Daniel Hardman's Blog, page 2

drifting into dusk

 

Under, lapis peace;

over, celeste. Drift to dark’s

waiting arms, and rest…

There’s something about still water at twilight that leaves me feeling quiet inside. I love the gloss on the surface of the bay.

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Tagged: boats, dusk, marina, sailboats, sky, twilight, water

leafy boa

nature’s eveningwear:

living feathers draped in style

across bare shoulders

Late one afternoon in December 2012, I went to Muir Woods, north of Sausalito, to see the redwoods. They were magnificent–but the greenery on some of the more ordinary trees also took my breath away.

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Tagged: ferns, green, haiku, muir woods, trees

Mahatma

His name was Matt, but everyone called him Mahatma. Probably it was the sandals that did it. Or maybe the haircut.

Photo credit: Brave Heart (Flickr)

On his twenty-first birthday, Matt forever renounced his omnivorous prejudices. No more would he be party to the needless suffering and slaughter of animals. Matt found much peace of mind after that, until the day he realized The Great Truth: so long as he allowed others to eat as they chose, he consented to their barbarism.

The thought was too much. Tormented, Matt walked to the nearest supermarket and shot everyone at the meat counter.

Tagged: extremism, irony, philosophy, vegetarianism, violence

fern express

Steel ruled hard here, once,

till a soft, living carpet

ate the Fern Express.

I was waiting to board a ferry to Alcatraz, at Pier 33 in San Francisco, when I noticed this overgrown track alongside one of the buildings. The dereliction and the enthusiastic plant growth made it hard to imagine, but once upon a time I suppose that this was newly constructed evidence of progress. Kind of reminds me of Shelley’s “Ozymandias.”

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Tagged: decay, dilapidated, fern, haiku, life, tracks, train

first palette

not yet green, spring lifts

white to sky, paints naked taupe,

terra cotta, rust

Taken on the side of I-15, south of Nephi, Utah.

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Tagged: clouds, haiku, landscape, sky

smile r-eeeeel big

mottled gold, no blink–

posed vertical, grinning, still–

she watches back, I think.

Taken at the Aquarium of the Bay, San Francisco. Dec 2013.

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Tagged: aquarium, eel, eye, grin, haiku, smile

spring’s punctuation mark

from dry detritus

greens irrepressible spring–

for joy, sun bursts, brash

I found this out walking in the woods, at the very beginning of spring. Kinda changed my opinion on dandelions. :-)

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Tagged: dandelion, flower, haiku, spring, yellow

Joanna and the Mango Pie

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Joanna. She was six years old. She liked to play with dolls and go swimming, and she especially liked the waterslide. Joanna has lovely brown eyes and wore beautiful dresses.

Joanna had a mom and dad and one sister and four brothers. She also had grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles and cousins, and she loved them all very much. She liked being part of her family. Her mom and dad said she was a good worker, because she was good at cleaning things and taking care of messes without being asked.

photo credit: Ahron de Leeuw (Flickr)

One job that Joanna especially liked was to take care of her little brothers. Sometimes when they were hungry she would make them peanut butter sandwiches or give them a piece of apple, and when they were fussy and ready for bed, Joanna would sing them songs or tell them exciting stories.

Joanna’s other favorite thing in the whole wide world was mangos. Whenever her mother got a mango from the store, Joanna could hardly wait to eat it. So when Joanna’s brother came home from the store with Dad one day and said that they’d bought a mango, Joanna was very excited.

“Can I have a piece?” asked Joanna.

“No way!” said her brother. “I bought it with Dad, and I’m going to eat it all myself.”

“That’s not fair,” said Joanna. “We all like mangos. You should share.”

“Yes,” said Joanna’s mom. “We will all share the mango. But first let’s eat dinner.”

So they all sat down and ate a very good meal of watermelon, pickles, fried chicken, and rice. It tasted so yummy that they forgot all about the mango and ate until their tummies were very full.

When dinner was over, Joanna and her sister helped to clear off the table, because that was their job. As Joanna carried the last plate to the sink, she remembered the mango.

“Mom, we forgot the mango for dessert!” said Joanna.

“You’re right. But now I’m too full to eat anything else,” said Joanna’s mom.

“Me, too!” said Joanna’s sister.

“Me, too!” said all of Joanna’s brothers.

“Me, too!” said Joanna’s dad.

“Not me,” said Joanna. Her belly was sticking out like a great big basketball, and she couldn’t imagine where she would find room to eat a mango, but she didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to have her piece.

“Eat it later, when you’re not so full,” said her dad.

“No way!” shouted Joanna. “I’m going to have my piece right now.”

“All right,” said her mom, “but I don’t think it’s a good idea.” She got a knife from the drawer and carefully cut a large, juicy piece of mango for Joanna.

Joanna took a great big bite and felt juice dribble down her chin. She chewed and swallowed and smiled a great big smile. “Mmm, that’s good!” she said. Then she went outside to ride her bike.

But in a minute, she noticed that her tummy was hurting. She tried to ride faster so she wouldn’t notice. She tried to ride in circles so she wouldn’t notice. She tried to ride up and down the bumpy sidewalk so she wouldn’t notice. But her tummy was hurting worse and worse.

Finally she got off her bike and walked toward the front door to tell her mom that she felt sick. But before she could get there, she threw up. Then she started crying, and her mom and dad had to help her into bed.

“Why am I sick?” she asked her mom.

“I think you ate too much,” said Joanna’s mom. “Next time maybe you should wait to have your treat.”

Joanna went to bed feeling very sad that she had thrown up her mango, and wishing that she could make her stomach stop hurting.

In the morning, Joanna was feeling much better, so she got up and had a nice, hot bowl of maple and brown sugar oatmeal. She was careful not to eat too much. When she was done, Joanna’s sister came in.

“Guess what?” she said to Joanna.

“What?” Joanna said.

“After you went to bed last night I helped Mom make a mango pie. And we saved a great big piece just for you.”

“That’s great,” said Joanna. “There’s nothing in the whole world that tastes better than mango pie.”

Her sister brought her the piece of pie on a plate.

Joanna looked at it for a long time.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you like the pie?” her sister asked.

“I’m sure it’s delicious,” said Joanna. “But my tummy is full right now. I’ll have the pie for lunch.”

And that’s just what she did.

photo credit: Magic Weaver (Flickr)

Tagged: appetite, childhood, delayed gratification, mango, pie, self-discipline

Summer Mischief

photo credit: THEMACGIRL* (Flickr)

As a learning exercise, I wrote a little piece of music in GarageBand. It’s for 3 pianos (although I recorded it for 3 guitars, because my music generator doesn’t sound very good for piano). The music is in the key of C, and it’s probably easy enough for a young piano student to play.

I think it evokes a kind of easygoing, cheerful bit of mischief. Imagine barefoot kids on a hot summer day, getting out the hose, then discovering that it’s more fun to squirt each other than to water the lawn. After they get thoroughly soaked, they spreadeagle on the hot driveway to let the sun dry them off…

(And btw, it sounds much better with stereo headphones, so you can hear how the three parts contribute differently.)

[mp3 | part 1 | part 2 | part 3]

Tagged: fun, kids, play, summer

Fractured Fairy Tale #1

Once upon a time there were three little pigs. They each built a house. One built a house made out of straw, one built a house made out of sticks, and one built a house made out of bubblegum.

After all the houses were built, they decided to have a housewarming party, so they invited all their friends, and they hired a special jazz band named “Big Bad Wolf” to come play in the yard.

Image credit: mtsofan (Flickr)

One of the guests at the party was a little girl with a red riding hood on her head. Her name was Isabel. Isabel hated music, and she loved to make fun of jazz bands especially. So as soon as Big Bad Wolf started to play, she began shouting insults at them.

“My, what a big noise you make!” she shouted.

The leader of the band, whose name was Jack, shouted back at her. “All the better to deafen you with.”

“My, what a big bass you have!”

“All the better to rattle you with!”

“My, what a big tuba you have!”

“Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow some bubbles from the bubblegum house.”

Isabel thought that sounded pretty drastic, so she changed her tactics. “I’ll tell you what. If you promise to be quiet, I’ll give you some magic beans.”

photo credit: he_boden (Flickr)

“It’s a deal,” said Jack. And he took the beans home to his mother.

When he got home, his mother was brushing her hair and gazing into the mirror. “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?” she said in a dreamy sort of voice. Then she saw her son.

“What have you brought for dinner, Jack?”

“I got some magic beans,” said Jack.

“What sort of a paycheck is that for all your hard work as a tuba player?” she said. And she grabbed the beans and threw them out the window in anger.

Photo credit: john millar (Flickr)

Jack felt bad, so that night after his mother was asleep he got a handful of breadcrumbs and went out in the back yard to find the beans. He dribbled the breadcrumbs behind him on the ground so that if he got lost, he could follow the breadcrumbs home again.

But while he was out looking for beans, he was kidnapped by seven little men named Snap, Crackle, Pop, Larry, Curly, Moe, and Dopey. They carried him up a hill and over a bridge.

Under the bridge lived an old lady troll. When she heard the first little man, Snap, tiptoe across, she said, “Fee, fie, fo, fum, I am hungry in my tum!” And she grabbed Snap and stuck him in the refrigerator. Crackle, Pop, Larry, Curly, and Moe all had similar misfortune. But when Dopey, who was carrying Jack over his shoulder, got on the bridge, the troll had run out of room in the refrigerator, so she let Dopey across.

Photo credit: Neilwill (Flickr)

Dopey carried Jack home to their little cottage in the woods, singing “Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s cucumbers I grow!” in a merry little voice. He didn’t like the way Snap, Crackle, and Pop swiped his Rice Crispies in the morning, so he didn’t mind if the troll froze some sense into them for a while. And he’d always thought Larry, Curly, and Moe were a bit obnoxious in a sort of desperate, yawn-inducing way.

Unfortunately, just as Dopey got to the top of the hill above their cottage, he tripped over a stone. Jack fell down, head over heels. He broke the new crown the dentist had given one of his sore teeth the week before, and Dopey, who came tumbling after, landed right on top of him with a thud.

As they lay there, feeling bruised and dazed, Isabel rode up on her classic Harley Davidson motorcycle. She was wearing chaps and a black leather jacket, and she looked mean enough to skin a tomato.

Photo credit: jwinfred (Flickr)

“Glurp,” said Jack, who was too dizzy to talk right. “Uh, I mean, where are you headed?”

“To grandmother’s house, silly,” said Isabel.

“Where’s that?”

“Over the river and through the woods. Want a lift?”

“Yes, thank you,” said Jack. And he climbed aboard before Dopey could grab him again.

The two roared off into the sunrise.

Now it turns out that Isabel’s grandmother was none other than the old troll that had grabbed six of Jack’s kidnappers and chucked them in the refrigerator. By the time Isabel and Jack arrived the little men were all very cold, and their teeth rattled as they shivered. Jack and Isabel heard the noise and looked at each other. Should they get the dwarves out or wait until they were complete popsicles?

The grandmother cackled in her old, troll-like voice and invited them into the back yard to see her beanstalks.

Photo credit: chiaralily (Flickr)

Jack and Isabel made polite conversation as they walked, but they kept looking back over their shoulders at the refrigerator. They needed a plan.

Suddenly Isabel had a brilliant idea.

“Grandma,” she said, “Do you like music?”

“Of course, dear,” said the old troll.

“Have you ever listened to a group called ‘Big Bad Wolf’?”

Grandma’s eyes lit up. “I love them. I have every album they ever made.”

“Then why did you put their lead singer in your refrigerator?” said Isabel. “He can’t make any music in there.”

Grandma looked stricken. “You mean…”

“Yep,” said Isabel. “The first three guys you caught on the bridge last night were Big, Bad, and Wolf.”

“Oh my stars,” said Grandma. And she hurried over to the porch and threw open the door of the refrigerator.

Photo credit: danbruell (Flickr)

“Can you ever forgive me, you marvelous musicians?” she said in a panic.

The dwarves had heard the whole conversation and wasted no time. They scattered in every direction, shouting “Run, run, as fast as you can—you can can’t me; I’m a tiny little man!”

Grandma was furious when she realized that the little men had run away and none of them were members of her favorite band. She threatened to spank Isabel, but Isabel and Jack just jumped on the motorcycle and headed to McDonalds. If they couldn’t have Snap, Crackle, and Pop, at least they could have some pancakes.

Photo credit: @NickyColman (Flickr)

Tagged: 3 little pigs, bass, beanstalk, fairy tale, harley, jazz band, pancakes, red riding hood, snap crackle pop, tuba