A Great Pumpkin

      

 Edgar Allen Poe and Raven

were taken with this pumpkin

 (see the Oct. 19 post),

 a round straw bale

 fancifully transformed

 into a pumpkin

 to let people know

 about Duncan’s Corn Maze along the Robesonia-Bernville Road.

 Ingenious, honest solution to the problem. Happy Hallowe’en!

Weekend Warrior: Step Back in Time

Edgar Allan Poe, Raven and Warrior

Edgar Allan Poe, Raven and Warrior anticipating the events of Sunday at the Heritage Center.

Picket Charge

   For the Fourth, Warrior and Edgar visit a painted picket fence with artwork in lieu of fireworks. Free admission.

Warrior

 

I heart USA.

Dark over Park, Bright over Light

   Traffic Tally: 378082.

   Pick of the litter: a piece of light blue paper.

   Little squirrel leaps out of the trash can when I make a deposit. I’m free!

   Oh so quiet compared to yesterday. No Odorama, no drama.

    At last, a heron in the creek at picnic bend. It reminds me of how humans look when they wade into the ocean, water up to the chest.

   The path I walk is naturally and easily divided into three sections about a mile each. As it happens, I find one heron per section on the way out.

    The second wades near the fishing pull-off  area, where two fishermen stand.  The third is in parallelogram-pennant position in the water near the metal bridge.   

   At the metal bridge,  a park ranger vehicle turns into the upper lot, part of  Blue Marsh territory. A dead crow lies at the edge of the field by the end of the bridge, an intense, sad sight  that make us think of happier times with Poe and the Raven.  Nevermore.  The ranger, clipboard in hand, marks the traffic tally one can read from the mechanical counter. 

   On the way in a heron squawks at the creek. Two little green herons dart up a fallen tree crown at the locks pond. Darling!

  Midway back: meet Victor.

  “Is there an umbrella in your back right pocket?”

  “I carry it, so it will not rain!”  says Victor, freeing the accessory as proof.

   A heron scoots along the creek and makes what Victor refers to as a nearly prehistoric noise.

   Meet Shirley and Pat, sisters, whose doctor tells them their blood tests show improvement with walking.

   A heron wading on this side of the creek by the eight marker. Perfect! (It’s an eight day).

   Ruth runs. Two ladies in black exercise capris, one with an aqua top, other with turqoiuse, and on the other side of the needle’s eye, there is a 649 written in the path, so I know Candelario has been here.

   Darryl, one of the park crew,  has the Sherwin-Williams Sherliner striping machine poised for action in the parking lot by the dumpster.  He shakes a can of yellow-orange paint.

   “I’m anxious to try the new tips,” he says with vigor. ” We have to keep up. We do this about once a year.”

    Dark clouds were bunched over the park at seven, as I recall.  Now the sun begins to fade in.

   He inserts the can into spray position.  He retraces the parallel no-parking area lines, making them darker than they were before. Brightens the light.

The Day of the Labyrinth

Labyrinthine

 

   Secret Language of Birthdays for today reads: March 20. The Day of the Labyrinth, so it was decided early that after my walk I would visit the nearest labyrinth. A friend of mine celebrates a birthday today, which the birthday book reveals indicates strengths in the Logical-Sensitive-Versatile areas of life.

  The Heron Report for today is: two  – I repeat TWO! herons at the mill picnic area and two at two other locations. Three of them flew about to as if to show off for a special occasion.

First Heron of Spring 09

 

I reflected that walking helps me – or so one hopes – reflect. Thus the heron’s reflection inverted:

mirror image mirrored

   There was a muskrat in the canal lock, a man who opened his arms to welcome spring, and still some damp chill in the air, and when I got back to the picnic and parking area, the Santa figure still atop the chimney of the park office, an old farmhouse, was incongruous, if not jarring. The park crew were removing some the last of the holiday lights.

   On my way to the labyrinth was a sign: Spring Equinox, Event 7-9 PM and a woman who identified herself as the labyrinth corrdinator (how does one get a job like that?) was decorating the labyrinth area with plastic garlands and flowers and invited me to attend the celebration, which will include Earthrhythms drums and Green Man stories and spring traditions and please wear something Springlike. Springish.

   Walked the path of the labyrinth, curving round the course that is like a creative cranium written on land.

cranial curves

The Vanilla Monologue

Vanilla, Vagina

   If coffee, chocolate and vanilla beans are brown, why are most vanilla flavored things white? The answer, my friends is in the dictionary and inside this investigative report by Warrior and Edgar Allan Poe with Raven as their guide.

• This question contains elements of surprise and pleasure. Everyone we asked was delighted by this query.
• Of intrigue. Was Bourbon Vanilla soaked in Bourbon?, we asked one sales person. “I’ll check with the manager, he does a lot of cooking,” said she. “Yes,” was the return answer. (Wrong.)
• Vanilla is the third highest-priced supermarket spice – after Penang whole cloves $9.29, and cardamom $8.59, and tied with saffron strands at $8.49 a jar, according to one brand: The Spice Hunter. Most of the 72 spices had a price point of three to five dollars.
• Vanilla is part of the orchid family, a challenge to grow, yet possible for any one to do so. DIY!
• Vanilla comes from Spanish vainilla, derived from Latin for sheath, vaina and is thus related to vagina. Hence the phrase, You say Vanilla I say Vagina did not make it as an accompaniment to the lyrics: I say tomato, you say tomato /Let’s call the whole thing off .
• Vanilla beans produce a white crystalline substance called vanillin that can be  made synthetically as flavoring. It is most likely this is what has given vanilla its “white” connotation.

Warrior and Edgar put together an introductory slide show for their first investigative report. Show not available in all viewing areas.

See also: www.twinings.com

                     www.spicehunter.com

Energy Confetti

     

Sudoku Re:bus, Allison Huyett

 

    Was it the material, the method or the man that made the bits of track flick out of their footprints? Reason unknown. One set of  shoe treads – out of all the tracks on the trail – had bits and pieces of the sole’s waffle pattern shake loose and redistribute around the toe area.

    When the artist started out walking on fresh snow, it was entertaining to see  bunny, squirrel and bird tracks and be the first human tracks among them. What whole realms of activity beyond  sphere of self  go unnoticed!  Have  to go unnoticed or we would go insane.

  Then this confetti thing started.  Was it the material of the sole that caused this, the action of the walker or the particular pattern of the shoe that created this effect?  The artist’s sneakers produced no such scattering.  This had the artist so mystified she nearly forgot her heronspotting duties.

  The energy confetti showed up in the Sudoku Re:bus for 1/18, along with a heron and a sketch of  three joggers, one of whom was heard to say: “I was actually rooting for them to lose at the end of the season.”

   Saw three heron and heard one. Quite a few cardinals adorned one bush. Three males and one female.

   Tomorrow is Poe’s birthday anniversary and Martin Luther King Day.

xPoenential

Mr. David Keltz toasts Poe

  

Dearest Reader and new Symzonians:

     You are,  doubtless, wondering how Edgar Allan Poe came to stay with Warrior and Sizzyphus in this day and age, at this time and place!  Tell Tale, dear Heart, do tell!   

    The Poet is a souvenier of a delightful afternoon at the Free Library of Philadelphia, where the actor David Keltz performed at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday 1/10, in advance of the occasion of Poe’s 200th birthday anniversary January 19. Mr Keltz made The Spectacles tickle our funny bone, enacted the tale of  Hop-Frog, recited The Raven, and embodied the spirit of Mr. Poe and the extemporaneities and deities of the stage.

   Afterwards, a cheerful Mr. Keltz led a Poe toast and played birthday song host. Ravenous from our concentrated listening roles, we delved into cake and drank  ginger ale. Whoa! Cake and ale, where was Maughm? 

Ravishing Cake

 

    Mr. Poe was also kind enough to pose for photos; the Raven posed with the plush Poe.

  

Mr. Poe with Seraglio and Lions

Raven and young Poe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  The foundling Poe and an event poster hitched a ride home with Sizzyphus, where Eddie has become an embedded journalist. I declare!

poster portion

 Thank you dear library and Friends, for an afternoon we shall evermore remember.

Yours truly,

Allison Huyett

Edgar Allan Poe and Raven

Weekend Warrior: Poe and the Lemporal Toads

 

   NeverGore:  Not an inconvenient truth that arrived overnight.

   We got snow.  Real snow. Real light snow.

   Snow lodging in notches.

   The white crystals, the powder-white stuff showed up in the crooks and crags,

 crotches and nodes of trees, trunks, bushes and branches.

 

Sundry splotches and batches of  blotches, calling to mind temporal lobes and lemporal toads.  (Cousins of tree frogs that lodge in the brain.)                                                                

                                            A heron planted itself  in the water near Paper Mill Road. Pulp non-fiction.

 

 

  The walk was good although I wandered weak and weary.  The big and tall retaining wall at the opthamologist’ s  was dizzy-dashy in the snow.

  

   Upon returning to the residence, however, what did I find in the bushes?  Warrior!  Outside, Warrior and newfoundling friend, Edgar Allan Poe and his Raven, measuring the snow –  bare inch – and the yardstick  revealing Warrior’s true height. A cat, a bird and a poet. Don’t I know it!