Uncaught catfish can swim through and turn to river pebbles
Wind and currents drive on their own accord
or so we would be told; there are currents
a top of currents dust to water to air to star dust
the moon the earth the planets ‘round
an apathetic sun and back down a clockwork
a whirly hurly a tornado a hurricane the white caps
on the river when the wind currents are colder
than the water and the old rivermen laugh at the office dwellers who insist on living in the forgetting that currents still sweep us along, river pebbles
dashed against waves
from one place to another
Tag Archives: weather
Daybook 2026 //Winter 1.9.26
I dropped my apple this morning and nearly choked on a cough drop. These, too, may become the symbols of an age; it certainly feels like symbols of my age, which is best classified as “Young but Feeling It.” Some apples are hardier than others. Like my mother’s mother, I favor tart pie apples. They remind me of the ones that used to grow on the trees in my mother’s parents’ yard, and long conversations over gin rummy about Jesus, back before I started being people’s great disappointment.
It’s raining and from my desk in the basement, it could be a spring rain. It isn’t. The weather has been kind this week. but all that means is that somewhere on the other side of this rain is cooler weather. Tart pie apples still taste like spring when it is winter raining. Cough drops always taste like winter.
January
rain
tastes
like
cough
dro
ps tart
pie apples
the expect
ation of fall
ing and becom
ing just
a bruised apple
Things That Remain in Spite of Us
Recent flooding brings to mind the 1997 flood… the first one I really remember. There have been others since. There will be more. That year, the Ohio River flooded. The town of Falmouth, Kentucky, was washed away: entire buildings moved off their foundations. The river was 52 feet above flood stage in Cincinnati. It reached 15.76 feet above flood stage in Louisville.
There was a year, I don’t remember which, that Triplett Creek flooded and the southwest end of town flooded. That same year, a drought caused a fire in the mountains above Morehead, Kentucky and they burned for what seemed like the entire summer. The mountains bore the scar for years.
I still dream of these things. It was a pivotal time for me. As I get older, I find myself more interesting in Things That Remain in Spite of Us: the mountains, the river. They bear the mark of our presence; but they remain. What gets washed away will be rebuilt… it won’t be the same, because it will carry the mark of the flood in spite of any attempt to erase it.