I woke this morning, and found these words from my Uncle Jack. He wrote them a little less than a year ago. His words are observant and we share similar DNA in this regard, seeing those things around us, that strike interest in the moment and our minds turn to find reasons of how and why. Fascination with the physical world and the hearts that surround us, reflecting on a love that sits quietly in the recesses of ourselves.
I have had the good fortune to be with him and to have looked through the same glass. I love him. The entirety of his prose is below, as he wrote it.
LOOKING THRU THE GLASS
While pleasantly sitting on the back deck, surrounded by pots filled with flowers and having my morning coffee, I see a pink, tubular flower bouncing from the weight of an industrious bumble bee. Behind me I hear the low whir of a humming bird warily approaching a red container filled with sugar water. Three ascending notes of a nearby dove seem to be repeating, “mo-tel-six, mo-tel-six.” Another takes flight from the tip of a very tall Douglas fir tree, gliding slowly thru the haze to the Columbia River below. High overhead I hear the muted sound of a passenger plane. As it recedes, I watch the plane miniaturize across the river, descending in a gentle turn, guided by Portland’s approach beacon. It fades out of sight. This is one tranquil summer morning.
Suddenly, there is a rumbling startle of a gigantic truck with brakes hissing and tires screeching. It looms to a stop close by. From a neighbor’s window, dogs are yapping their high pitched, nonstop barking at this intrusion of their space.
Out groans a massive robotic arm grabbing a huge Recycle container, lifting it high over its gaping mouth and noisily gargling down its contents. It shakes its brawny arm to dislodge any remaining pieces and then returns the abused container to the sidewalk with resounding thumps. With another loud, whining clatter, the helpless material is crushed into the big white belly of the truck, as if it were being digested. A second loud truck approaches from the opposite direction and a third rattles around the corner. Then as this feeding frenzy moves down the street, silence gradually returns into the hazy air. This is a waste management morning.
Then the hush of silence painfully breaks. From across the street there comes the unmistakable wave front of a loud Power washer. A hard working neighbor begins his task of blast cleaning the siding of his well-kept home.
As I quietly close the thick, double paned door, I look through the glass at the colorful flower pots and think of the one who planted them.
Wednesday 7/25/2018
Jack Mellone
Photo Credit – Thinkstockphotos.com/JPLDesigns
In All Our Years ™ 