Robert Hartley

The yard rose deep with green blades of grass, green and warm-smelling. Close to cool earth I buried my cheek, feeling the blades long, and flat, and rough. Yellow grew: tiny yellow petals in tight hard bunches. Jagged green leaves smelled bitter and tasted even bitter-er. I crawled from knee to knee.
…Grass: up one blade a bee climbed…a water drop hung on the blade. A hopper went by and went by and went by and stopped. Then another came hopping over the grass and hopped again before I could reach him.

The shade behind the old build-ing where Daddy put the car felt cool. I was looking for nuts. Green clusters hung in the tree: black nuts lay on the ground. The shade broke into yellow pieces…yellow…yellow floating down and turning away. Wide spread the yellow, opening and closing, yellow-and-black, winging off to the shade near the kennel. It winged away just enough each time. I stood looking at that shade. Why are things so hard to catch? I wish some time I could catch some thing.

Every day was hot.
…Green plants covered the field, spreading low with round green leaves and pink clusters, sweet with hot scent. Bumblebees crawled the pink, bending them down, buzzing, crawling. A little mmm sound was all that came from me, thinking, There must be…some way, some way to catch one. There just must be.

Down to the black drooped willow leaves. The pool was black. Orange flowers stood in a row, their yellow-striped petals, curving backward. The orange was yellow-striped. Around the orange petals rose narrow leaves.
…It had dragon eyes. The blue stick hung bluely. With dragon eyes the stick stared. It didn’t move. I didn’t move. It didn’t move. I didn’t move—then—gone.
…I crept behind the drooping leaves, watched now from the drooping leaves. There. Close. A frog. Green with dark spots. The blue swung low, facing me from the side and turned and backed slowly away. The frog sat green and still: an eyelid. Blinked. Slowly. Unblinked. I waited. Holding a bucket I waited: eye black. Gold circled—then
…I leapt from the leaves with the bucket big bucket high swinging over and down—heavy down down down in the water deep—
…And I had him!
…I had him.

For well over a century women have suffered under the burden of penis envy, one of many suppositions upon which Sigmund Freud built a career. Does anyone know the size of Sigmund? is a question many have asked. Was it small? did he suffer from penis envy?

Fortunately, an old colleague of mine from years past, offered the following:

It has been reported that in Vienna in 1895, Sigmund Freud led a gathering of prominent physicians, mesmerists and psychologists, many of them women, and, to lend emphasis to his theory, disrobed. The size of him could not be reported in standard units. However, several women fainted. Smelling salts were administered to a number of servants, one of whom, a Belgium lass, ultimately ran screaming from the building. The men sat in stunned silence. How filled with envy they were one can only imagine.

A warning was issued on the sidewalks and streets, for to scare the horses and frighten the children was considered the gravest of errors.

Tranquility returned to Vienna, eventually, no one daring to contemplate the
size of Sigmund again.

–Dr. Hartleystein, Memoirs of Vienna

One of the most unusual places on earth is Leticia, Colombia, a port on the Amazon River.

It is located at the very bottom of a narrow strip of land hanging down from Colombia into Peru. Brazil borders the east. Meandering through the heart of the rainforest, the Amazon River forms the southern border.

The population is only 33,000, but Leticia is a major port, and the center from which are shipped tropical fishes for aquariums. Huge homes have been built here by wealthy Colombians. Each day three major airlines fly from Bogotá as Leticia is a favorite destination of foreign visitors. Roads lead nowhere: local traffic goes by river.

Legend informs us that a Portuguese explorer lost on the Amazon died of starvation at the present site. The port was named in 1867 in honor of a young lady living in the Peruvian city of Iquitos named Leticia Smith.

Leticia is derived from the Latin greeting laetitia, meaning joy and delight. Laetitia is also the Roman goddess of fertility. Laetitia, the saint, is venerated as a virgin martyr. In mediæval England, she is Saint Letycie or Saint Lititia.

One day I want to write about the great English beauty of Iquitos, Peru, with her flaming red hair and flashing eyes, who bedazzled the daring explorers of the Amazon during the 1800s—a siren who drew these men to their deaths in the green gloom of the rainforest, dismal and impenetrable, their cries of despair unanswered in the horror of death. Maybe her hair wasn’t red, and she may not have been English, but I want to tell her story; how the heart of the Amazon rainforest came to be named for her. Oh, Leticia, Leticia.
…Oh, Leticia.
…My Leticia…

One day I ate a mushroom
And traveled with a snail,
Who led me down some sort of path,
A crazy winding trail.

The locomotion of the snail
Would lose him any race:
He stops and starts, goes inch by inch,
In silent, solemn grace.

Why are snails so slow? I thought,
Moving with their shells?
But on his back, he has to pack
The home in which he dwells.

We follow high, we follow low,
Beside a mossy rill;
Through buttercups and dandelions,
Around a daffodil.

Profoundly simple is his way,
How does he navigate?
He doesn’t have a home or place,
Nor does he have a mate.
…“A mate!
….A mate!
….A mate!”
Cried he—
“I haven’t time to wait!”

Then stopped somewhere, along a glen,
Beneath a trumpet vine;
And dipped into its scarlet cup,
And took a sip of wine.

Hurry on! I said to him,
Or I’ll leave you on your way!
But locked I am in fantasy,
So here I am to stay.

A crazy winding trail, it was,
A crazy winding trail.

With eyes that looked like rubber knobs
He fixed upon my size;
Then he focused on my face
And peered into my eyes.

Undulating, wiggly snakes,
The stalks above his head:
A roving pair of periscopes
That sometimes droop’d instead.

Read more STORY

Upstairs Mama talked to me. I stood where the bathroom window stuck out. The roof could be seen below and the back yard.

“You are going to have a baby brother or baby sister. Would you like a baby brother? or sister?”

Below the roof, trees were beginning to turn green. The yard looked green. Cold but green.

That night Daddy and I went back to the kennel. It was dark. He lit a long wooden room. His hand stirred a pot of food: then poured a brown bottle. Light hung from a string. Over the door stood brown bottles. There is that blue, I thought, that square blue jar. The brown bottles were tall, short, round, fat, narrow.

Daddy leaned down feeding each dog in each pen. They snuffled, making snuffling noises.

“Puppies! Daddy, the puppies!”

“Just a minute son.”

Against the wall sat a blue box: it had a board top. Tiny cryings could be heard.

I waited. Waited and waited.

Daddy lifted the board. With black eyes the mama dog looked up. The puppies were worming, worming, mama looking up at Us. He knocked food into her bowl. She lay sideways looking up, eyes wet and black, the puppies worming under her.

Daddy pulled a string. Dark again. We went out. I thought about a baby brother or a baby sister. I did not know what to think.

…from CHILDHOOD

“Incline thine ears to hear my sayings,
And apply thine heart to their comprehension.
For it is a profitable thing to put them in thy heart.”

Composed in Ancient Egypt between 1550 and 1070 BC The Wisdom of Amenemope is regarded as a masterpiece. Egypt, prosperous and happy, had risen to the peak of its power. Of particular interest to scholars is the relationship of Amenemope to the Book of Proverbs.

Bow down thine ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply thine heart unto my knowledge.
For it is a pleasant thing if thou keep them within thee; they shall withal be fitted in thy lips.

The quote is Proverbs 22:17-18. The Hebrew version is practically a literal translation from the Egyptian. The King James Version, after successive translations through many bibles, still captures its flavor.

During the time of Amenemope, the tribes of Israel had become a unified nation. The influence of Egypt on the Hebrews was profound, with Amenemope often cited as the foremost example.

Controversy is still afoot, though, regarding whom God inspired first, the Hebrews or the Egyptians. At the risk of sounding less than worshipful, permit me to suggest: Writing that is worthy survives on its own merit.

The wisdom of Amenemope is timeless.

CAMEO

Leaving
your little face
was a cameo etched
in sadness…like the falling snow
falling
falling
white hour on hour
pure and silent as a
consecration…sacred as a
teardrop.

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Hello, pretty girl.

“Who are you?”

You know who I am.

“Don’t you know my name?”

Melanie Faith.

“Thank you.”

You seem on the verge of expectation.

“I don’t understand.”

As though you’ve just fled your mirror. And are waiting for the ball to begin.

[no reply]

Waiting to be noticed.

“It’s nice to be noticed.”

Are you a coquette?

“A what?”

A coquette.

“Most certainly not!”

An old fashion coquette?

“An old fashioned—No.”

Your allure though is exquisitely mannered.

“For a Southern belle, a certain flirtatiousness is simple good manners.”

Of course.

“Ladies should be appreciated more. For their effort to please others.”

In cultures where women are not honored in public, like sacred objects, even higher than priests, there will be no morals.

“Yes.”

I read that somewhere.

“One need not be a coquette.”

Did you know one may coquet with another?

“Really! Sir.”

Partners can indulge in coquetry.

“You are being insulting.”

No, I’m not. There is an art to bewitching. Just as there is an art to living.

“Oh all right.”

I am only curious.

“Have you read William Congreve?”

No.

“‘Women are like tricks by sleight of hand,
Which, to admire, we should not understand.’”

[no reply]

“So there.”

Yuh got me, Melanie Faith.

Her presence moved over my shoulder. “Is that a poem?”
“Indeed it is,” I answered, seeking and pushing each key carefully.
“We teach business and secretarial; I’ve never seen anybody type a poem.”
Peck…peck…peck.
“My,” she said. “You are going to write me a poem.”
“Indeed I am.” And did too that very day.

End Point

……………To what end
This strange twist?
What do I see in myself in your eyes
But mingled sere and regret;
Yet you follow my feeling till the edge
And then wonder about the source.

……We are cater-cornered,
Apart and together,
The velvet fire from a tear;
This is the counterpoint in love,
This contrast.

And what of the spur of sweet pain that
Bridges the difference
And becomes a salt between us?
It, too, shall soon pass into a vapor,
As though your tears had been cast
…..Upon a desert floor.

Curious,
Like the hand of a little child held out
Your question. And I would say
No.
To be aware is enough.
Only this.

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If you have one major disability, that’s sad.

If you have two major disabilities, that’s a tragedy.

If you have three, Damn!

If you have four, that’s a catastrophe.

But if you have five—or more. That’s silly! it’s actually funny. Ain’ nobody gonna believe you anyway.

So forget disabilities!