Sometimes, when the winds are blowing through the pines, the full moon lights up the hills with its spotlight glow, I hear the owl calling from the trees, and know someday he’ll be calling my name, and I’ll have no choice but to go on that universal journey that marks the end of our lives. My body will join those of billions who have gone before me, and will become one again with the building blocks of new life. Though I have been promised more, the only continuity of my existence of which I am certain is the repository of memories I leave behind in the lives of those who have intermingled with mine. One of the guiding principles with which I was raised is that for a life to have meaning, it should strive to provide a positive benefit to another living being. In that vein, I found resonance with the following poem. Be well, and enjoy your weekend.

Orchid Food

Sure, daisies may be the friendliest flower

but I don’t want to push them up forever.

Order or atoms? Philosophers ponder

all to conclude that it just doesn’t matter.

As for my own atoms, I think I would rather

become orchid food – not the pink packaged powder

that sits on my sill crying out just add water

but jungle germ, wedged in the crotch of a monster

mahogany, I am an epiphyte’s dinner.

Flat, thick leaves sprout from me, sacks of green leather,

pink moons, pastel moths hang from rope ladders

by dozens and hundreds for one to gather.

Although gone for good, I persist something greater:

I am become Phalaenopsis, filigreer

of worlds.

Clayton J. Baker

FIRE

Its fire season again in Southern California, but the devastation this time seems to be worse than usual. Fast spreading fire-storms have destroyed over 110 multi-million dollar homes in Montecito, near Santa Barbara. Last night, another major blaze erupted in Sylmar on the northwest edge of LA, leveling more homes as well as threatening the power supply of the city. Now, looking from our house on a hill, I can see smoke in all directions of the compass, as high winds and low humidity have combined to blow embers from as far as 40-50 miles away and start new fires in the southern and eastern parts of the city. Fire crews, already stretched thin by the existing conflagrations, are struggling to keep up with the new hot spots. Aid is coming in form other parts of the state, as well as adjacent territories, but with no rain in the forecast and the amount of dry brush that has accumulated, this may turn out to be a very long and costly battle.

For the first time in a while, these events have started me thinking about what I would try to salvage if the flames were to appear closer than they are, and mandatory evacuation orders get issued, as they have been in the areas currently threatened. For many, the flames spread so quickly and unexpectedly, that they literally had no more than a few minutes in which to get out. In times like these, it’s revealing what are the things most important to us. Family photos, small mementos from parents and friends that have little, if any monetary value, but are perhaps the last physical links to a cherished relationship make the cut. Insurance policies, financial documents necessary to try and rebuild a new home should our present one be lost have to be included. A change of clothes, a list of addresses and phone numbers get thrown in the car. All the other “stuff” we have accumulated over an acquisitive lifetime, seems all of a sudden not so important. All are replaceable, and as I reflect during this time, most are unnecessary. Just as nature clears out the dead brush of the past to make room for new life, perhaps this is a good time to pause, reflect, set new priorities, and start doing the same. Be well.

Almost everyone in the medical field has, at some time or another, fallen prey to the “Medical Student Syndrome” – the association of some visceral sensation or perceived symptom to a recently studied disease, usually serious or fatal. Doctors, including myself, have all suffered some agonizing moments after convincing ourselves of the existence of some suspected catastrophe that was about to become manifest regarding our personal health, until a reassuring lab test (and /or colleague) dispels our fears. Perhaps some of you have had similar experiences. With this background, allow me to offer you the following poem:

SCINTILLA

While jogging, I perceived a light

fixed in my gaze at lower right.

A softly strobing stellate spot,

a smudge my eyelids couldn’t blot.

The first cause I hypothesized:

my sunglasses were polarized.

I took them off, the spot stayed still:

its source must be inside my skull.

I closed one eye, and then the next.

It stayed, which placed it in my cortex.

Could God be playing some cruel joke?

A migraine? Seizure? Tumor? Stroke?

While wondering which one I most feared,

quite mercifully, it disappeared.

Clayton J. Baker