(still shot of our video capture, not a tech glitch)

—

when you are waiting

for your family to arrive at Ikea

for the day’s adventure

and you notice

you and carol, the friendly greeter

are dressed in matching outfits

you naturally greet them together.

—

‘all who joy would win must share it.

happiness was born a twin.’

-lord byron

hopscotch in the woods

—

‘i cling to the optimistic belief that the haphazard and the hopscotch,

the creature that sips among many flowers, may actually come up with something.’

-brad leithauser, american poet, novelist, essayist, and teacher

—

country farm park, Ann Arbor, mi, usa – summer 2025

out walking in my neighborhood

when the 100+ degree day

finally cools down

seeing people out

doing what it’s too hot to do

under the blazing sun of the day

as dusk falls

gardeners are digging

pets are walking

people are strolling

neighbors are talking

fireflies are flashing

the town is quietly abuzz.

—

‘life is like butter, when it cools down, it can be reshaped.’

-alan sheinwald

“one of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world

is to stand up and show your soul.”

-clarissa pinkola estes

—

art credit: sharkey art

as I was pulling through a parking lot

a paper shredding service truck

was parked in front of a school

not an unusual sight at the end of a year.

what was unusual

was when the two young men

who were the mobile ‘shredders’

suddenly began frantically chasing

huge swaths of paper

all over the parking lot

the wind had  picked up

just as they were carrying out

these giant piles of paper

to feed into their shredder

  in an instant

they were running around

grabbing and gathering up

all the paper

caught up in the swirl

I was driving

 not able to catch an action photo

but wow, were they moving fast

like on those old game shows

where you just had a short time

to grab as much cash as you could.

soon they were back by the truck

with armloads

but I thought about

how ironic it was

they had one job

they came to shred papers

for security reasons

but had almost lost many of them

to a blustery wind

with the potential of them

heading to parts unknown

all around the city

good thing they were young and athletic

soon walking back to their truck

with armloads of paper.

getting back to the work of shredding

security restored

perhaps that’s one of the job requirements

for just this very situation

the people doing the job must be secure

or at least respond in a very secure way.

—

“when you work with someone who is not insecure, that makes you confident. “

-shweta tripathi”
—

Here is their company motto on their website:

“***** Document Destruction is a professional shredding service based in ### MI, specializing in secure and confidential document disposal. With a focus on protecting sensitive information, **** Document Destruction offers reliable and efficient shredding solutions for businesses and individuals.”

Where will he go next, this phantom from another time, this resurrected ghost of a previous nightmare – Chicago?  Los Angeles? Miami, Florida? Vincennes? Indiana? Syracuse? New York? Any place, every place where there’s hate, where there’s prejudice, where there’s bigotry – he’s alive. He’s alive so long as these evils exist. Remember that when he comes to your town. Remember it when you hear his voice speaking out through others. Remember it when you hear a name called, a minority attacked, any blind, unreasoning assault on a people or any human being. He’s alive because through these things we keep him alive. – Rod Serling

*He’s Alive” from The Twilight Zone, 1963,  the closing narrative from one of his most bone chilling episodes ever written, about history repeating itself, a shadow from the past returns and hovers, and those who will follow at the cost of others

this may not have worked out exactly as hoped

but maybe another round?

—

‘in order to win you must be prepared to lose sometime.

and leave one or two cards showing.’ 

-van morrison