Language, Birds, and Riddles

I don't know why, but as I sit here this morning, William Carlos Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow" comes to mind.  So much has been made of it, but I think he was just fucking around.  Speculation about what depends upon the red wheelbarrow is a hoot.  A riddle wrapped in a mystery?  Ha!  That fucker used to be included in every intro to lit book published.  Just to torture students, I guess.  

"I don't get it."

Neither did most of your profs teaching you lit, either.  That's my thinking, anyway.  I feel the same way about his plums poem, "This Is Just to Say."  They are kind of American haikus, maybe.  Street.  

Know what I'm sayin'? 

I get beautified at eleven.  I have trepidations.  I don't kick about it, but I've had some seriously fucked up haircuts.  I've had good ones, too.  God knows how I'll feel about things around two o'clock.  I don't even know if I want to be a blond anymore.  

I don't know what I want to be--I just know what I don't.  It wouldn't matter anyway.  I'm just a recipient.  I can't even talk "hair."  No words.  

I picked up bbq for dinner last night--pulled pork sandwiches and ribs with Mexican street corn, beans and rice, and fries.  More food than we needed.  Today, I am thinking of becoming a vegetarian again.  Not totally, but much more Mediterranean than last night's meal.  I have some tempeh in the 'fridge.  I think I'll look up some recipes for tonight.  

Cha-cha-cha-changes.  

I took my mother to a cardiology appointment yesterday.  9:30 check in for a 9:45 appointment.  We sat.  The doctor finally saw her sometime after eleven.  He asked her how she was doing and said he'd see her in four months.  

One of my mother's down the street neighbors told her some weird news yesterday.  Her grown son went to check on his father, her ex-husband, and found him decomposing in the garage.  Holy smokes.  That had to be a bit traumatic for the son.  

Everywhere I go, the vultures seem to be circling.  

I still believe Trump will be the first to use a nuke.  

How's your weather?  It is consistently five to six degrees warmer than normal here.  There are hardly any birds left.  I looked it up.  "What happened to the birds?"  Oh. . . their numbers have been decimated.  They are not the only species, of course.  Well. . . birds aren't a species.  You knew that.  Class Aves.  I've fallen so far into common usage I don't think I'll ever escape.  But the birds. . . they aren't around so much anymore.  

Except for the vultures. 

Class: Aves (Birds)

Order: Accipitriformes (Birds of prey including eagles, hawks, and buzzards)

New World Vultures (Family Cathartidae): Found in the Americas (e.g., Turkey Vulture, Andean Condor). These birds are more closely related to storks.

Old World Vultures (Family Accipitridae): Found in Europe, Africa, and Asia (e.g., Griffon Vulture, Bearded Vulture). They are closely related to eagles and hawks.

We still have Genus and Species.  There are 23 species of vultures.  Don't confuse them with Buzzards.  Not the same.  

Do you know what constitutes a species?  Mating.  But. . . Neandrathals and Homos mated.  You have Neandrathal genes in you.  Science is still catching up.  Lots have changed since I got my ancient zoology degree.  

Lots.  

I can't escape the vernacular.  Which reminds me that I was thinking about language acquisition this morning, the fact that you don't teach a baby to talk, that they simply learn without being instructed in the rules of grammar, and that grammarians don't make very good writers in the main.  They think too much in the subjunctive.  As do I.  

"If I were you. . . ." 

Etc.  

O.K. Duty calls.  I took that photo with my phone.  Ain't that something?  

"My head ain't full of nothing but cats and rocking chairs."

God, he used to be good.