L'aura del Campo

Windy, dry, send us rain

SPRING: 2 Jalál (10 April)

Weather where I am: 63º, sunny and very windy.

Weather in Europe: steady. 52º in Paris where it will be in the 50s for a week; 41º in Stockholm where it will be in the 40s for a week.

Dry isn't good.

I'm concerned over how dry it is here. Could be around the low 80s for the next week and sunny each day. That will sound great to some folk, but it dries things out tremendously and we are in desparate need of rain. There are fire hazard warnings throughout Oklahoma for instance and it could get that dry here too. Important for folk to remember: no rain = no wheat = you-can't-afford-to-buy-bread. Our increasingly urban population forgets little details like that. Weather isn't all about how good a tan one gets or whether one can go to the beach next weekend. Want to eat cake? Pray for some rain.

Wet where my cousin lives.

Weather in Salamanca, New York where my cousin, Betty McClure lives: 43º and rain showers this coming week.

Spoke to cousin Betty {Little Betty} last night. Finally, there is some Spring in the North-East. Winters can be long there, so this is good news. Cousin Larry (Big Betty's son) died recently. I have this vague childhood memory of him and Aunt Maxine at his grandparent pond! Something about inner tubes? Anyway, I was always terrified of water because I didn't swim. I doubt that I went in.

Sketched earlier today:

Addressed to a hockey player


I am Fear.

You wouldn't know me.

I lurk beneath your blades,
the missteps you ignore.

I'm the concussion you can't conceive,
Death's Door.

I've tried to make the ripples,
that fly across your calm,
the worries of the ages,
an ocean's roar, a bomb.

Your deaf
to my persuasions.
But,
patient,
I wait for an occasion

to make you hear my taunt.

I'm the end of what you need,
the despair of what you want.

Yet you ignore me,
skate right through me,

as if

you'll never know me. [163.53]

Da Update About Dirk Da Duck

And of course, there's more news about Dirk da Duck. Go to: "Invalid Entry" . As I commented, my Swedish and Polish contacts are concerned. Smålands Damm even had a "Wanted" poster with a picture that vaguely resembles Nada. Oh my, what international turmoil that one poor little duck from Texas is embroiled in!

AL, my correspondent in Sweden just wired me this important information: "Duck Blood Soup" is "Svartsoppa" in Swedish, but it´s usually goose blood. Can´t have a "Mårten Gås" dinner without it! Now ... the good news is that the next Mårtensmässa is 11 November. So maybe Dirk is safe? Maybe they have no taste for duck in Hawai'i?? Maybe they just mean to show him the good life, fatten him up a little, invite some visiting Swedes over, let's say ... come November???

SENSED

Lilacs; grape hyacinths; violets and dandelions by the hundreds; cedar flower droppings between the cracks of bricks; new grape leaves; nubby catkins, rough bark and one fall leaf on an oak; a big-winged butterfly that startled me; a balloon in the sky floating by (headed east at quite a clip); the wind blowing my hat off; a squirrel eating redbud flowers.

A photo I took of the fountain framed by redbud in 2004 at Emporia University in Kansas: