The Fog of Memories

This morning our walk was so cool and less hot, less humid, I was very happy to be out early on a day like the way this day began. I was also proud, later in the day, to hear the thunder rumble past us, Buster. I know that noise upsets your sensibility, but for me it was calming and conducive to comfort.
"Buster though the place was under attack."
When it happens and I'm not there to hold you, Buster, get under your blanket and hide from the storm. I know, I wish I was there for every storm, to hold Buster and comfort him, but that's not always possible. LittleBit will protect you.
"That cat doesn't even know its happening. She's sound asleep, no matter what or how bad it gets. I wish I was so inclined, so indifferent, but I have sensitive hearing and the booming is disquieting."
I know Buster, but I'm here now and it's quite alright. A lady in one of my poetry groups shared a poem of hers with us today, a poem about picking up after parades when she was a child, working for her father, picking up the litter left behind. It reminded me of the aftermath of many a mardi gras. The sadness at the end of the parade that comes to those of us who wait to see the joy fade away with the sound of the last band. The first poem I ever recall writing came after seeing a parade for the first time as an adult, by accident, I had forgotten it was carnival season and just happened to be on the parade route having dinner with friends. I shared my poem with her.
"Did she like your poem?"
I don't know, she never did say. But she did take down the one she had posted. I never heard anything more from her. Someone picked her poem apart because she began every like with a capital letter. That may be why she took the poem down. I'm neither in one camp nor the other on capitalizations in poetry. I see where it matters little, it's more important, to me, what the poet says, not so much how it's written. Some word programs insist on beginning every new line with a capital letter and the one I use will do it for me, as if I have no say in the matter; unless I go back and set the letter manually as a little letter. Maybe at one time it was considered a formality to capitalize the first letter in every line of a poem, I don't know, I have seen it done that way and not. Then there is e e cummings.
"Whatever that means..."
Ann White's poem on parades disappeared, the way parades do into the fog of my memory.

Moon Pie's Taste Like Mardi Gras

Mobile, 1993
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~
Sitting across from friends
At a bistro on Dauphin Street
Someone said,
"The Parade's here"
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I started out
And hesitated at the rain.
Not enough to stop the parade,
But enough to dampen my excitement.
~
~
I eased out under awnings, along store fronts.
And was stopped,
At the curb,
By the sight of the first float I had seen in twenty years.
~
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I forgot about the drizzle.
I just wanted to catch something,
Beads, doubloons, and
foil covered cakes.
Moon pies!
~
~
Umm,
Moon Pies taste like Mardi Gras.
~
~
WPCannon 
March, 1994



Buster's Journal
11 August 2015
Tallahassee, Florida