Cards - Birds - Flowers - Baby Robins / Poem: Why I Like Flowers

I like to personalize my cards. Bot this at one of the Smithsonians.

What did you learn from your mom?

I didn't have room to list everything she taught me.

Wonder if I should send her a Father's Day card, too, since she's my mother and father now.

Hummingbird feeder - not a single one yet PLUS three bird houses

Here's the back of the bird houses. My note to the birds: You must enter by the front door.

We're doing very well, say the flowers. The yellow pansy in the foreground reseeded herself, as did all the pansies. I am curtseying now in thanks.

All three bird houses are inhabited as of today. What a thrill. Must do an internet search to find out what kind of birds they are.

Archival photo of today's Intelligencer, which is still a daily. Used to work at their Easton Road office in Warminster as a copy writer. Now I write an occasional Guest Column.

Wrote my Guest Column - which I titled "President Obama Endorses Mental Health Month - in about an hour. Couldn't believe how fast I did it. Crammed in a lot of info in the required 700 words.

Then I shipped it off to my boss for her approval. Ada had a good point, which I incorporated in the revised copy, before I sent it to Editorial Page Editor, Alan Kerr, who's won awards for his work.

Among other things, I spoke about people from New Directions and their numerous accomplishments.



Had a call from a Family Member today. I'd recommended several psychiatrists for her young son. Two of our most esteemed psychiatrists did not take a full psych evaluation nor acknowledge the bipolar family history of the young man, who recently was manic and locked up in a horrible facility 75 miles from home.

I gave her more names, but it takes two months to get a 'new patient' appointment, which I said in my newspaper article.

Neighbor Bob across the street in his white t-shirt, retired last month during "The Sequester." At first, I didn't know what he was talking about. An earthquake? A sinkhole?

How are you handling it, I asked him.

Well, as a guy who retired before me said, "It took about 20 minutes."

He can now catch up with his gardening and he power-washed his white picket fence. He can devote more time to church activities, including becoming a Bible Study Teacher - he does believe in evolution - and he served as a judge at Drexel U, his alma mater, for middle school science students who had an underwater robotics project. I think. Don't quote me. It would look funny if I took notes while visiting my neighbors.

Three baby robins in the rose bush near my front door.

WHY I LIKE FLOWERS

 

In a small room with

white walls

I sat bare-bottomed

sandaled feet removed from

the stirrups

and she told me my uterus

has grown smaller with age

‘shrunk’ was the word she used

invisible behind the summer shorts

I would put on

Sometimes they remove it when it gets old

like a tree taken down

Stay with me, I say,

Who else has been so patient

so steadfast

made just for me

swelling just so

when the babies bulged inside

the perfect incubator

so, it bled a drop of blood

or two

a protest, I suppose, a cry,

a tear of sorrow

for what once was.

Driving home with a Beethoven

Quartet making the spring air

even more beautiful

I wonder why people like flowers.

Are we a kind of flower?

To cup a flower in your hand

is to see a world without

perfidy, malignancy, cruelty

we see ourselves as once we were

the innocence and yearning

of the newborn.