Wondering About the Senses or a Sense of Wonder?

We see 60 images per second

and a dragonfly can see 200.

Reindeer can see UV light.

Sharks posses a homing device that guides

the shark even in the darkest, murkiest water.

The barn owl can pinpoint a sound

to the millimeter using their ears.

Dogs can hear a whistle that man can’t.

Jewel beetles can sense a pine fire tens of miles away.

Bumblebees use hair on their legs to detect

a flower’s electromagnetic field.

Elephant’s feet and trunks are sensitive enough to pick up

vibrations created by elephants as far as 10 miles away.

Bloodhounds can trace footsteps even in the worst weather.

Silvertip Grizzlies can smell you from 18 miles away.

Homing pigeons need no maps or compasses.

Millions of North American monarch butterflies

fly 1500 miles to the forests of Mexico every winter.

Arctic terns fly 1.5 million miles in their lifetime.

That is 3 round- trip flights to the moon.

Wild animals as a means of defense,

flee as man approaches them.

That motion is a comment on how

they have been treated by man.

They’ve heard that a bird in the hand

is worth two in the bush.

We use the term dumb animal.

Perhaps, the animal is superior to man.

We have subtle sounds we can’t hear,

rays of light we can’t see,

Yet we talk about the 5 senses

as if we posses any of them.

We have not further developed these senses

since our ancient cave dwelling past.

Yet, man thinks he is the pinnacle of civilization.

A blind man can develop a better sense of sound.

It’s as if Mother nature takes from something

not utilized to give to something needed.

Facilities considered dead weight

shifted to facilities most necessary.

As I remember reading Homer,

he never saw paradise until he was blind.

I appreciate a six sense, the sense of heart hunger

It drives men to look for soul-qualities

in others that we don’t posses,

that will complement our own soul.

Love might be the best sense because lovers

in completion with each other

to see who can love the most

can be the planet’s transforming force.

I hope some of this makes sense.

 

Astrix: “Beyond the Senses”

“If you are what you eat, you are what you see and hear.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri

Worshipping a Psychopath

 

My mother was in her mid-eighties

and to use an old fashion term,

no longer used, failing to thrive.

She ended up in the hospital for weeks.

She loathed everything about being there.

The open at the back light cotton hospital gown

to her a clothing store fashion buyer,

was the height of utter humiliation.

She claimed there is a reason hospitals

have you wear them and also why

you are confined to lay horizontal in a bed

while the doctors and staff stand tall

next to you lying helpless in a bed.

The reason is to show the patient who’s in charge

and to signify you are at the hospital’s mercy.

At the funeral home for my mother’s showing

I heard interesting comments from women her age.

One said, “God took your mother

because he needed a harp player.”

This woman obviously didn’t know mom

as my mother had no musical skills.

Mom did like to listen to records on the stereo.

Ones by Barbara Streisand and Nat King Cole.

Another woman said, “God took your mother

because he needed another angel.”

These kinds of comments

invite my attention.

They also, frighten the Hell out of me,

pun very much intended.

Am I to understand that God

is killing us because he is recruiting

angels and his band needs harp players?

This makes him sound like some kind

of a murdering psychopath.

I think he’d be better off hiring

a human resource manager

or put a help wanted ad in Craigslist.

The priest at the funeral said that,

“God closes doors but opens windows.”

Personally I prefer doors

because I don’t fit through windows.

Peter Mulvey: “What Else Was It?”

“To emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on heaven is to create hell.” -Tom Robbins