Autumn Falls to Winter

The leaves have left,
The pageant is over.

The distant sun shines no more
But glows, amber like wine.

The air’s chill is ever-present,
It walks beside and all through.

Autumn has fallen,
And winter, victorious,
Tiptoes in on soft white specks.

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Candlepower

Candlepower- intensity expressed in candles Time passes differently in this reading room, I think to myself. Minutes turn into hours like the wax of the candle turns from a solid into a liquid, running quickly together and building up. I barely noticed when the sunset, and am only just now aware that I had lit the candle at all, let alone that it was my sole source of illumination. I lean over it carefully to blow out the flame that sits on a short nub of wax. Two things happen in that instant. The light in the room blinks out, of course, as the flame is extinguished. Also, as I stand there in the dark with my face above the candle, the last tendrils of smoke drift upward and into my nostrils. Instantly, decades of birthdays flash through my mind, a blur. I’m a child, standing up on a chair at the kitchen table, eyeing the cake my mom has decorated to look like a clown. I’ve just blown out the candles and everyone around the table- all family- is clapping. I’m slightly older, this time...

Sol, At Night

On kind of a spur of the moment decision I went to see a movie tonight. It was a British comedy called, “Death at a Funeral.” It was a funny movie, and it was good to get out and do something different. Seeing a movie in Spain differs very little from seeing one in the States- or anywhere, I imagine. The only major difference was probably the assigned seats. Come now, we wouldn’t want people sitting where ever they wanted, willy-nilly. (Note: what’s Spanish for “willy-nilly”?) No matter where you are, though, Friday night movie crowds are good people. They’re not worried about anything, they have the weekend ahead of them, and they all at least have some sense of fun- otherwise, what’s the point of going to see a movie? They’re likely out with a partner or a group of friends, enough to put anybody in a good mood. I waited with my ticket in the lobby among my fellow movie-goers and the smell of popcorn. I had arrived far too early, proving once again that moving to another country doesn...

Fungal Insanity Ants and Me

A while ago, as part of the internet’s Attention Deficit Education, I watched a short video about a kind of fungus that infects the brains of ants in the jungle. The fungus grows in the ant’s brain, eventually driving him crazy and forcing him to climb upward. When the ant reaches the very top limb of a tree his head basically explodes, releasing fungal spores which spread in all the directions of the wind. The spores infect other ants and, as with all things in nature, the cycle continues. After I got over the initial “Holy crap,” level of astonishment, I started wondering what it must be like to be driven upward by some mysterious internal force. At first I could hardly believe that a creature's brain could be affected in such a specific way. But I was forced to revise my opinion tonight not long after I walked out of my apartment. I was reminded, in fact, that that feeling was something with which I am very familiar. It started because I had noth...

Drink Life to the Lees

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