but the maydays are assailed by black-knot. it is sweeping across the trees, causing the branches and trunks to contort into ugly twistings, with black knobs and red spots which then choke the life away to leave grey and brittle dead wood.
we try to combat it. every summer i try to foray out with axe and bow-saw, to cut off and burn the affected extensions. but they are too many, and so slowly but surely eventually the entire row will fall. it may take ten years (they are mature trees), but the maydays are doomed.
it is a metaphor.
or: the lilacs. they too bloom in spring, but once years ago i picked some to realize they were swarming with black ants.
or, even the fact there are so few moments of pure joy untouched by the grey lenses which too often define the world in vocabularies of experience and realism and loss. because it is what life defaults to - time the melting of ice (as per razi, farahi, et al)...and its emptying renders lives as hollow shells rushing on to their deaths (except, of course, for light Divine).
but, this is the thought: i am depressed about the world usman is growing into.
he is three.
he wakes up from his afternoon sleep and wants to make popcorn and glue recipes onto cardboard. he wails when he doesn't get enough su:ssigkeit. he looks forward to the chickens hatching. is absolutely present, real.
even one newscast: allegations of corruption and perjury, bomb blasts killing dozens, people whose lives made hell, hypocritical veneer over everything, liberian children being sexually exploited by peacekeepers, darfur refugees, iran threatened..
usman will grow up. and, bi idhnih, take his place in the world. that is inevitable, but it's just...the children. think of the children.
also, the expansion of edmonton, sherwood park, disgusts me. it is gross, fearsome, and ugly sprawl, and in the years since we moved here
