January 5, 2012
Meanwhile, Back at the Rodeo
Across the road from Rodeo Lagoon in the Marin Headlands; late December (and still not wet).
Posted by Ron Sullivan | No comments yet... Posted by Ron Sullivan | No comments yet... January 4, 2012
And Again
Tuesday, on my way to yet another medical appointment—Xolair shots at the allergist’s—I was approaching the stop sign in front of Alta Bates hospital and saw a flurry of pigeons being scattered by a single dark dash, an arrowflight winged projectile: another merlin.
Either I’m fantastically lucky in this or we’re having a merlin irruption. They commonly winter here, but not in such large numbers that I see them by accident.
Posted by Ron Sullivan | No comments yet... January 2, 2012
And
On the way to my shrink’s today, between San Quentin and Larkspur: a merlin, perched on the roadside wire.
So far, so good.
Posted by Ron Sullivan | 1 comment so far... January 1, 2012
Happy New Year
We took a walk to downtown Berkeley today to buy a datebook. On the way back, we saw an adult peregrine falcon perched on top of the big comm tower at City Hall, one foot tucked, contemplating the sunset.
Good start.
Posted by Ron Sullivan | No comments yet... December 31, 2011
LIVES OF THE SAINTS
Saint Sithney, legend says,
was called by God
to be the patron saint of teenage girls.
Good Sithney was aghast;
young girls are pests,
a plague of plain desires,
always wanting, always wishing:
for love, for beauty, sometimes for solitude.
He chose instead to intercede for dogs:
“I’d rather have mad dogs than women any day.”
And, as God is kindly, so he has.
For what do mad dogs pray?
For death to ease their pain, for flesh to pass it on.
They’ll kill but they can’t eat. They don’t want meat.
They think, when they can think, of fear and rage,
Revulsion, gagging, blinding bleeding fever.
In rare lucid moments, they want water,
And so Saint Sithney has a well
to which mad dogs are brought, to drink and heal.
Did Sithney ask for this? A cruel joke:
A mad dog’s throat is closed to everything.
No one who needs to can drink from Sithney’s Well.
We see Saint Sithney, gilded, on his wall—
so this must be Heaven—
with howls and prayers of mad dogs in his ears.
They curse him and all living as they die,
their thirst unslaked,
their loyal souls caught fast
in dry and drowning throats,
their fangs locked foaming against the holy water.
How much of Heaven can a saint endure?
Caught in that unquenchable red thirst,
most virulent sin, most murderous half-life,
Saint Sithney might himself occasionally thirst
for the plangent virgin wishes of young girls:
Let him love me.
Sky-blue linen.
Roses, breezes, peace and plenty.
What a cool clear drink they’d conjure
for that holy soul.
The painting by the altar tells us nothing.
With centuries of rabies in his heart,
Saint Sithney can no longer swallow water.
Posted by Ron Sullivan | No comments yet...