Unfathomable

An eleven-year-old boy drowned in the North Platte River this past week. He and an eight-year-old friend were playing in the water when the current swept them away. The older boy helped push the younger boy toward shore but then fell under. After an exhaustive search, rescue crews found him four days later just a few dozen yards down the river.

I knew that eleven-year-old boy. I taught him at school. He was part of my fifth-grade tutor group. Enthusiastic, engaging, eager to learn, and always willing to help out, he was a great student, and I enjoyed working with him. His heroic sacrifice stands as testament to his enduring character.

After such a harrowing week for so many, here and across the world, I was moved to write this verse. Please feel free to share your thoughts.

****

Unfathomable

The River flows on,

Its waters wandering always beyond,

Shimmering in the sunlight

Of another passing day,

While across tomorrow

Yesterday is swept away.

The River flows on,

Its breadths and depths all endlessly drawn

Along a course made more sacred for each sacrifice

As it flows ever forward, even unto paradise

Whence await the waters

Of stillness and peace,

Welling with wonders

Which will never cease.

Yet the River flows on,

Each moment a memorial eternally yearning.

The River flows on,

And drifting with it, in spirit we journey.

The River flows on,

Carrying away our hopes and our fears.

The River flows on,

Now flowing ever fuller with all our tears.               

Learning Moments

Today was the last day of my three-week assignment of teaching at our school's summer "Jumpstart" program. My class consisted of second graders going into third grade.

My first real job as a teacher in charge of my own class, it proved to be a wonderful experience.

Yet, I am now more astounded than ever at how profound a moment of learning can truly be--not only as the teacher, witnessing my students learn, but also as the learner, with my students ever and always teaching me.

For Father's Day

On this, the first Fathers' Day after my Dad died, here is the poem I wrote in the remembrance card for his funeral:

A day we wish would never end

Though we know it must,

As now we abide

Before the horizon

Whilst the boundless depths

Of darkness descend

With all the relentless

Shadows of dusk.

Yet as the twilight fades

We harbour no fear nor sorrow.

For you always let us know,

Even within our souls,

That in the night, however dark and deep,

Awaits the peace of sleep and of dream,

And that as today passes away into yesterday

Still every moment remains beyond tomorrow.

So now as the day ends

Your light yet guides the way,

And by the endless presence

Of every blessed remembrance,

We abide each moment

In undying thanks

For ever having been blest

To share with you such a wondrous day.

Dies In Memoriam

Thanks, Dad.

Dial-A-Story

A week ago most of the family gathered to celebrate a birthday. Between the end of supper and the serving of cake, Danny, whose birthday it was, got the notion to help entertain the youngsters by calling "Dial-a-story," a service of our public library.

You dial the number, and a recorded voice narrates a short story, usually a fable or quick fairy tale. We used to call up quite often as kids. Long before the days of speaker phones, we would pass around the receiver, then anchored to the wall, and take turns listening. Each week held a new story. All these years later, the Natrona County Public Library still provides the service, even still has the same number.

Anyhow, last week's story was "The Wishing Ring," a folk tale about a poor farm couple who come to possess a ring that could grant them one wish. Again and again deciding to save their wish for when they might need it even more, the couple eventually discover the value of working hard to achieve their goals. A quaint tale with a quirky ending. The kids enjoyed it, and it gave all us adults a chuckle. Danny certainly enjoyed it, laughing hardest of all. Then Danny--who, unbeknownst to me, has retained the habit, these many years, of calling the library to hear the weekly tales--proceeded to tell us her favourite tale of all: "Teeny-Tiny."

Danny had real trouble not laughing as she told the story, but she recounted each part, kept the repetition, and performed the voices perfectly, even though she had not heard it in ages. Again and again, she said she wished "Dial-a-story" would play it again some day.

My wonderful, thoughtful wife then proceeded to look it up on the web and found an audio version, care of the Weber County Library System in Utah. We all listened, Danny most earnest of all.

So, Danny happened to be granted a wish--however teeny-tiny--for her birthday.

Find out if your local library participates in "Dial-a-story." Call it up. Listen with family or friends. Share with a child. Support the service and help keep it going for years to come.

Just remember to "please, hang up  the phone."



Link to "Teeny-Tiny" and other spooky tales collected as "A Corpse Claims Its Property":
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0366.html

Link to "Google Books" giving a look at pages from original collections:
English Fairy Tales
Popular Rhymes & Nursery Tales

Link to "Teeny-Tiny" classic audio version from "Dial-a-story":
Teeny-Tiny - Audio - (from the Weber County Library System)

Fundamental Fractal

I am utterly convinced of the fractal nature of the universe!

At last, after months of other matters taking priority through a long, cold Winter, I finally found the opportunity to get to work at clearing tree branches that cracked, snapped, and fell during last October's early, heavy snowstorm. My brother and I spent the last few weekends hauling branches upon branches from my yard, our parents' yard, and our aunt and uncle's yard. 
Six truckloads and four trailers full, all told. 

Carrying trunks, sticks, and sprigs, stumps, limbs, and twigs, over and over again in a seemingly incessant succession, I could not help but wonder upon the self-similarity of branch and tree, that they appear the same, and how, taken on any scale, branch and tree are part and whole, whole and part, of one another.  

Heaving armful after armful onto the truck, and I thought: from sub-atomic particle, to solar system, to galactic supercluster, thus from stick to branch to tree, all are strung together, so heavenly, so harmoniously.

Heap upon heap of broken boughs, and I felt compelled to contemplate how this universe may very well branch into infinite other universes, to compose the multiverse; and how multiverse upon multiverse make up the omniverse; and how that omniverse, reaching into realms within and beyond itself, still resembles its every infinite and infinitesimal piece--comprising, in part and in whole, the one and only universe itself. 

I pondered, as ever, how every instant of existence forks and flows ad infinitum. How each moment reaches out to touch every other moment.  How every living being influences every other living being. 

O, how the Tree of Life ramifies every single solitary soul, yet holds us, all of us, forever unified upon its eternal--and fractal--branches.

Perhaps I was simply delirious from carrying all those neverending branches. 
Nevertheless, I am now absolutely, unequivocally convinced that all of nature is fundamentally a fractal.

Explore fractals further:
http://fractalfoundation.org/resources/what-are-fractals/
http://classes.yale.edu/fractals/
http://www.coolmath.com/fractals/fractalgenerators/generator1/

Yesterdays Tomorrows

Which day of your life would you choose to relive?

  

 Download a free copy of Yesterdays Tomorrows today.

   just click on this link: 

>>>>    Yesterdays Tomorrows    <<<<

Feel free to share.

I also welcome comments and reviews.

Yesterdays Tomorrows by Devin Hodgins

Originally published in The Absent Willow Review: December, 2010.

Republished by Musa Publishing: December, 2013. 

A "Creative" Question

Due to circumstances which, etymologically speaking, seem truly to be "surrounding" me, I am unable to post my story Yesterdays Tomorrows this month as I had planned.

Yet those circumstances bring up a question I have often wondered:

Does my writing reflect my life, or does my life reflect my writing?

Is it truer that whatever I am writing draws from whatever might be happening in my life, or, rather, is it that whatever is happening in my life draws from whatever I happen to be writing?
In other words, if a storm rolls over the horizon, does it find its way into my work, or does the storm I am describing on the page manifest itself in the skies?

I find myself swinging between the two "seemings" every now and again. And the more I contemplate the notions, the less I am sure which one ever exerts greater influence.


Writers, musicians, and artists of any creative capacity, what do you think? 


Leave a comment, share your thoughts, divulge your feelings on the subject.

I would be delighted to give out free downloads of Day Dreamer to those who participate in the conversation.