Intro: Cleveland OH – Summer ’09, lunch time, walking the industrial parkway in 90+ degrees.
Lunch Time Walk
The first cicadas of the season trill through
occasional traffic lulls on the boulevard,
Walking through Liatris, Cat Tails, and
Periwinkle-blue Chicory, and
Queen Anne’s lace in the ditches.
As I stroll past manicured, dead brown lawns,
evidence of this year’s long dry spell,
symbolic of those same businesses gone belly-up;
with the promise of rain in the air…
a false promise… like so… many others!
–LE
CynOp 
5 responses to “From the Summer of 2009 (Some things never seem to change)”
You seem to have a thing for stringed musical instruments. I do too.
I can’t imagine living in Arizona. Your walk was a wonderful glimpse of nature amid the rumble of human civilization. The image of various flowers in the ditches seemed to symbolize man’s destruction of his environment in a very subtle and clever manner. That is my own reading of your poem. I didn’t understand the ‘long retired competitive symbol’ reference.
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Oh jeez, I’m so stupid. I get it now…bluegrass. lol! I didn’t read the caption. Ignore my first line please.
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Yes, I do have a ‘thing’ for stringed instruments as I’ve played them most of my life, starting with violin in the third grade, which would have made me 9yo at the time. Since then I expanded to guitar, mandolin, bass, dulcimer, etc. I also love citar, but have never tried one out…
The poem is from my time as a tech writer for Philips Medical in Cleveland. Arizona’s climate is much drier and hotter than what I was writing about in that one. But your insights into the poem match my mood at the time of its writing.
The competitive symbol is a picture of my first Judo black belt resigned to ‘display’, which required heavy competition to achieve. I’ve since retired from competitive life.
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Judo? That’s awesome. Retiring from competitive life sounds like just the thing I need now.
I have never played a sitar either. My friend wouldn’t even let me touch hers. Those things are expensive and hard to tune. The dulcimer is an interesting instrument. Wish I had the opportunity to try one out.
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Dulcimers are open-tunned (to a chord or key), thus anyone can play one (at least the 3 and 4 stringed ones that I’ve played – mine had 3 strings). The are also hammer dulcimers, which I haven’t tried, though I’ve met some who play them beautifully.
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