I AM A CRAB NOW

Sunday, August 19, 2012.  Solitary crab in a blue bay, clinging to a weed encrusted wooden post.  I reach with my claws to feed on whatever passes by, and I am wary of the giants walking past me lest they net me and eat me.  I wait for the high tide that will conceal me, or at least give me additional cover.  I am here until I am not, until I move to another location, a better spot in my world.

A VIEW BEYOND

September 18, 2011.  A view out the window on a clear day at the what is left of a factory on the waterfront.  All that remains are the bones of what was once a thriving scene where hundreds were employed in a backbreaking job.  Now it sits, picturesque on blue waters, framed by the window I had earlier opened to let in the crisp afternoon air. It has been painted, photographed, eulogized, romanticized, its roughness forgotten in a world that has moved along.  We no longer wish to toil with our hands in this way - we leave that to others as we pursue finer things.

THE SACRED

October 16, 2010. My first day volunteering at BWAC. As I left, walking down the pier, I saw an image of the Virgin being borne aloft by an angel. It was cut in an oval and glued to a black painted door. I stopped, and after snapping an image, the owner came to see what I was doing. He had a better image inside, he said, and not thinking I went in. There, on the wall over his unmade bed with this image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Virgin of all the Americas, he said. The background, her wall, like a Zen sand garden raked smooth but for the pattern created by the rake. He was so proud of this, his symbol of devotion, perhaps a source of protection, or maybe one of comfort.