Not for me.

The heaven droppeth no manna for me.
No hand reaches out, straining to touch
Mine. I live alone by the sea.
The fishes scatter under my shadow,
The sun browns my back and the salt,
It wends it's way into me.
My bones are borrowed things.
Bend them, break them and throw them away.
I care not.

Dying by Degrees

Everything does work. The neck that turns when I want to; the excellent appetite; the hand that doesn't tremble. And yet, it is a body that's far from the peak of its potential. Nowhere near stressed enough. The tone is 'soft pudge' throughout; capable of hauling a gas cylinder on short notice but visibly winded thereafter. Stairs do not stop it but daunts it. No aches and pains but the occasional gouty ankle. It is with this body that I go through my days. It affords a lot of happiness to me. But I am apprehensive. How long will this last? What could be my undoing? A random stroke? A clogged artery?  A cell that doesn't belong where it is? Or will it be a catastrophic miscalculation? The steering wheel handled too lightly, the red light I did not see?

It is so wretched to be assured of death.

Loose change

How I used to wish that things would stay the same as I ambled through life. But things fall, like loose change from pockets and are forgotten.

I used to wish how I should recall
At the twilight of life, all that I saw.
But things fall, like loose change
From pockets into gutters as,
I amble through this busy market street.

Another

The first of January is just another day.

I am a sitting God.
my hallowed throne
My eternal abode
upon it, I the unrising one.

Supplicants come and go
Grovel, weep at my feet.
My eyes never shift or bow
Down; theirs to meet.

My mind is cosmic
It wanders in secret vales
Where strange powers traffic

They call me uncomprehending, rude.
The magnitude of me.

Back to work

There was this cartoon I once saw.  It's a famous one from the Punch. A man looks through a crooked  telescope at the other end of which a prankster is holding his top hat. The man sees only inky blackness and says, "Something looms in the distance."

The next year looms in front of me. It's not all bleak. I'll become a father this year. A very young at heart father, I suppose. Lacking the sort of maturity one expects in a father figure. Ah well, the little one will have to make do with me.

But there is another kind of looming which I am terrified of. The new work year. I do not want to be subject to the same hectic schedule which ate into my reading last year. I scarcely finished a couple of books and those I didn't much like. With a kid to look after I don't suppose the situation will improve. I won't grudge time spent with the family. No,  I should get time to read at work. Especially in a job like mine, there ought to be time to read. The effectiveness of our teaching depends on the reading we do.

Today, I'll return with a bunch of papers pending valuation. That'll be my cross to bear this Christmas season. It's all these things looming that's making  me tense. Yesterday i nicked my left mirror on a bus. Because I was tense,  why else.  That's gonna cost me a little. Not anything I can afford, not this year when I've vowed to save as much as I can. And still there are people who would borrow from me.

Banking hours

The morning was already old when I became a part of it.  Rising at 9, enduring a bleak breakfast I set about the day's business. Hurrying to the bank, I almost ran over a motorist. He had stopped at the red light.  I almost didn't. Well anyhow,  having Mini with me navigating is a relief. It's good to have a bit of love around you when road rage can creep upon you unawares.

The reason. We have spare cash at hand and we will need to save.  Once the new deck hand joins us, we'll need all the pieces of eight we can get our hands on. So that's why early Saturday morning saw us at the bank.

Opening a joint account is double the pain of opening one for yourself. Twice the number of forms to fill, twice the number of mistakes to make. We did it though. Well not the entire process surely: we'll have to go back when we are here next week and get it all sorted out.

Tomorrow we're driving back to work accommodations. The vacations over. My grandfather is receding into nothingness. When I came here ten days ago, he was already gone. But it didn't feel that way. I could see him still, in his ice box, - 9 degree centigrade. Now, well now he's only in our heads.  Slowly unravelling neurons and decaying synapses.  I bet I wouldn't ever forget how but all will surely fade.

Degradation

Am I sullying whatever little sanctity this medium has by using it as a scratch pad to do my office work? When I started blogging way back when,  I had my head in the clouds. I thought that the Internet wasn't so big after all and I was one of the select few who had that extra special spark of creativity. My blog would stand out,  I had thought. A worldwide audience would eat up my words to rave reviews.

Of course, that hasn't been the case. The internet has become everyone's backyard and school teachers tell kids to blog their assignments. The zing factor of all these things have pretty much worn itself out. It's always been my experience that the avant gard always moves on. What's cutting edge today becomes quotidian tomorrow. I've lived to see many of my pet interests become commonplace topics of conversation. And I've lived to see certifiable fools become professors too.

There isn't much sacredness to anything.  If you want, you can get away with pretty low things. I can and have dragged my own node through the mud plenty of times. Doing things of disrepute and not covering up my tracks. The leeway this world affords to you is almost criminal.