Lilacs in 1872
looked no different
than they look this morning.
13 December 2015
Tim Konrad
-
When the thread is severed
Like raindrops on the ocean
We fly home
13 December 2015
Tim Konrad
-
While taking my meal by the water
A lone kayaker paddles by, his paddles dipping lazily
A fisherman casts his rod from a point off in the distance
The birds, one by one, slip along the water
headed home to nestle in for a long cold night.The world is setting in also
after another day of unsettling and disturbing news.
Today it was a bombing in Africa
One week after the Paris attack.
Where, or what, will it be
tomorrow
or next week?We here in the West
have been accustomed to relative security
for so long that
(It never even used to be a concept in the public mind)
we have come to expect
we will be safe–
that our loved ones
will return safely each night
to their homes,
while those in other, less secure, places
geographically, and otherwise,
harbor no such expectations,
rely on no such guarantees,
cling to no such hope.A blue heron
glides silently
immediately beneath my perch
followed by more kayakers
all coming home to roost,
each graceful, silent, beautiful
in their own way
as they pulse through their respective media
and each having a home to return to
unlike those unfortunates
fleeing oppression
in far-flung places.Two egrets glide by
one skimming the water
the other, soaring, gliding, dipping
keeping apace . . .
choreography
made habit by practice.The pair join a group
as if arriving by chance
for a prearranged meeting.
I pick at my food
it being a distraction from the parade of waterfowl
passing by my view
barely cognizant of the descending chill
the sun having dropped below the horizon.I am reminded that
the fact I have food to eat
is a privilege denied to many.It is a cruel irony that
the largesse
we in the West take for granted
is atypical for so many
while those who are denied it
pine for, and place value thereby
in the principles and values
which we regard so carelessly.The Roman Empire, they say,
was defeated not by the armies of its enemies
but by apathy.When the lessons of history
have not been heeded for a sufficient number of generations
the herons and egrets will still come home to roost each night
but the kayakers . . . ?
20 November 2015
Tim Konrad
-
Could there be, I wonder
a correlation
between
the number of potholes
in a city’s streets
and the diameter of the of voids
in the heads of the public servants
who, for whatever reason,
fail to envision
infrastructure maintenance
as falling under their purview?
Driving down the streets
of my little town, these days
is an exercise in attention . . .
Passing by pits
Avoiding apertures
Dodging depressions
Sailing by spaces
Giving the slip to gaps
Circumventing craters
Eluding excavations
Ducking ditches
Cruising around cavities
Rimming ruts
A bitumenous boulevard slalom course,
a discipline of awareness,
immediacy and presence
A real-life drivers test
whose reward is fewer wheel alignment problems
at the pain of a ruptured suspension system
for those who miss the cues.
Rocky roads, so much so
they once produced a pothole vigilante
who ran about town
with a can of spray paint
circling the cratered depressions
in orange.
Rocky roads, so persistent
they inspired a local business
to name an ice cream flavor after them.
I was once told,
in all earnestness,
by a well-meaning, civic-minded but confused person
that the reason
the streets of Petaluma
weren’t being maintained properly
was because
the city council members
were saving up funds
so they could patch all the streets
at once!
Maybe that person
should run for city council!
Tim Konrad
11 November 2015
Petaluma, CA
-
I don’t want to know his name/he should not be given fame
*
I don’t want to know
the name of the gunman
who killed those people
at a college in Oregon.
***
I don’t care if he suffered from loneliness
or was plagued by anger
or was misunderstood as a youth.
***
And I’m not interested in how the shooter
went from being a disaffected teenager
to a taker of teenage lives.
***
and I most certainly do not want to know his name
or be made aware of any of the background details
of his story.
I’ve heard this story too many times.
Let him rot in obscurity, I say!
***
I just want to live in a country
where politicians
don’t sway to the paranoid pleadings
of those whose mission
is to protect what they’ve accumulated
from those they feel threatened by
come hell or high water!
***
I want to live in a country where rational people
are allowed to make sensible decisions
without obfuscation, intimidation
or other forms of dishonest or misleading interference.
all of which are designed to distract people from the ample evidence
based on repeated observations (x10)
of how unlimited accessibility to firearms
leads to unspeakable tragedies.
Most of which could have been prevented!
***
I don’t want to live in a country where the right to bear arms
trumps the sanctity of life
where the “freedom” to own as many assault rifles, or other firearms as pleases you
overrules common sense, the public good and all other metrics of reasonableness.
***
The “status quo” today as it relates to the right to bear arms (thank you NRA)
is the very thing
that makes it possible
for people like the Roseburg shooter
to seek fame and recognition
or absolution or vindication
or whatever other kind of get-out-of-jail-free card the shooter envisioned
(or, most likely, didn’t)
by the taking of lives
that weren’t his to take.
***
Such a deeply personal act
taken in such an impersonal way
by someone who thought that their hurt
was big enough
to override the rights of other people–
to deprive them of their lives
to rob their families of their presence in their lives today, tomorrow, and forever
***
I don’t want to know
the name of the gunman
who killed those people
at a college in Oregon.
*
Tim Konrad
02 October 2015
-
Planning to be spontaneous
(with apologies to Hillary Clinton)
*
Planning to be spontaneous
is like plotting an orgasm
arranging a dream
conspiring to be born.
***
It’s like studying to be gifted
like directing a tornado
or scheduling enlightenment
Like rehearsing a script written in Urdu
when you can only read English.
***
Planning to be spontaneous
is like wanting to stroll beside the lake
in the comfort of your own home
where there aren’t likely to be any surprises
***
It’s like drawing up plans
on how to react:
By the time you’ve devised your response
the moment’s passed in which it had meaning
***
Planning to be spontaneous
is like waiting for Godot
*
Tim Konrad
16 September 2015
-
How the future will work
*
Seems kind of funny
to be concerned about “how the future will work”
(as posited in a segment on the BBC just now).
Such thoughts depend on the presumption
that we’ll find out “when we get there”
Only
We won’t, really.
***
You can’t get there from here
So the saying goes
because
being here takes up too much time
all your time, in fact.
***
You can imagine being in the future
Or daydream about it
You can speculate on what it will be like
(like our BBC friends)
you can even formulate plans on what you’ll do
once you get there.
***
But you won’t ever get there
no matter how hard you try.
Not only do you have to be here
while you’re thinking about being there;
if you could be there
assuming there really were a “there” to be
when you got there
in there’s place
would be here
You would be here.
***
The only people who are “there”
are the ones who aren’t “here” anymore . .
the dead folks
And they aren’t exactly in the future
are they?
***
For those whose thoughts must,
of seeming necessity
face toward the future
or the past
the present may be an inconvenience,
a troublesome suggestion, a reminder,
should it cause ripples on the surface of their awareness at all,
that, like the cambian layer beneath the bark of a tree
where its living tissue, its essence resides,
the layer of consciousness that contains the essence of all things
ourselves most certainly included
resides nowhere but within the present moment
And the past
the future
and the latest news about Khloe Kardashian’s derriere
are mere distractions from that realization
Nothing more.
***
So instead of asking how the future will work
Why not instead ask
What we can do NOW that will benefit mankind
in the present
Informed by the realization and always mindful of the fact that
what we do now
has effects whose reach extends far beyond the present moment
effects some of which may not have been intended
in the moment.
*
Tim Konrad
15 September 2015
-
El Niño
*
White pelicans emigrating to Elkhorn Slough
while basking sharks breach off Big Sur
Flying fish gliding over Monterey Bay
as Baja sea slugs slither on the Berkeley flats
Black skimmers massing near Moss Landing
while Tuna crabs from Mexico paint Orange County beaches red
Whales singing the songs of warming waters
as they feed off the Farallones in record numbers
***
It’s been noted before . . .
Exotic tropical species, preceding an El Niño
pivoting northward along the Pacific coast
by air, by sea, by land as well
Outside the box
beyond the margins agreed upon by precedent
catalogued by science
informed
by the perspective of those whose views
are limited by their lifespans.
***
The Old Ones looked to the animals
for clues
as to what the seasons would bring.
They paid attention to the subtle shifts of rhythm, timing and circumstance
that made the difference between
struggling to merely survive
and ensuring their children would thrive.
The squirrels gathered more nuts
preceding a hard winter
Certain plants produced more seed
so that more might survive ’til spring
The geese aimed southward earlier
as if called upon to do so.
***
Things fall into step
in a regulated economy
or they fail.
***
The Wise Ones of our current epic–
the meteorologists–
learned in the ways of charts and graphs
and computer simulations
now sing the same song as the whales
As the waters warm
exciting the atmosphere
and arousing the hopes
Of those who pray for rain, for relief
for respite from drought
that sweet counterpoint
to a song so dry it cracks the throats
of those who dare to sing it.
***
El Niño!
Let’s all pray for El Niño!
The “little boy” who would soothe our parched fields
with life-giving sustenance
while washing all our cares away
Along with all the soil that lost its mooring
in the recent fires
in the Mayacamas, in the Sierras
and elsewhere in the West.
***
An anticipated and longed-for miracle
And yet
as all else in life
A mixed bag of potential upsides, downsides
opportunities and misfortunes
A multi-dimensional melange
masquerading as a Monday morning weather forecast
with no hint of irony.
A promising notion
whose only guarantee is uncertainty.
*
Tim Konrad
11 October 2015
-
Waiting for the rain
stanislaus river at parrott’s ferry Birds of many different shapes and sizes
converge outside my office window
to drink and bathe in the small pools
that sit beneath potted plants
dependent on the occasional dispensation
from my drip irrigation system;
their best bet for relief
from the worst drought in five centuries.
***
This land,
drying up, cries for relief
instantaneously absorbing
what scant moisture humidity provides.
***
These trees–
like canaries in a coal mine
like first responders when the Towers fell
show the damage explicitly
their ability to repel invaders
curtailed by their compromised hydraulics.
***
The woodland creatures
compete for whatever food resources remain
after so much time
with so little rain.
***
The humans
whose populations used to fluctuate
based on rainfall measurements
in a simpler time
before resources became available over distance
now seem less susceptible
the damage implicit, less apparent
yet present nonetheless.
***
Another kind of damage–
the damage wrought by the fires
urgent and personal,
incomprehensible, desolate
altering landscapes
both internal and external.
***
The humans
subverting natural order
with housing development
necessitating fire suppression efforts
where, in a simpler time,
when houses were portable,
none would have been necessary.
***
While brightening the spirits of the people
when the rains come,
will they dampen the spread of the fires?
Will they relieve the suffering?
Is the rain a gift from above?
an artifact
of the anthropomorphism of nature?
***
Does the land cry out for rain?
Or does rain fall like a flower blooms
like yeast rises, or the sun,
indifferent to our notions,
comes with the dawn?
***
Like hapless hitchhikers
we plead for rain.
Like an unconcerned incumbent
the rain hitches rides on the wind.
***
Whither the rain goes, or why . .
So long as it brings relief
Does it matter?
*
Tim Konrad
16 September 2015
-
South fork, Stanislaus River. Parrott’s Ferry bridges, old and new, in background. Its course altered beyond recognition
the south fork of the Stanislaus
emerges after years of drought.
***
Dead snags are all that remain
of the stream-side forest that was
(even the poison oak is gone).
In place of beaches . . mud!
Where deep pools once beckoned
rapids sparkle brightly with sound.
Everything rearranged without a plan.
Chaotic!
Entropy on display.
Looking upstream toward Manhattan Beach Yet the river sings again
freed from its bonds
given a temporary reprieve
by the least favored of means
and one certainly not envisioned
when the shouts of “fill the dam”
drowned out the cries of “save the river.”
***
The river sings again
but few birds answer its call.
A river’s temporary rebirth This episode is but a stanza
or maybe a refrain
in a song much longer
than the memory of man.
***
Yes, the river will return someday
to all its former glory
but not in my lifetime
or those of my children.
***
The dreariness of a cloudy October day
punctuates the dead pallor
of this place
that brought me joy
in another time.
Remains of Manhattan Beach Autumn has many dimensions,
sad reverie but one.
***
I gaze across the stream
where once my parents lived
young, happy, close to the earth.
There used to be a gold mine there, amid flat terrain
flat no longer, now terraced
by layers of mud and sand.
The trees remain, lifeless
like ghosts in a graveyard
arms reaching skyward
their purpose long forgotten.
Los dos puentes Yet amid the devastation
the solitude remains
the waters’ lullaby only disturbed
by the sound of traffic high up the canyon walls
or the occasional airplane.
***
I spent my childhood
my formative years
believing that this place would always remain
undisturbed.
I suppose the original inhabitants
assumed the same.
Why would they have had reason
to think otherwise?
Their sensibilities
never envisioned
the mastery of nature
(or the attempt thereof).
They fell victim
to the White man’s diseases
but not his madness.
***
Yes, the river will return
long after we are gone
It will sing its song anew
for ears not yet formed.
Two bridges punctuate a story about loss, rebirth and mans’ folly At some future moment
once “western civilization’ has exhausted its possibilities,
the river will recover from us
and return to its natural ways
dynamic
insistent
constant, yet ever changing . . .
a Pas de Deux for the ages.
***
From tiny rivulets
to cascading pools
to raging torrents
the river will once again sing its song
for those present to hear it.
Will our kind be among them?
**
Tim Konrad
27 October 2015
sonora2sonoma 