L'aura del Campo

Woolaroc and the Inmates of the HHH

SPRING: 7 Bahá (27 March)

Weather where I am: 49, windy with a cold front coming through my jacket.

Weather in Pawhuska, Oklahoma: 67.

Well, I finally figured out how to import a picture! This is one from Woolaroc, Oklahoma, Osage Nation. The stained glass window illuminates the Visitors Center.

Woolaroc honors Native Peoples, the native animals, the pioneers. It has an incredible prarie dog population and bison, too. It is on the natural grasslands north of Tulsa and Pawhuska and west of Bartlesville.

My friend Ruth West likes my people-based prose and poetry. So, these are some of the folks in my life. They are REAL people. Only my understanding of them is fictional. (I must be a burp of their warped imagination, too)

Sketches of the inmates of the Harlequin Hell Hotel:

Celeste: a big brown bear sleeps; she snores. She hibernates while the two birds twitter.

La Fern: there is an old saying in Cherokee that where two lovers die, the red fern grows. Fern grew sloe-eyed and stocky, an unflappable presence. The river of grief flowed around her, splashed against her flint rock form, moved on. Fern was the immovable essence, the mightier of the two.

Amy: not a game-player, she flicked her nails over the keyboard, as fast as she could slice bullshit from the other side of the room.

Jeanne: the bruises on her arms, the splotch beneath her eyes, her white teeth grinning like a full moon sky ... she stood tall and fragile. Once she could flash her blade and slice your awe in two, red streams running before you knew it, before it dawned on you.

Marcy: aspens tremble golden in the Autumn breeze, in Winter brave the cold, in Spring fling green leaves to the expectant sky. They seek the open slopes of mountain freedom. There where the wolves will keep them company beneath their boughs, howling at a vanilla moon, protecting them from the people along the chocolate highway.

Tobias: two feathers adorn his aura while Hector pecks at his silver necklace, appeased upon his shoulder, glad to be free of the cage.

Jeff: he sells his necklace for a bottle, trades his passion for a pint of jump-jazz-juice. He only wants to curl up for a nap, preferably on a lap, held tight and snug and cherished. He perishes without the warmth.

James: shy patrician, he reaches out with tendrils, tenderly asking to be acknowledged, to be heard.

Richard: Father Dick wears his tonsul, robed in rags, he rants about the Russian philosophers and finds a hero in Hegel. When anarchy reigns, he treads the treacherous shoals and seeks the truth beyond, behind, within.

Diane: Stephen could tell you that black is the color of his true love's hair. And black she is albeit silvered, set off by her yellow plastic shoes and purple personality. She's royalty wrapped in Goth. A ninja nightmare in the alleys of your thoughts. A dawn of kindness when you get to know her. Don't cross her though. She's straightman to her husband's fun-puns, wicked with a rubberband, her passion a squirt gun pointed at you!

Hawkins: can't see beyond his nose; his hearing's gone. But the scribbles go on and on verbatim, page after page of ruminations, rumbles from a barrel-chest of memories, thoughts birthing quicker that the bang of a universe.

Owen: the moon comes out at night, drunk by the daze of mourning's denial of the desire of living a life.

Billy: a one arm hug, pulls at the plug and releases the pain. Our gain? The sense that kindness can by found in spite of being honest!

Sara: the bellow cuts through the tumult like a saw, a blaring trumpet that announces the insanity for all. It hurts the ears. [163.15a-n]

What is sensed?

Azaleas in bloom! Yep, saw one bush braving the cold wind. Everything is a bit jumbled this year. It was warm and calm in January, cold in February and up and down and windy in March. The first crocuses started at the end of January so it is odd to see some blooming when the azalea has started. They are normally at least a month apart. The redbud is getting impatient too. Right now the wind is swaying the pine outside the library's window. But no tornados today!

So why upset?

Spoke to Jan last night. Odd how a good friend can upset me. She's sweetness and light "'heart's home'" , "For Jan ... when next it snows"  and off to a vacation to California with her son and grand-sons. Nafan Orange, at 2 1/2 is finally able to say his name is Nathaniel Lawrence! I wrote a poem about this, that Jan cherishes: "Nafan Orange" 

So why upset? Russ has good news, a job promotion. He is one of the most decent men, I've ever met. "'walk among humanity'" 

And Gare's got good news too; although, I'm waiting for him to tell me! He doesn't know I know . I'd love to hear his take on it. "Father's day cinquains" 

Perhaps, it's that I don't have much good news to share in return, that other people's lives seem to be going on and upward, and I'm just stuck in the muck and more miserable at times than this blog will ever tell you.