THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN

To A Sandpiper


We rode the elevator at Hyatt Egency
and walked
the night streets of Houston,
the warm wind humid in our faces.

I stopped to admire
the alabaster wing of a carved gull
in a lighted shop window
and you told me that you liked sandpipers.

We laughed
at the memory of sandpipers
and how their thin, dainty legs
skittered in pursuit
of an outgoing wave
then skittered in frantic retreat
as the next wave rushed to shore.

We stood on a dark street in Houston
but for a moment
I felt salt spray in my hair
and saw sandpipers run through dying foam
on sunbaked wet sand.

Today I sat on a sand dune
under a hot yellow sun.
Dune grass rustled in my ear
and I heard the shrill cry of gulls
above the rhythmic wash of surf.

I watched sanpipers race bluegreen waves
and I thought of you.
I remembered a warm humid night in Houston
when you said that you liked sandpipers.

mb/'81/for Bob



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Labels: Sandpipers and the Hyatt

Ethel Caroline Estes Wheeler - at age 90 years - early 2000 - Still active and dynamic and looking GOOD!
Had a very attentive gentleman friend from her church who escorted her to and from church, to the Senior Citizen's affairs, took her out for breakfasts and luncheons and dinners, sent her flowers and candy regularly and in general wooed her in the manner of their bygone era. He was only in his 70s and the family teased Mother about "robbing the cradle". One of her grand daughters assured her, "Hey, Grandma, if you've got it, flaunt it!" Mother would giggle like a schoolgirl. The human need for loving attention and companionship does not die when one becomes aged. It was a terrible loss and grief for Mother when Pete died several years later. She seemed to age more quickly after that.

In late January, early February 2006, I blogged about my Mother's ill health and the fact that the attending physicians gave her only a few weeks to live. On Feb. 07,2006 she was sent home from the hospital with a battery of nurses and therapists, various machines, and Hospice home care. The family at large circled the wagons and began the death watch. Jo prepared Mother's funeral service as pre-need and all burial arrangements were taken care of.

Mother not only failed to die, she confounded the doctors by improving and continuing to live, although quite weak and debilitated. Eventually the nurses, therapists and Hospice care was discontinued. The Family pitched in and hired a caregiver to come in daily while my younger sister was at work. That proved to be unsatisfactory so Mother was moved in to live with my elder, widowed sister. Eventually Mother's care needs became too strenuous for my sisters and after considerable family debate, Mother was placed in a nursing home. One of the problems with living to such an advanced age is that your children have grown old also and are not physically able to care for an aged parent.

Now, once again, we have bad news from the doctors and once more the Family circles the wagons and the nerve wracking death watch begins. Jo is updating the funeral service, everyone that can do so travels to Corpus Christi to see Mother one more time while she yet lives. Sometimes it is almost like a Family Reunion in Mother's room.

Due to the Parkinson's Disease and a series of mini-strokes, Mother is often not lucid. She has always begged to go home, but now it appears that she realizes that her time is short, and she begs to go home to die. She pleads, "I want to go home to die; I want to die in my own bed." It is heartbreaking to refuse her.

If she lives to July 2, she will be 98 years old. She has never smoked nor drank alcohol, was a health conscious woman, active and dynamic. Young folks have always raided the icebox of the Mamas/Grandmas (comfort food) but all generations of them learned NOT to raid Mother's icebox because they would find soy milk, soy bean curd, all sorts of strange grains and unidentifiable substances that were undoubtedly healthy but anathema to the young.

The very young family members cannot understand why their great-great Grandma is dying. "She's always been so healthy!" In time, even healthy bodies wear out. That valiant old heart, now greatly enlarged and pumping weakly, has beat approximately 3,718,633,600 times and those worn out lungs have taken about 103,067,600 breaths. It is time for her to rest.

UPDATE; June 21, 2007
Mother has been taken to the hospital, cold, clammy, with weak and thready pulse, shallow respirations and is non-responsive. CT scans show another stroke. Also a repeat of the pneumonia from which she recently recovered. In spite of our DNR request, the medicos say they will try to maintain life unless she arrests.

There comes a time with a failing loved one that family suffers ambivalent feelings. On the one hand we want an end to her suffering and a life that is not living. On the other hand, emotionally, it is difficult to give up the dearly beloved person.

The emotional roller coaster ride continues; the weeping phone calls of those needing solace, the unanswerable questions, the frantic plans, the interminable wait and see if she will rally once again. She is a strong lady, a survivor. We watch, we wait.

Early 2000, at age 90 years. Turned 91 July 2, 2000
Early 2000, at age 90 years


Early 2000, at age 90 years
Early 2000, at age 90 years


This is the last photo of her hair before she had it cut.
Mother bobbed her hair in the Roaring Twenties but thereafter allowed it to grow. When I was a pre-schooler, she cut it again, but then allowed it to grow until her early 90s. She wore it braided and wound across her head in a coronet. The care of such long hair is extreme and finally it became too much for her to handle. She had it cut and permed, much to the dismay of her progeny. However, all knew it was necessary.





What a difference 5 short years made! Christmas 2005

Two more years!! Such a change. Ethel Marie and her grandmother June 2007

Joanna, Ethel Marie, Dorothy, Rebecca Dawn and daughter Olivia, my brother Merl, and nephew Robbie were visiting. Since Mother's mind wanders and often she does not recognize family members, Jo asked Mother, "Grandma, do you know who I am?" Mother regarded her gravely for a moment, then asked, "Why? Don't you know who you are?"

Mother, June 2007

Joanna emailed this photo to her daughter Patsy who had not seen her Grandmother for a couple of years. Patsy called her mother, very upset, and said she deleted the photo. She could not bear to see her Grandmother like this. She said she would come to the funeral but would not view her Grandmother; she said she wanted to remember Mother as she was earlier.

Labels: Mother - 2007

Wild Geese

From airports
in Europe and Africa and America,
in Australia and Malaysia,
both separately and together
you and I have boarded planes
through sleek, accordion pleated tubes,
climbed rickety, roll-up metal stairs,
rode crowded busses from terminals
to distant parked planes
and scurried across jet shrieked tarmac
to fearful little prop jobs.

We've stood patiently in orderly lines,
rubbed elbows with perfumed furs
and drank champagne in computerized seatings.

We've bulled our way like Greenbay Packers
through shoving hordes of dusky brothers
for a first-come, first served seat
on Third World airlines.

You stood in line at Orly Sud,
just deplaned from Austria
and I, dashing late as usual
after a wild Paris-London-Paris week,
stood far to the end of the boarders.

You saved a seat for me,
claiming it was for your wife
as you resisted the determined struggles
of other passengers for the last empty place
on an overbooked Air Algerie.

When at last I squirmed through the crowd
and collapsed in the seat beside you,
we giggled in triumph like children
and huddled together in chatty intimacy
during the flight across the Med.
After a sleepless night in Paris I was a wreck
but you gallantly assured me that I looked wonderful.

At Houston Intercontinental
I stood forlornly, alone, left behind,
watching you disappear down the long corridor
to the boarding lounge

en route to New York, Paris, Oran..

You turned and beckoned for me to follow
and I could only shrug, palms up
in the classic gesture.
I wanted to go too. You know that.
But it's all been said
and there is nothing more to say.

When I left the airport it was raining
and I could hear the rising whine of jet engines.
I heard them in my mind
long after they were far behind me
and the sounds of the city filled my ears.
On the radio Janis Joplin sang Bobby Magee
so I turned up the volume full blast
and drove home alone, my heart
echoing the cry of the wild goose.

mb/ for Bob





"....we had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun..."

Labels: Flight of the Wild Geese

During my Pre-Colombian period, I sculpted this goddess in low relief with incised carvings and raised appliques. Although I sculpted her as disarticulated, I placed her limbs more approximate to the torso. I used an earth colored sandy glaze for the background, terra cotta for the body, a rough green for the snakes and a few colors on the feathers and leg bands. All work is textured like stone. I fired 14k gold onto various designs. She won me a 1st Place, Best of Division, Best of Show, and a Freddie (the highest award for amateur artists).





Aztec Moon Goddess Coyolxauhqui, Temple Mayor Museum, Mexico City. 1400 A.D. This sculpture, 10 feet in diameter, is one of the most impresive and important examples of Aztec art. Her name is Coyolxauhqui, which means "She of the Rattles on her Cheeks". She was also called one who "spoke to all the centipedes and spiders and transformed herself into a sorceress" or a "very evil woman". She was one of the major goddesses in Aztec mythology.

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More complete history of the goddess in post below.

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Jo promised to photograph my sculpture and load it to my computer so I can post it here.

Labels: Aztec Moon Goddess - Coyolxauhqui

The huge carving of the goddess was placed before their greatest temple by the lords of Tenochtitlan. In 1978, a ditchdigger discovered the stone, to the delight of historians and archaeologists who then planned to excavate the temple. Weight and stress had cracked the stone; It was repaired and placed in a museum.

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Coyolxauhqui
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyolxauhqui
In Aztec mythology, Coyolxauhqui (which translates to “golden bells” or “she with the bells on her cheeks”) was a moon goddess. She was a daughter of Coatlicue and the ruler of the Centzon Huitznahuas, the star gods. Coyolxauhqui was a powerful magician and led her siblings in an attack on their mother, Coatlicue, because Coatlicue became pregnant.

Attack on Coatlicue
The pregnancy of Coatlicue, the maternal Earth deity, made her other children embarrassed, including her oldest daughter, Coyolxauhqui. As she swept the temple, a few hummingbird feathers fell into her bosom. Coatlicue’s fetus, Huitzilopochtli, sprang from her womb in full war armor and killed Coyolxauhqui, along with her 400 brothers and sisters. He cut off her limbs, then tossed her head into the sky where it became the moon, so that his mother would be comforted in seeing her daughter in the sky every night.

Templo Mayor Frieze
A shield-shaped stone frieze reflecting this story was found at the base of the stairs of the Templo Mayor. In this frieze, Coyolxauhqui is shown spread out on her side, with her head, arms and legs chopped away from her body. The orbiting full moon in the stone carving reflects her position as the moon goddess. She is distinguished by balls of eagle down in her hair, a bell symbol on her cheek, and an ear tab showing the Mexica year sign. As with images of her mother, she is shown with a skull tied to her belt. Scholars also believe that the decapitation and destruction of Coyolxauhqui is reflected in the pattern of warrior ritual sacrifice. First, captives’ hearts were cut out. Then they were decapitated and had their limbs chopped off. Finally, their bodies were cast from the temple to lie, perhaps, on the great Coyolxauhqui stone.



Portrayal as Moon Goddess
Coyolxauhqui’s cut-up body represents the path of the moon around the Earth, as well as the phases of the moon. Marcela Andre Lopez comments, “What really is going on in this story is that it is an astronomical observation of the phenomenon observed in the sky every day upon Earth. The Sun, with its light, ‘destroys’ the moon and the stars as the daylight arrives. The ‘severed’ Coyolxauhqui is nothing but the various phases of the moon: arms, legs, and a whole composite.”

Coyolxauhqui in the Present Age
She is a major deity in Mesoamerica, living on in other areas in the approach to worship in all-night prayer vigils ongoing today in central Mexico, fully clothed in Christian adoration mixed with local ancestral remembrances and invocations.

Other Associations
Coyolxauhqui’s celestial associations are not limited to the moon. Other scholars believe that she should be understood as the Goddess of the Milky Way, or be associated with patterns of stars associated with Huitzilopochtli.

Reference
Duran, Fray Diego (Doris Heyden, Translator). “The History of the Indies of New Spain.” University of Oklahoma Press, Norman Oklahoma, 1994.





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Family Tree and Relationships of Coyolxauhqui: Sister of Huitzilopochtli, Warrior God Daughter of Coatlicue, Earth Goddess
Temples, Worship and Rituals of Coyolxauhqui: When the Aztec sacrificed prisoners to Coyolxauhqui, they cut off their heads, cut out their hearts, and threw the bodies down Coyolxauhqui's temple. Thus the ritual heart sacrifices for which the Aztec became infamous for are recreations of the mythic story in which Huitzilopochtli kills his sister Coyolxauhqui.
Mythology and Legends of Coyolxauhqui: Coyolxauhqui died when her brother, Huitzilopochtli, leapt from their mother's womb and killed all his siblings. Some legends say that she tried to warn her mother that her sons were about to kill her, other legends say that she was participating in the murder — even leading the way. Either way, she died and Huitzilopochtli threw her head up into the sky where it became the moon (so that their mother, Coatlicue, would be comforted by always seeing her in the sky) then her body down the hill of Coatepec.
Some scholars think that Coyolxauhqui may have represented a much earlier, female fertility cult in the region. Her death at the hands of her brother, Huitzilopochtli, would be then the mythical representation of a warrior cult assuming political and social control of the Aztec population. With Coyolxauhqui representing the moon and her brother, Huitzilopochtli, representing the sun, it's also possible that the conflict between them represents the continuous conflict between day and night.
Some scholars believe that the entire system of human sacrifice which underlies Aztec religion is, in some way, a recreation of this event because human sacrificial victims typically had their heads cut off an their bodies thrown down the steps of the temple.
Aztec Gods, Goddesses
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Labels: History of Coyolxauhqui - Aztec Goddess