Transitions

Welcome. Thanks for visiting. Today has turned windy, cool and wet with some much-needed rain. The local trees are starting to look windblown and tattered. Leaves are beginning to pile up along roadsides and in the ditches. Pumpkins are beginning to show up on porches and steps. Autumn's transition seems underway and I'm getting excited about it.

rain clouds                © harrington

We went in to St. Paul this morning to take care of some business related to retiring and run some errands. Since we were almost in the neighborhood, we swung by Common Good Books, G. Keillor, prop. I went in to pick up a copy of the 2014 Poet's Market. I discovered that Will o' the Wisp Books has published Louis Jenkins Tin Flag, a volume of new and selected poems, including all those from Nice Fish (the play, not the volume of poetry). A copy is now residing in my "to be read" pile. I'm not giving up on my involvement with green building and sustainable development, but my retirement is going to focus more on writing and photography than my working career has allowed time for. That includes trying harder to prepare submissions and trying to get published. As part of this strategy, I've taken on the role of lead blogger and photographer for a different blog, the USGBC-MN chapter's Dynamic Green Home. I'm on the chapter's board and we're working with the Greater Frogtown Community Development Corporation to help make greener their rehabilitation of this house by contributing the interior painting and flooring refinishing and landscaping and a rain garden in the yard. Here's a different, and almost too true to be humorous, perspective on Home:

Dynamic Green Home #1    © harrington

Home Again, Home Again

By Marilyn L. Taylor

The children are back, the children are back—

They’ve come to take refuge, exhale and unpack;

The marriage has faltered, the job has gone bad,

Come open the door for them, Mother and Dad.

The city apartment is leaky and cold,

The landlord lascivious, greedy and old—

The mattress is lumpy, the oven’s encrusted,

The freezer, the fan, and the toilet have rusted.

The company caved, the boss went broke,

The job and the love affair, all up in smoke.

The anguish of loneliness comes as a shock—

O heart in the doldrums, O heart in hock.

And so they return with their piles of possessions,

Their terrified cats and their mournful expressions,

Reclaiming the bedrooms they had in their teens,

Clean towels, warm comforter, glass figurines.

Downstairs in the kitchen the father and mother

Don’t say a word, but they look at each other

As down from the hill comes Jill, comes Jack.

The children are back. The children are back.

Thanks for listening. Come again when you can. Rants, raves and reflections served here daily.