During finals, who's to judge?

Finals Week

The Final in Philosophy is fill-in.
There are no multiple choice questions
So one can guess.

     A bone scan and a lung CT
     Will provide the answers,
     Either right or wrong.

Predestination?
Free will?
Beliefs do not alter the outcome.
Will I find
Metaphysics or metastases
This finals week?

     The sculpture class critique
     Of my bronze pieces
     Provides a grade for college records.
     I have three poured, buffed and patinad:
     A bent blind woman with her aide,
     A bar-wired wall of fingers
     With frantic small hands
     Climbing it,
     A priestly figure formed 
     From fragmented desert skeletons.

In broader life there are three pieces
I have birthed ---
Three beings who will also
Outlast my shadowed flesh.

     Is there a teacher or divinity---
     Some trinity perhaps---
     To judge my works
     This finals week?

May 22, 2005


Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.

Robert Louis Stevenson.

Which way?

Theological Questions Not Addressed

by Bill Moyers' Clerical Guests 

on His Wednesday Night

Program

Rabbi, priest, imam, and pastor

Speak solemnly of the disaster.

They say

That they agree on "God",

And they do not tell

Whether the terrorists

Went to Moslem heaven

Or to Christian hell.

Or which way

God sent

The crew of the Enola Gay.

September 18, 2001

Today the terror in Boston crowds out the trauma in Texas. Tragedy seems to grip  most tightly when animated by a moral pulse.  Is that right, Mom?

Shadows Against the Sky

Shadows

Without shadows,

The ridge

Would be a torn paper edge

Against the Sky.

With shadows

From the slant sun rays,

My life hills

Are full-formed

And valleyed.

July 29, 1979

A beauty in the twilight of my day

 DAFFODILS

Daffodils in twilight

Far surpass

Any other flower at any time.

I think if I could plant

Five thousand bulbs

In some secluded grassy spot,

And then

Control my destiny enough to be there

In that spot

When they have bloomed-

In rosy twilight luster,

While they shine with clear, crisp beauty,

Then –

Perhaps then -

Could I find

A beauty in the twilight

Of my day

Were I to die

In such a flowered place.

Lorel Kay, February 11, 1972


Mom's Spring Birthday falls on April 9

She loved creating, she appreciated loveliness, and she took great pleasure from nature and gardening. The natural world reminded her, at age 46 as at ages before and after, that all life, not just a Spring bloom, is fleeting.  The planting of bulbs can, with luck, enable flushes of beauty to intersect with our destinies.

Dad also comments:

In the "Twilight of my days"  the most poignant thing is to realize she wrote it in 1972 and in 2012 one of our residents who didn't know us at all at the time donated 5000 daffodil bulbs which were planted in the open areas of our little park here at SRC, just above the 5000 Bldg.  Lorel and I would sit on a bench there quite often and admire the 5000 blooming daffodils since that was as far as she could walk toward the end. I miss your Mom so very much.

 

Sequel to Stairs

Nowhere-steps

Can become a bridge

To the upper hill,

To a fresh pea-gravel path,

To a new curved bench

Hidden among pepper tree feathers.

The view is wider up here

And contemplation is invited.

November 20, 1978

Happy birthday, Uncle Ron!

Ron's Birthday

by Mary channeling Lorel  

Hooray its Ron’s birthday,   he’s ninety this year.

For this grand fellow, let’s all give a cheer!

With his lovely Renate always there by his side

The brave two adventure this world far and wide.

Enchantments in Europe with old friends so dear

Weddings in villas, and fine music to hear.

Art is their passion, Ron’s a shrewd connoisseur

And quietly stylish, an elegant monsieur.

From work in the industry, now feet on the ground

In the vast field of botany his knowledge abounds.

With wide-ranging interests and a sense of “I can”

It seems that our Ron is a ...Ronaissance man.

This designer so keen made a most clever clock.

His gifts are abundant---and, yes, he can talk!

He’ll weave a good story, he’s a deft raconteur

You’ll learn something in listening, that is for sure.

With a twinkling bright joke or some thoughtful reflection

From a vast set of stories or deep introspection.

He’s seen much of living, the bad and the good

And spins out the wisdom--- ah, if all people could.

A husband and father and Opi and brother

Let’s now make a toast to this man like no other.

A good ninety years since the day of your birth.

You’ve enhanced life’s sweet flavor for us here on earth.

In celebrating Ron on his 90th birthday, 

shortly before Passover this year, 

we should not forget that Ron has 

combined luck with character and 

accomplishment to earn 

the wisdom of age.

One of Mom's bronzes - Kindertransport - 

serves as a reminder of difficult beginnings 

and the possibility of transcending them.