The Jungle
Metaphormosis
Illustrated Man
Why Do Dead Men Wear Socks?
Aphid Management
The Colors of Education
 

  The Jungle

Hear me, hear me Motherland
My legs are gone, I can not stand.
There was a time
so fleet, so swift,
But now I cry,
"Lift me - lift".

Might be my voice is also gone.
You never seem to hear my song
that plays at night among the dead,
But mostly, only,
in my head.

When I was strong, I carried you.
Please look back now
and see the view
from down below;
Legs left behind
still in the jungle
marking time.
  hh 1997

Dedicated to Rick Bloedau, Jr., 1946-2000. Vietnam vet and champion of the POW/MIA cause.
 
 

Metaphormosis

August - An entomologist's delight,
Humming wings and humid nights;
Crickets cricking, grasshoppers hopping,
Lightening bugs lighting and dragonflies flighting.
Like the locust hordes of Moses,
They come in legions I supposes.
Only a thousand but it seems quadzillion,
Or maybe one or two nimquillion .
Just like clockwork every fall
They leave their homes and crowd our hall.
Larva and nymphs with six giant feet,
They grab with all hands, oh how they can eat.
Colors and hues so brilliant and gay,
Prey for the birds if beaks have their say.
Some come as beetles, shiny yet brittle,
Some camouflaged like bugs in the spittle.
A few are tender caterpillars
Others simply food chain fillers
One scurries and hurries - I know it can't last,
Another just putters not moving as fast
Some will pupate right before you
Others mutate, none will bore you.
Some are whimsical - soft damselflies,
Others like scarabs have mouths like cow pies.
The ants fall in line and play follow-the-leader
They're off seeking out a sweet sugar feeder.
Roaches they scatter from stairway places,
When bright lights illuminate their faces.
So many more - too many to name
All are quite different, but oft treated the same.
I've heard that there may be twenty million or more,
Species of insects left to explore.
Each one different, but precious as gold
Just like our teenagers, wonders untold.
Some say teenagers most need restraining.
I simply say . . . . .
They're "butterflies in training"

…. Dr. H…. 1/28/99
 

Illustrated Men

Blue highways mark the faded trace
  of paths not taken.
A living atlas of cul de sacs,
  interstates and lonely lanes.
Nights of terror, days of rain.

Freeways carve the city
  like butcher cleavers sever hope.
Amputating unwanted parts;
cauterizing decaying neighborhoods;
Creating conrete keloid scars,
raised above the alleways
Beyond the gaze of caffeine frenzied commuters.

Clogged arteries cross over punctured veins;
 while varicose tenements are all that remain.
And at the heart . .  where resided once a soul,
embolisms swell at City Hall.

The city's limbs contort and stretch.
So much movement, so little time.
While sickness flows - unseen, unheard,
along blue highways; warning signs
that death will surely come.

And so the heart of the city slowly dies,
mortified by countless scars of collected waste.
While greedy eyes and ears ignore
the visceral moans from deep within.
"More, more", is the feeding cry,
as feelings dull and time rolls by.

And amidst it all,
illustrated men huddle beneath the viaducts
near a deserted city center.
Beneath a plaque encrusted aortic arch
 hardened to the cries.
So many containers discarded along the right of way . . .

. . . the wrong way, so silence comes, and  . . .
tattoo needles no longer trace
blue highways upon blue veins.
Now alone, each landmark is punctuated
by the single dot of the junkie's cross.
White lines and blue lines;
Time stands still.

 . . . . HH  1991

          Every year, during my class trip to see the cadaver at Pellissippi State, someone asks the question: “Dr. H, why does he have socks on?” Why indeed? I’m told it’s to keep his feet moist. That would explain the socks over his hands too, but I think there is a deeper, more profound aspect to the sartorial display.
     About two weeks before last  trip my aunt died. She was in her late 80’s and had spent the better part of her life affiliated with the Medical College of Georgia in a teaching capacity of one type or another. Her wish was to donate her body to the medical school. As it turns out, however, she had not put her desire in writing, and the school in Augusta could not accept her as a cadaver in residence. Fortunately, her children were able to get her accepted to Duke – a school she had never qualified for while among the living.
     I wonder if Aunt Emily is glad to be finally shed of support hose and orthopedic shoes, and before that, of course, the ubiquitous pantyhose. I can still hear the cursing of the women in my family on Sunday morning. Fishnet stockings were fashionable, but winds could tear through like sharks, nipping their razor teeth on new shorn bait. What a relief to be finally finished with fashion. Soft cotton socks comforting chill blains from years of winter walking. Sweet reward for the many steps she took in service to others.
     When I think about myself as a cadaver – naked to the world, bumpy and lumpy, exposed as an imposter , scarred and broken, sightless and lightless – it’s a comfort to know that no one will ever see my ugly feet. I think compassion is really the reason dead folks wear socks.

     While teaching some lessons in natural dying a few weeks ago, I had cause to pause and reflect on the nature of education in the communities in which I live and work. In particular, I was using indigo and black oak bark, and it seemed that not only the actual colors, but the nature of the dye stuffs themselves could be seen as metaphors in my reflection.
     Indigo is a blue dye, and although its history can be traced to the third century BCE, its use in the US is relatively recent – like much of the Oak Ridge population. Although residents of Oak Ridge – where I live – may be able to trace their roots back many ages, the town was founded only 60 years ago. It was founded on land originally in other ownership. Indigo was also imported and grown on appropriated land (appropriated from Native Americans). Indigo blue takes a lot of care and energy to produce. Vats must be constantly stirred, and this energy is an image of the resources Oak Ridge puts into their school. Indigo will yield different colors on different material, much like education. Oak Ridge’s blue looks good on some of the great genetic material it dyes, but I have also seen it fade on lesser grades. Indigo also requires an alkaline bath, and without careful time and attention the material can be weakened or even burn. I know that many young people struggle in this alkaline environment, but still the school dyes only shades of blue.
    Anderson county schools, especially Clinton High School where I teach, can be represented by yellow which comes from quercitron found in black oak bark. It requires only some store bought alum as a mordant and it yields the brightest and clearest yellows. It is native to the county and, in fact, Black Oak Ridge runs down the middle of the county. Until the civil war, the dye industry used fustic, a plant from the West Indies and Brazil for their yellows. When home grown black oak was discovered it became the pigment of choice for all material. – silk, cotton and wool. It is also cheap, like Anderson County – and requires little attention in the vat. Shades of yellow are also found in other plants too numerous to list, so to some people the brilliance of black oak goes unnoticed, yet it is to be prized by those who are aware.
      Greens are not found in nature. Ubiquitous chlorophyll is not a dye, it only stains. Wonderful greens can be obtained, however, when you overlay yellow on blue. In fact, an over dye of black oak on indigo will yield some of the most beautiful greens that can be found anywhere. If  the Oak Ridge and Anderson county communities could see the unique colors that are possible by working together to dye the intellectual fabric of their youth what a brilliant tapestry they could weave. Alas, we only yield blues and yellows while the green of jealousy rears its ugly head.