I'm in
no rush.)
In Beverly, nothing is more
than fifteen minutes away by car,
but that time encompasses
more distance.
Ten minutes to my daughter's school
turns out to be more than three miles,
an hour's brisk walk.
Repeatedly, I am deceived
by easy drives along the Bass
or Danvers Rivers. Everything
takes far longer to walk to
than I expect, leaving me footsore.
It's a lonely pursuit. Excepting
downtown, sidewalks are generally empty,
unused, clean, devoid of the small marks
of the surrounding human population.
Not having to concentrate
on weaving through human traffic,
I notice things along my path:
a perfectly manicured lawn,
a collection of cigarette butts,
the gnarled bark of an enormous,
ancient locust tree, a stack of
spectacular mushrooms, lining a stump.
Roughly once each mile,
I pass a fellow foot-traveler,
and every one I pass greets me,
smiling, wishes me a good morning,
as though we are old friends
or members of some secret society.
I smile back, nod, give greetings,
happy to be counted among them.
October 13, 2011
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