SUNDAY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rod & Sunny: Photo by Bob Gentry 8/5/1999

A Thought for Today

The only thing you cannot bring to love is negligence.

 

Entry IV: Then

Across the street from where we lived in Alamo, a poplar tree was split straight down the middle by a single bolt of lightning. I saw it. I did. A summer evening, thirty years or more ago, an ageless poplar pierced and sliced in half while I sat rocking in the porch swing, wet down by rain. Even after that, or so it seemed, Grandpa would threatened us with lightning. If we didn't eat our creamed asparagus or boiled codfish, if we set out late for school, chased the chicken or stole tomatoes from the backyard garden; some blue-white flash would sneak up on us and cut us down.

Lightning didn't, doesn't frighten me. Thunder did, does.

Best of all I like the rain their union makes. This summer I hope to build a porch and later on a hammock or a swing.

- From "Come To Me In Silence," 1973.

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notable birthdays Mischa Auer o Peter Cook o Danny DeVito o Daisy Fuentes o Rock Hudson o Lauren Hutton o Hershey Kay o Gordon Lightfoot o Sir. Charles MacKerras o Dean Paul Martin o Bob Mathias o Lorne Michaels o Myra Montezuma o Bebe Rebozo o RuPaul o Martin Scorsese o Tom Seaver o Lee Strasberg
Rod's random thoughts We can always use reminders on how to treat each other.

Many a domestic issue comes from a foreign affair.

Bend a little and you straighten better.

Two Poems From
THE SEA AROUND ME

Dolphins

At midday
a school of dolphins
surface sink and zig-zag by
heading northward in the noon
then back again at sunset.

Too far out to swim to
but close enough to see
arching up and down
amid the waves
like tumblers in a circus,
who hit the net
then bounce into the air
and somersault again.

Gecko

The geckos
vocal clattering
somewhere beyond
        the shutters
never seems
to get an answer,
        He clicks
at all the unexpected times
like castanets gone crazy
and without a master.

He's been here since
         the pinto morning.
Little runs he makes
then stopping to survey
a bee or fly
his long tongue
takes them by surprise
quicker and more sure
than any angler.
         Agile as an angel.

                            -from "The Sea Around Me," 1977, 1978

 
© 1970, 1973, 1977, 1078, 1986, 2002 by Stanyan Music Group & Rod McKuen. All Rights Reserved
Birthday research by Wade Alexander o Poetry from the collection of Jay Hagan o Coordinated by Melinda Smith o Sound & Fury Dr. Eric Yeager o Webmaster Ken Blackie
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