Name that tree

I need help identifying a tree on my property, and no matter how many Google searches I run I can’t seem to find the answer.

So, I’m turning to Twitter, Facebook and any blog readers I may have.

The tree has huge, green heart-shaped leaves, long seed casings that resemble giant vanilla pods, and white flowers that look a bit like orchids.

For a writer, detail is everything, and though “heart-leaved tree” may seem poetic, I’d like to be accurate.

Photos are below.

Poem: Back to nature

I love starting a new project. In this case I’ve been taking tons of macro shots of flowers (though, unlike O’Keefe, I see more faces than sexual organs in the petals). My plan it to write at least 20 poems to include with the photos and create a book out of them using self-publishing Web site LuLu.com.

Last night I wrote the first one, which I’m pretty sure I’ll use to open the book. It’s short, but it speaks with he voice I’m going for with this project. My goal is to have his finished by the end of Summer.

I hope you enjoy it.

#1

The spring flower
climbed out
from under
thawed mud
and rusted blades
of grass
tamped by
frost and boots

The Sound and the lighthouse

It is easy to debase Long Island. The sprawl, like blight, is consuming its beauty. The proliferation of strip malls is unnecessary, traffic is a mess no matter where you’re headed, taxes are high, arts are hard to find, young adults are absent, downtowns are dieing, and there isn’t a single jam session a saxophone player can run to when he wants to solo over All the Things You Are. But there is a lot of good too, including a great wine country, some wonderful restaurants, and natural beauties, mainly marine ones, that can lift you out of the vapid suburbia.

Not far from my home, a small lighthouse watches over the Long Island Sound. You can pretty much drive right up to the Old Field Lighthouse any time to check out the black iron watchtower on the sandy brick base. And behind it there is a small trail that leads you to a rocky shoreline on the Long Island Sound. From what I hear, it’s never packed, making it a wonderful, meditative spot to relax in for a while.

From a rock jetty you can see Port Jefferson’s power plant watching over the harbor while you throw smooth rocks into the water.

I like to visit places like these when Long Island’s wasteland makes me want to puke.

Name that macro #1

I’ve been taking a lot of photos of textures recently for a later collection. In the mean time, I thought it would be fun if I asked readers to try and guess what it was I actually photographed.

Take a crack at it. UPDATE: Answer below.

I got few great guesses: old Nerf ball, a very freckly man with no body hair, a melon, pear skin or the foam on a beer or a cava.

The last guess is right on, from Barbara Siemianiuk. It was the foamy head of a Guinness stout in a mug, taken from above.

We’ll do this again soon.

So it wasn’t a fairy after all

Last week I took a photo of a very strange bug I found hanging out on my porch’s window screens, looking like something out of The Mothman Prophecies. It had thorns on its legs, and thin orange and white banded, furry wings. Unfortunately, the camera kept focusing on the screen, so the bug is a little blurry.

I tried searching every detail in Google to find this bug’s name, but never came close. So I put the question to Twitter. I uploaded the photo using TwitPic, and within 5 minutes one of my Twitter followers replied with the answer. It was a plume moth.

Finally pointed in the right direction, a quick Google search led me to the exact type, it was a Himmelman’s Plume Moth.

Now, I have a love/hate relationship with Twitter. I don’t believe it will replace media, and I don’t believe it’s nearly as crucial to business as the bursting fraternity of social media “experts” would have you believe. But as a sort of hive mind, a window into the collective consciousness of civilization, it’s unparalleled. I believe you can find the answer to anything there, get information on any subject, any location. It brings a human element Google search will never be able to. Business and media want to take over Twitter, but it will always be ruled by the human desire to share what we know, love and hate.

However, I almost hoped I didn’t turn up the answer about my mysterious bug. Then I could have gone on believing it was some kind of forest fairy come to bring me good luck.

Photos: Going bananas

The spots on an overripe banana double as great abstract art.

Enjoy. I especially like the blurry one.

Prompt: The camp on the lake

Flickr photo by broken_images

Seven days in to National Blog Posting Month I’ve discovered coming up with post ideas isn’t always that easy. Luckily, I have the Imagination Prompt Generator to turn to, a simple Web site that gives you a different writing idea every time you press a button.

Here’s this morning’s prompt: Describe a place you remember from your childhood.

When I was a child I would always spend a few weeks in the summer visiting my family in Maine, where the bulk of my mother’s nine siblings still live. It’s a huge state, and we’d cover most of it, from the sandy Atlantic beaches in the south to the the flat, brown potato fields of the very north. Though one stop was always my favorite.

My mother’s twin sister owned a small cabin on lake, only  few miles from Mt. Katahdin, Maine’s highest peak and the end of the Appalachian Trail. They called it “camp,” which is a Maine thing. You had to walk a mile through the woods, towing coolers, suitcases and grocery bags, to get there.

The walls were wood planks, and the whole house smelled like the fire pit just outside the screen door.

The lake was a mirror, and only the ducks belly flopping from the shores or the occasional speed boat racing between the islands shook the surface.

The water was clear, and when you swam you body turned a burnt amber color in the cool, flavorless water.

It’s there where I caught my first fish.

We’d spend the nights roasting red hot dogs on sticks, waving them through the fire until their skins cracked.

One night, my mother called me outside to see the Northern Lights dancing in the sky, where stars swarmed. Every minute brought a new falling star, and we could even see satellites swimming through the night sky in a slow arch.

Once a bat got locked in the cabin, and being so completely terrified of bats I was of course the one to detect it. I remember pulling the cover over my head when my mother told me to get up and turn on the light. “I can’t,” I yelled back, “I’m paralyzed with fear.”

It’s been years since I’ve been there, and my aunt has since renovated the cabin. Maybe now the bats can’t get in.

The backwards backfire

It’s a good thing I can take a hard look at myself, and my writing.

As you’ve seen, I’ve planned on digging through the piles I have of old poems, hoping to give them a home here on my blog. Unfortunately, the ones I’ve already posted are the only ones that I’ll ever let out.

It’s not that the bulk of the old ruminations were bad, in fact, some had wonderful moments. But for the most part they were just too incomplete, too inconsistent, to be ready for an audience.

There’s a lesson I take from this. Not everything you write is great, in fact, a lot of it is just flushing the system, seeing which ideas or phrases sing and seeing which of them fail. You’ll save yourself a lot of grief if you don’t place such high expectations on every word you jot down.

It’s OK to have your own reject pile.

As for me, where poetry is concerned, I’m just moving forward with two new ideas.

First, I want to write a modern Leaves of Grass-type poem, applying an “I celebrate myself and you and the people and the world around me as it is all myself” lens to suburbia, something Whitman never got to praise. I’m thinking Howl meets Song of Myself.

Second, nature poems. I’ve been taking tons of photographs of flowers, leaves and natural textures that I want to pair with a book of poems about, or themed with, nature. If it’s good, I’ll publish it with LuLu.com.

I’ll share as they evolve.

10 things every writer should have

The Internet is full of lists, especially when it comes to writing. Unfortunately, they’re all about the same. Of course you need the Elements of Style, the Writer’s Market, a dictionary, a thesaurus, Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, a word processing program, talent and a vocabulary at least better than a 13-year-old’s. But writer’s are quirky animals, and each surely has his stable of must-haves that go beyond the germane.

So here is my list, starting with the obvious:

1. A fountain pen. No writer should exclusively type. Even if it’s just to scrawl ideas, or to outline your next story, a writer should hit the pen and paper. You should see what your handwriting looks like, and not expect to be bailed out on the words you have no idea how to spell. Fountain pens are the most vulnerable of pens, the neediest, the most finicky, just like writers. Setting up the ink takes time, but when it starts flowing there’s no stopping. You can’t press too hard or you’ll get an indecipherable blot. And if you go too long without using it, the ink dries up and you have to prime the pen all over again. All of this, just like writers. Also, there is no greater satisfaction than walking away with the ink stains on your fingers to remind you of the good work. My pen now is a black Lamy Safari. It’s plastic and very light.

2. A Journal, but not a Moleskin: Let’s unite against our common enemy, an $11 notebook that we’re supposed to fall for because Hemingway and Matisse used it. Bullshit. We’ve been had by Moleskin and it’s time we boycott the company for robbing us. That said, we do need notebooks. Here are my pics: A marble composition book (if you can find unruled, great), any of those hard-cover, plain sketch books you see in most bookstores and art supply stores, or notebooks from Piccadilly Journals. They look like Moleskins, nice and portable, but nice and cheap too. Boycott Moleskin!

3. The Mac setup: You do need a computer, and Macs are just unbeatable when it comes to fostering us creative people. We like music, photos, movies. We like to make things, and Microsoft would rather have us run Spy Sweeper all day. Also, ever since the talking paper clip, Microsoft Word has been more of a hassle than a nice word processor. Apple’s iWork is great, and the new feature in Pages that blacks out the screen on everything but the page you are writing on is wonderful.

Now, the not so obvious:

4: An anthem: You need a song that calls you to your craft, like a lunch bell, or a fire alarm. Once you choose the song I recommend playing it right as you sit down to write for a while, and play it again when your session is over. After a while, whenever you hear that song out in the world you will stop and think about writing. You’ll think about the last paragraph you left off with, or the sentence that took you an hour to get right. Mine is the opening to Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion.

5: A totem: You should have some symbol of your project, reminding you of the work to be done and sparking your imagination to dream up new stories, details or plot lines. For a while had a small rusty candelabra, then it was a little statue of a clown playing saxophone. Right now it’s an amethyst crystal.

6: A anthology of unwritten stories in your head: Maybe it’s the tale of Bill Meady, running for president, or Sparks 2000, an android that must save the world from an alien invasion. Either way, dreaming these stories when you can, even if they never make it to paper, keeps your imagination sharp. Right now I’m creating a story about a ancient ninja whose mummy was used to clone him and now he’s trying to adapt to modern life. I’ll never write it.

7: A beverage: Writers pause a lot to sort out what we want to say, or to read back what we’ve just written. While we do that, a little liquid refreshment can warm our souls, and at the same time,keep us from getting out of our chairs. I’ve loved a little Scotch, a glass of wine or some hot coffee in the past. Right now I’m enjoying some Jasmine Green Tea, not the stale bagged kind, but loose leaves straight from an Oriental grocery store.

8: A day job: Why suffer in poverty, there’s nothing romantic about rice and beans? You need a job. Yes, it will take away writing time, but let that be the way you suffer. If not, you’ll always be complaining about being broke, eventually turning into a sad sack. Wallace Stevens sold insurance. What’s your excuse?

9. A publishing plan. If you don’t think you are going to land an agent and a book deal, then go ahead and self-publish something. There are a lot of great sites out there you can use, like LuLu.com. There’s something to be said for turning your work into some kind of finished product, something that takes presentation into account. Print it and put it on your bookshelf for your own feeling of accomplishment.

10. A sense of reality: We tend to fall in love with our work, and sometimes that blinds us to the things that need fixing. It’s hard to do, but really scrutinze your work, don’t be afraid to make fun of yourself for ever thinking “the science of the senses” was a good phrase. We don’t all have editors to expose the holes. That leaves the dirty work to us.

If I left anything out, let me know.

Photos: The first of the black caps

If you could see me now you’d laugh at my purple tongue and fingers, and I’d let you. Because I just picked my first batch of black raspberries from the vines that grow on my property, risking poison ivy – which I get terribly – just to enjoy a handful of the tangy fruit. It’s one of those activities that defines the thick of summer to me.

Enjoy the photos.

Poem: It is peace

I’ve been digging up a lot of my poetry from when I was in college, and this one was one of my favorites.

I had written it for a small Hiroshima Day ceremony in New Paltz, and it was one of the first poems where I really felt my own voice had emerged. Since then I think I’ve come into that voice, and writing this poem today I would make a fair amount of changes. But I like how raw it is, and it really shows a young writer experimenting with tone, language, and grand topics like war, death and sex.

It is Peace

Today I go questing for Everyman’s grail
for a sip of pieced together circumstances
of calm hope dripping
and hoped calm dropping
Balmed reality fights through
soothing and sobbing and traveling to interwoven souls
- synonymous with sinister -
“Reality is War, and Peace the Imagination”
This is X-rated!
I see and evil man nodding his head, walking from the bomb site, his wounds
too burned to bleed. He falls and family calls out. “He is at peace now.”
SHOUT AND WHISPER!
RIOT!
Quiet. She stands naked and beautiful, fixated on little death, lured to blush
an feel satin, alone in the dark.
“She will be our sign of peace.”
- the trembling ecstasy of pure imagination -
Not the marijuana men sitting in circles, loose talking, the are deluded
by poison, and fantasy, but not imagination, pieced but not peaced.
It is not anesthesia, nor dulling.
REMEMBER HER, SHE IS TREMBLING IN THE DARK
EXHILARATION.
And I hear the clergymen speak of peace everlasting as you lay in the coffin
and feel your blood standing by your side, weeping and wishing.
Wallowing willow trees of fallen heads, each wondering why.
“This is it?”
The watchers find solace in imagination.
Holding signs calling for it, they whisper their plans. But shouts from the
circles around them have plans of their own.
How do they expect the riot to birth it?
As if any shout or whisper roots in the raw of every man’s pure imagination.
She Tastes Awe and How Some Body Shakes,
Alone in The Dark.
Remember her, pilot, as you fly stripes and stars, as you fly the atomic theory
of destruction, according to instruction. As SHE rolls over he target on
her own orders.
“At war, soon to be at pieces.”
Why “at” it, and always “at” it, picking away. Pat it. Padded? Feel around it.
Pilot, fly at it, in your sights
Woman, cry in it, at our mights
Door open, hand upon the button
They each want it, drop it,
CAN’T STOP IT!
And the pilot watches the cloud-skull spread the air with
melted skin, a screams put out the call for peace. Bureaucrats dance
to the melted specter-songs of souls sent across the sea and sold for
signatures on a piece of paper.
Treaty, do you stop the suffering?
or …
Do you excuse us to close our eyes and feign imagination?
The woman has nothing following her explosion, she shakes, alight in
the aura of action based in the raw, non-deliberated ecstasy of pure
imagination.
SHE is in IT.
- Sing your pornographic Tao -
The pacing, racing heart in part so calm, the water sought her, brought her in
within the place of mind to find the combination of the only pure
imagination,
Where war is balanced by protocol
and
Peace is balanced by more pieces of peace.

The love nature couldn’t allow

A half-mile down the road a squirrel and a crow lie dead in the middle of the street, both a bit flatter since more than a few cars have run them over. But when I saw the duo in the street yesterday as I drove home from work, I couldn’t help but imagine a story for those two creatures. Why were these animals together?

Squirrel hadn’t told his family or friends where he spent his afternoons, how he jumped from branch to branch finally end up on a power line three miles from his den. They didn’t ask, they were more concerned about the latest gossip sweeping the trees.

For Crow, escape was more difficult, as her family and friends could fly three miles rather easily. Crow just had to take her chances with the eyes in the the sky.

At last, Crow and Squirrel would arrive on their own power line, while both of their families back home prattled on about the latest gossip sweeping the trees and skies.

Crow, like a solo ballerina, danced on the wire, closer to the squirrel. While squirrel bent his head and crawled near. They were at last together. Squirrel buried his nose in her feathers and her black eyes glistened and blinked. She nuzzled his fur with her beak. Today she couldn’t help wrapping her wing around squirrel, tickling his taut legs. And maybe it was the joy of it all that caused Squirrel’s tail to swing towards the sky, brushing the power line above them just enough to complete the circuit.

Her wings were still wrapped around him when they fell, while back at their homes, each family chattered about the latest gossip sweeping the trees. Somewhere a squirrel had fallen in love with a crow.

The Fla-Vor-Ice of life

Before today, I hadn’t had one of those frozen ice sticks, Fla-Vor-Ice, in at least fifteen years.

In the last ten minutes I’ve had four.

Artificial, sweet, icy, the roof of my mouth is numb. Welcome back to my life.

A month of heavy blogging

You’ve heard me promise to update this blog more often many times here, and I also hope you’ve noticed that I’m picking up the pace. Still, I could do better, and perhaps the threat of public failure will do the trick.

I have just signed up for National Blog Posting Month, at the suggestion of bloggers for WordPress.

The object is to write a post every single day for the month of July. If you succeed you get a little graphic that says so, that’s all.

The contest is much the popular National Novel Writing Month, in which participants must write a 50,000 word novel in one month in order to win. Again, you only get a little graphic

I participated in NaNoWriMo in 2005, and hit the mark. My second novel, Imaginary Bebop, which still reads like it was written in a month, was the result of that.

So here I go, to write at least one post a day for the whole month of July.

And I’ve already got two posts down.

Almost a disaster

Last week, I got a call from my wife.

“We’ve got a little excitement going on here,” she said.

A flatbed truck, which was carting a few stacks of cement cesspools, was too tall to clear one of the main branches of a maple tree on my property, but the driver didn’t realize that. So the drove under the branch, the cesspools crashed into it, ripping the tree in half. This was no small branch, it was basically one of the main forks of the tree, which fanned out to shade the street, almost as large as a tree itself.

When the truck hit, the cesspools shattered and the branch, a few feet thick, fell, blockading the street.

Unfortunately, a woman was pushing her baby in a stroller, and walking her small dog, and the branch tumbled over them. Some of the section the branch were more than a foot thick.

My wife heard the crash and then the cries for help, and  ran out to help. The woman was scratched up, and the thick parts of the branch had missed the stroller and the dog.

The mess has since been cleaned, the half of the tree that remains is standing still on the edge of my lawn, and I’m still picking up bits of concrete.

Now I’m a little scared to push my infant daughter in her stroller down the street. That won’t stop me, she has the see the world, but I’m reminded tragedy is always breathing down our neck.

Perhaps that’s the best reason to get out and live the rich lives you want. You can climb out of a disaster unharmed.

Old friends and mentors

I’m a bit removed from my days playing jazz professionally. I haven’t blown a frenzy through my saxophone for the delight of a mostly drunk bar crowd in years, or stood on a stage, howling for the art lovers. I haven’t come home at 5 a.m. smelling like smoke, the corners of my mouth sore from the hours wailing above a noisy crowd, in a long time. But I remember it all.

I still remember the eureka moment that came when I found out my high school security guard was a jazz guru. While our music teacher was talented, but a little stiff when it came to jazz, it was Chris Sullivan who taught us what it was to swing. He was this tall, soulful bassist who’d work with us before our jazz rehearsals, emphasizing the heart of the music, calling us mammy-jammies, and delivering perhaps the most meaningful message in jazz, that it is more important that the music feel right than sound right. I remember when that really sunk in, when Chris said I had skill, but he didn’t feel what I was saying. It hit me like a Mingus blues, in my gut. And when I was deciding between going to school in Boston or New York, it was Chris who convinced me that there’s much more energy, more wild, charging, emotive jazz to feed off of in the capital of the world, New York. And he was right.

Years later, after my bumpy New York stint ended, I met Harvey Kaiser in New Paltz. He was the father of my drummer friend, Tashi, and a saxophonist who once studied with legend Joe Henderson – though, his honking, bellowing, Kansas City style evokes the ghost of Lester Young more than the liquid lines of Henderson. But it wasn’t Harvey’s playing that had such an effect on me, it was his life. Harvey, and his family, lived music, lived jazz. Every time I visited, jazz was either playing on the stereo, or jazz was flowing from Harvey. The house was cluttered with music, CDs, a drum set in the den, it was warm and peaceful. Whenever I visited, as long as I’d brought my horn, Harvey was always up for a jam session, Tashi would play the drums. Harvey and his family were the proof that the love of your art, and the endless pursuit of it, can shape your family life. He also introduced me to Buddhist living, indirectly. I remember the intrigue I’d feel when Tashi explained that his father was “sitting” upstairs, meditating. I remember the miso soup on the stove, learning that one month out of the year Harvey wouldn’t mow the grass to avoid killing insects. He planted the seed of serenity, and only years later would its shoot emerge.

A few years into my New Paltz era, after I entrenched myself in the music scene, joined the jazz circles, and became a regular and recognized performer in the region, I met Marvin “Bugalu” Smith, and what followed were some of the most enjoyable, and really meaningful, performances I ever played. Marvin was a veteran of the hard bop/free jazz years who played with avant-garde greats like Archie Schepp and Sun Ra. He was unbridled energy, his drumming a torrent of multirhythms, bop, Afro-Cuban, and even Eastern beats. At that time, I wasn’t searching for serenity. I was a flood of energy, passion, uncertainty, fear, angst and fanfare, howling when I played, evoking the frenzy of my message. The first time I played with Marvin he fed that, the solos were thunderstorms, Marvin grunting as sheets of rhythm poured out of him, and me screaming in bright electric bursts on my saxophone. There was something I had to get out of me, and if it weren’t for Marvin I wouldn’t have been able get that release.

Thanks to Chris, I was feeling through music, heart before notes. Thanks to Harvey I was living art, living jazz. And thanks to Marvin I was able to convey though music, exactly what I wanted to. I have taken those gifts with me.

And, funny enough, the three of them actually played together on my birthday this year at a jazz club in Newburgh, New York. Since I left New Paltz, Marvin has hit the Internet, recording on audio and video all of his performances and sharing them online, so the performance was taped.

So here’s Harvey, Chris and Marvin, playing as I remember them:

In these fifteen minutes

Flickr photo by billaday

For years I tied to be an early riser so that I’d have the quiet mornings to write or read or meditate or study, but I never could. But since my girl has arrived I wake up easily every morning to feed her at 5 a.m.

Funny enough, the trick was to go to bed earlier, coupled with the mindset that I “must” get up, rather than, “I will try.”

Now, after the feeding ends and she falls back asleep, I’ve finally found that chunk of quiet time. This week I’ve spent a lot of it on this blog, and these morning bouts of writing have charged up my creative battery. The ideas are flowing.

So that’s on my mind.

As is the death of Michael Jackson, which does make me sad. The circus of his life, the child molestation charges, him dangling his baby over a ledge and his collapsing face often overshadowed his musical genius, but I mean it when I say there will likely never again be such meaningful and artistically crafted “pop”music as the songs of Michael Jackson. We’ve already seen this type of music erode, or perhaps decay is the better word.

I also think the world failed him, a man who never wanted to grow up, who preferred the company of children, and ended up in sticky situations because of it. He needed help.

So that’s on my mind.

As the state of my house, which is a mess of baby paraphernalia.

As is this wet June, because I’d like to walk my daughter in the summer sun.

As is my poor dogs, who are so starved for attention that Charley is standing on his hind legs, his front paw on my thigh, and watching me as I type now.

As is the coming end of my quiet morning me time.

So now I’m a tech blogger too

The last couple of months have been topsy-turvey at work when it comes to blogging, where I do the bulk of my writing these days.

For a while, I was writing a food/arts/wine blog called LI Living, which was fun for me as the topics were a bit more dear to my heart than your average earnings report. But, unfortunately, it was a little outside of the range Long Island business news, and the readership wasn’t really large enough to justify me spending that much time on it. The biggest drag, though, is without that blog my press passes to local concerts and food or wine events dried up.

You’ll remember I tried to start my own food and arts blog, but I don’t have the free time to do it right. My newborn daughter is my new after-work job, which I’m more than happy about.

When LI Living shut, my friend David started a politics and government blog to fill the hole. The problem was, launching that cannibalized a lot of what I was writing in LI Biz Blog, LIBN’s first blog which I’ve written close to 1,600 posts for since it launched a few years ago. Without the government posts, what was once a comprehensive business blog covering many different topics seemed to lack focus. And since the most successful blogs target a niche audience, it seemed time to retire the Biz Blog.

I’ve always been a fan of technology. Computers, Internet, gadgets, science and green energy fascinate me. So we decided that I would write a tech-focused blog, called The Technofile, and I’ve been writing it for a few weeks now. It’s also great because I get to dig into one of my favorite local tech stories, the bitter fight between Cablevision and Verizon as they battle for Internet and television domination on Long Island.

Though, it’s a little sad to see the Biz Blog go, a product I definitely wore down a few keyboards with. I’ll miss writing quirky posts about the wacky side of Long Island business and government. And now I really don’t have a home for food and wine writing.

Perhaps I’ll wax poetic about the culinary and vinified right here, in this blog. More from the standpoint of what inspires me, not necessarily to write specific reviews.

Why not? A work in progress doesn’t have to be confined by definition.

The rose tree comes and goes

I live on a beautiful piece of property, a large multi-acre parcel inherited from my wife’s family, one of the largest lots in my neighborhood, a mix of woods, vines, flowering trees, berry bushes, grass and weeds. And as each season walks its path from beginning to end, the natural wonders trade off in defining the time of year, from the green and waxy holly that brings a little color to the grey-white winter, to the trumpet vines that wave their orange cups to the August sun.

But late spring brings perhaps my favorite of these seasonal rulers. There is an old cherry tree that grows behind the massive holly on my lawn. It blossoms in early spring with many other trees. But decades ago my wife’s grandmother planted a rose vine under it, and today those vines have grown almost two inches thick. They’ve climbed the cherry tree, wrapping around its branches.

In mid-spring come the rosebuds, and as they peek out from behind the the cherry tree’s young leaves, because the tree’s own blossoms have fallen, they look like minuscule magenta pears. The whole tree looks as if it’s bearing pink fruit.

Then, the roses open and the tree fills with these neon, electric flowers, from the top of the tree to its lowest branches. The perfume of the roses makes a dense cloud around the tree that runs like a brook through the property when a breeze blows.

The rainy weeks we’ve had this year have added a wet earthiness to the scent, though the few days of bright sun we’ve had dry the scent each time, and then it’s classic rose, straight from the source, that floats past the holly.

Then, by the fist day of summer, the flowers have browned and withered. The cherry tree’s leaves are full grown now, and the fuchsia flowers disappear behind the dark green canopy.

So now it’s over, and the boysenberries are still green yet. They should have ripened, but the rain has slowed them down.

The year I aged backwards

I remember last year on my birthday I rolled out of bed just past 7:30 a.m., leaving just enough time for a power shower before jumping in the car to head for work. There were two brown couches in the living room and I had sat on one of them for a quick contemplation on growing old.

Though this year, as I turn 32, the couches are gone, replaced by a smaller white one to make room for the bassinet, the swing, the changing area and the rocker that now crowd the room.

I have been up since 4:30 a.m., when Gwyneth started crying ahead of her 5 a.m. feeding. I’ve warmed a bottle and changed two diapers, one of each, and now I’m sitting on the metal dining room chair, contemplating growing old.

Of course, I don’t really feel old. If anything, the metamorphosis of my life has made me feel younger. Routine makes you feel older, makes your life fly by faster, blur in ways. But establishing a new routine makes the clock circle slower. Not knowing exactly what your doing, if you are doing things right, makes you aware of every slow second. Raising a child makes you feel like a child yourself, learning and growing, getting frustrated and celebrating your conquests.

So, this year I doubt I’ll be going out to dinner at my favorite Hibachi joint, my birthday tradition, I’ll probably end up making my own dinner while my wife soothes and feeds Gwyneth.

But that’s fine, I’m quite happy with change as a present.

There’s something in the way she moves

Don’t think this is going to be one of those “once again I’ve let this blog go quiet” kinds of posts, because I have a solid excuse: parenthood.

On May 18 my daughter Gwyneth was born, and the event hasn’t stopped happening yet. Maybe it never will.

For weeks, just about everybody I know who has children warned me about the transformative nature of becoming a parent. Impressions such as, “You’re life will never be the same, It will change your life, you’re life as you know it is over, It’s the best thing ever, and It’s amazing” were common, though my favorite came from a work friend who divined, “It changes your definition of love.” He was right, but he should have added that it swells your heart as well.

The birth itself, I still get a bit choked up and teary-eyed when I think about it.

We didn’t have one of those fast labors. In fact, Gwyneth went nine days past the due date, so we had to induce labor.

It was a long day that followed a night of little sleep, the nerves had kept us up in wait. We arrived at the hospital at 5 a.m., but we didn’t have our baby girl until 9:38 at night. She got stuck in the birth canal, so it took longer than five hours of pushing, and in the end a little help from a vacuum cup that enabled the doctor to pull the baby out, to bring her into the world.

The hard part was seeing someone I love struggle like that, in agony, deprived of food yet feeding on some primordial elixir for the strength to push and push again. I’ll I could do was be there, but, don’t kid yourself, dads, there’s no way to share that burden.

Then at the very end when it seemed she had spent everything she could, there was a quick splash of blood, and out came a puffy, gooey baby, dripping in blood and meconium, hanging upside down. The doctor clamped the cord and handed her to the intensive care team for the essential first cleaning.

Then my guts burst, eyes burned, not exactly for the baby at first, but for my superhero wife who had done something that’s as close to impossible as you can do. I felt the pain of a new love.

I had thought that the minute I saw my child there would this burst of joy that would immediately swaddle me, that the life-changing moment would tie me up like a new suit. Behold, the father. But it took a few moments. The truth is, she looked a bit scary, completely swollen, her eyes crossed, her tongue licking the air. For a second I thought something was wrong. But as I stood behind the intensive care tear, who wiped her down and wrapped her in a sock hat and blanket, that’s when the swelling started. The joy, the love turned on like a dimmer turns on a light bulb. She’s beautiful, she’s my daughter, I’m a dad, how wonderful, how alien, holy shit, how amazing. And when the brightness hit its full shine, it blew past even brighter, filling a new definition, a new and bigger heart for this new love.

Then, without even asking, the nurse dropped her in my arms, and the first few seconds holding her were these wonderful ticks of alien bliss, a Zen moment when all that was in my head was a joyous, electric question mark. What now, what is this, what pleasure? It was the most present I’ve ever been.

And I’ve been in the moment ever since. Learning to care for her, the sleepless nights, the endless poop and pee-pee (though I’m not sure if you can call the Dijon mustard she’s been saucing her diapers with “poop”) it’s been a breeze, the best moment of my life. I haven’t had a chance to write much, or play the piano really, but I’ve been happily busy as a dad.

Sure, my life is forever changed. All of my personal goals and projects will forever have to contend with fatherhood, and that’s just fine.

I’m on the other side now.

A day of discovery

Today, the ongoing limbo that is this waiting for the birth of my daughter, was enlivened by a few discoveries of good things in this world.

It all started when I found out that President Barack Obama hosted a jazz poetry jam at the White House this week. Can you believe we have a president who hosts jazz poetry jams?It warms my heart.

Here’s the link to the video.

But who was that woman playing bass singing those punchy licks? Her name is Esperanza Spaulding, and I’d never heard of her. I visited her own Web site, read her bio, and watched the below video of another performance she gave at the White House during this past winter.

Her music is a little smooth jazz for my usual tastes, but her grooves are so in the pocket, and many of her lyrical phrases are seriously deep. She’s quite a talent, it’s like every note she sings is the right note. I ended up picking up her latest album, Esperanza, and it’s really wonderful, and very mellow. She does a very cool version of Body and Soul on the record too,

Next, after listening to Esperanza at the gym, I came home and finally broke into the wedge of Trugole cheese I had in the fridge. It’s a semi-soft Italian cheese from the Asiago region that’s wonderfully buttery and nutty at once. It wasn’t so expensive either, like many artisanal imported cheeses can be.

So there they are, a jazz-supporting president, a grooving bassist/singer and a nutty cheese, the finer things in life.

Back to limbo I go.

Up late, waiting and waiting some more

I was my Facebook joke of the day, but I’ll repeat it: I thought it would be a few more years before I had to get used to my daughter coming home late.

We’ve passed the due date, and while before it felt like I was walking through a minefield waiting for my wife to go into labor, now it feels like I’ve already stepped on one, and the slightest movement could set off the explosion.

And I’m ready.

However, there’s not a thing I can do expect cherish my sleep while I can get it.

So why then, am I still awake? Call it a mix of work and fun.

I’m testing out Verizon’s super-speed, 50/20 Internet service to write about for Long Island Business News, so I’m basically jumping from website to website, one Internet game at a time, one video clip after another, looking for ways to test this speed. I’ll be writing about the experience on LI Biz Blog, so I won’t spoil any impressions yet other than recommend you follow me on Twitter if you want to see how I’m enjoying it.

Though I can’t afford this service for long, it’s definitely a luxury product, this speed is pretty damn amazing.

So, I guess I should sleep, though I’m listening to Mariza Radio on Last.fm, enjoying some Fado before bed and finishing up the last sips of rosé left in my glass.

You know what I’d like to download, some Fado sheet music. But I can’t find any online.

Any leads?

Poem: Simple

Flickr photo by Storm Crypt

Simple

Sunset perched,
I dreamed of waking
on the moon.

Simple
like a flower in the
Sea of Tranquility.

Simple
like the farmer’s
rain dance.

Simple
like a song without
harmony.

Simple
like diamonds.

Digging out the old work

Flickr photo by Paul Worthington

One of my goals for this blog is to serve as an online portfolio for my poetry, fiction and music. So over the next couple of weeks I’m going to be posting some old poems and stories I’ve been sorting out from old notebooks and portfolios.

I wrote a lot of poems when I was in college, but reading them back I’ve found many were really just seeds, and not complete. They were practice. However, the ones I’m proud to say are complete I’ll post here.

I hope you enjoy them, and comments and criticism are always welcome.

Knowing when we got it wrong

Flickr photo by Colin Purrington

I’ve often found that some of the most enlightening moments come right after you throw your hands up in the air and embrace that you have absolutely no clue. It’s when you’ve emptied yourself of all of those preconceptions that spotting something true is almost effortless, instinctual even.

Last night I found this presentation with Mike Rowe, host of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs, and the narrator of countless others, explaining that very thing. He calls it, “getting it wrong.”

He makes a few great points that had me thinking about a few things. First, Rowe notes that Hollywood, in many of the films and television programs cranked out of its vapid studios, has it wrong in its portrayal of the average laborer. The plumbers and contractors are hicks, fat, with their ass cracks showing and hooked on cheap domestic beer. But these are skilled workers, performing tasks that support, if not define, the very infrastructure of our society. And many of them make way more money than your average scholar. I agree with Rowe, but it was his next point that started me thinking … and I still haven’t stopped.

Rowe work on Dirty Jobs has brought him to an enlightened conclusion about the nature of dreams and purpose related to your profession. He explained how the man who’s job it is to scoop up roadkill whistles while he works. Because the roadkill technician didn’t follow his dreams. Rather, he took a job providing a service we need, and he’s paid well for it.

In fact, many of the people Rowe has featured on his show, builders, miners, pavers, etc., all say they aren’t following their passions at work. They are just making a lot of money.

Many artists struggle with pursuing their dreams – be it scoring an exhibit at the Guggenheim,  or winning a Pulitzer for fiction – and making their livings. So often they have to compromise, thinking that as long as the job they have requires them to use a tiny fraction of their skills then they are on the road to their dreams. But writing how-to articles won’t get your book of plays published, composing jingles won’t get your symphony performed by the New York Philharmonic. Wouldn’t it be better to pick up roadkill all day if it meant a better salary, or more time for your art?

Is thinking that you could ever make a dime being an artist is “getting it wrong.” What does money have to do with the real goal of the artist, to have an audience that appreciates him.

I have no idea, but I will say this: There’s some deep truth to what Rowe’s saying.

Watch for yourself:

Life is but a dream

Consider this the first post in a new series on this blog: Dream journal. Some of the best writers in the world have kept an eye on their dreams. I’ll follow their leads.

This morning’s dream is the easiest to interpret, considering I’m about a millisecond form becoming a dad.

The setting is a seaside. Dark wood huts line a dark boardwalk. I walk with a woman, she is dark and young and we laugh as we head into a foggy park. We play on swings and a merry-go-round, and the tryst is short.

I have to run to a dark lodge where it is my first day working as a waiter. There is only one other person on staff, a barmaiden who will not help me. She tells me I have to carry my own drink trays, and I’m worried.

I go to my first table of customers and take their orders. But I only have a 1 inch by 1 inch yellow post-it note on which to scrawl. Every time they tell me what they want I turn it into some tiny, meaningless abbreviation and when I read it back to them it is always wrong.

Then the tray of drinks is too heavy to pick up. The crowd is angry.

That’s it.

A character in search of a story

Just stumbled upon this photo while surfing through Flickr of a three-breasted figurine.

I love it. I’m definitely inspired to write her into my next book and story collection.

That’s a cigarette in her right hand and a mobile phone in her right.

It’s 10 p.m., do I know where my head is?

I’m in a holding pattern right now.

It’s 10:21 p.m. on May 6, 2009 and I’m listening to Bach Cello Suites, having just turned off the television after the latest vote-off American Idol episode.

And for a show full of mediocre music, Alison’s farewell performance, a perfect rendition of Janis Joplin’s “Cry Baby” howled with spit and guts, her strut drying the wet under her eyes, was something magical. It was sincere, and sincerity is sublime.

Now that’s over and my dog Charley, still wet from the bath I gave him while No Doubt was performing early on in the Idol episode, is shivering on the fur pillow while my other pup, Olyver, wet from his own bath, chirps at him for hogging the whole pillow.

The house still smells like vinegar from the sauce I made earlier, a tangy honey-mustard in which I tossed the new yellow potatoes after I scooped them from their boiling bath.

Though a silent fart from Charley has now destroyed that aroma.

Upstairs, my wife is fiddling with the nursery, putting the finishing touches on the room.

It’s all about to happen. There’s even talk of inducing labor.

But I’m not the fiddling type.

The dryer hums, the cello bows the Bach. I sit on the couch and think about having some green tea ice cream and notice the wet spot on my shirt has dried.

The room is about to change. The crib upstairs will soon be full.

It just started raining and I had to get up to close the windows so the water wouldn’t get in yet I had no idea it was raining because it sounded just like the washing machine, which is gargling in the laundry room. My wife had called down to tell me.

Now that it’s raining I remember the newscast I saw earlier warning of evening thunderstorms. Will the little tree I planted outside stay standing if the wind picks up? It has fallen down twice now. The last time was two mornings ago. Though, when I replanted it before getting ready for work I drove three long, orange stakes through the root-bulb into the ground to keep the young Japanese maple from tipping over.

But will they hold, or will I start my day tomorrow by digging in the mud again?

I’d say this about captures it