Fresh

photo by Patagonia

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In Maine: sweet fresh air

re-fresh-ing people, fresh fish

fresh water, tides, waves…

March: through the window

Watercolor: “Ruby” by Lea Lyon

A Dog by the Sea

by David Salner

Just after dawn, we get up,
without coffee, and let the dog lead us
through a grove of wind-stunted trees,
spiked succulents, red-berried holly,
and over the dune ridge out of the gray
of still sleeping minds. A line of pink
from the not yet risen sun
reminds me of the lilac shadows
caught in the radial grooves of shells.
I take up your hand and feel the blood
warming your fingers, as the dog bounds off
dragging her leash through wet sand.
She’s after gulls and a line of waves
that repeat themselves, she seems to think,
because they want to play.
                                                  A morning breeze
stirs the now turning tide, breathing over it,
sighing toward bayside. As the waves come in
whorls of light unfold on the sand. How I want
for us to repeat ourselves, on and on,
you holding the leash of a silly dog, me
feeling the beat, the blood in your hand.

“A Dog by the Sea” by David Salner from Blue Morning Light. © Pond Road Press, 2016.

 

Definition #129 1600 voices

chirping children sing!

fill the halls, waves, circuous

snakes spitting water!

Definition #67 COBOL Pronounced “cobble”

COBOL

It’s the birthday of one of the people who helped invent the modern computer: Grace Hopper, born in New York City (1906).

She began tinkering around with machines when she was seven years old, dismantling several alarm clocks around the house to see how they worked.

She was especially good at math in school.

She studied math and physics in college, and eventually got a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale.

Then World War II broke out, and Hopper wanted to serve her country. Her father had been an admiral in the Navy, so she applied to a division of the Navy called WAVES, which stood for Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service.

She was assigned to work on a machine that might help calculate the trajectory of bombs and rockets.

She learned how to program that early computing machine, and wrote the first instruction manual for its use.

She went on to work on several more versions of the same machine. In 1952, Hopper noticed that most computer errors were the result of humans making mistakes in writing programs.

So she attempted to solve that problem by writing a new computer language that used ordinary words instead of just numbers.

It was one of the first computer languages, and the first designed to help ordinary people write computer programs, and she went on to help develop it into the computer language known as COBOL, or “Common Business-Oriented Language.”

Fantasy and Moonlight

Jeanne’s creation
@ the PaintMixer.com class in Utah

Dragon rears her head at moon
Stars bless the pair;
Pair them in the light
Bed them in the sea.

Another night
in the waves.
Synchronicity.

Don’s Loch Ness Monster
@thepaintmixer.com
May 29,2014

From the green depths
arises monster gills-
seeking moonbeams
to soothe
his swaying thirst-
his restless curse.

Pattern #30 Dimensions

Mermaids take flight as
background falls below to swirl
in waves swept-twirled!

Tongue Twister#10 Water

Water
washing
on the wharf

Whirling
westward
on the waves

Whistling
windward
in the wet

Whispering
wisdom
wide within:

Where
and why
and who we are!

6/14/2013

Riddle#8 Waterski

I was recently inspired by Catherine Johnson’s poem, and wanted to accompany hers with this one.
Water skiing
by Catherine Johnson

splutter
pull
thighs
hard
spray
engine
rev
up
this
time

Lock those elbows!

Ride
upright
when you ski;
bended knees: elbows
rigid, pulling tight, grabbing quick!
Swish through waves, sway, drag, wake-create a flash, glint of gold!