Haiku #1

The final athletes

Stand on podium, tears flow

As they hear anthem.

The Haiku is a Japanese poetic form dating back to the 17th. century; as we near the end of the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo, and since I can’t speak Japanese, the least I can do is attempt their artistic expressions. The Haiku structure is for three lines: five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second line, and five syllables again in the third line. There’s probably much more to think about, but I’ll leave it to that with my apologies to the true Haiku poets.

Haiku #2

The athletes go home

to face practice, to wait for

twenty twenty-four.

Finally, the Haiku is supposed to be written for what is going on today. In addition to the close of the Olympics, Pretty and I had a frightening day with our granddaughter. We had a picnic with Pretty’s father at a park near her Little Mountain antique mall. Papa had brought a box of mountain tomatoes which we consider a delicacy. Although rain was not in the morning forecast, the grey clouds mixed with precipitation began on our drive up the road with intermittent downpours.

Our granddaughter Ella wasn’t bothered by the rain. We ate lunch at a covered picnic table in the park. While the adults visited, Ella was busy, going thither and yon with the fervor of a twenty-two month old child determined to explore.

Skies cleared just long enough for group swings, as in Ella was in a playground swing with no basket, Pretty pushed her in the swing while Papa and I circled the wagons around them to prevent any unexpected dismount.

A good time was had by all for more than hour when Papa had to leave for his home in the upstate, but Ella was not ready to go home yet. She walked a short distance to the baseball field where she had walked around a few minutes before with Papa and Pretty.

Unfortunately for our little girl, she wandered into a dugout that had a nest of angry flying insects. She started wailing as they stung her repeatedly which caused Pretty to spring into high gear and run as fast as she could to rescue Ella. I watched in horror as Pretty shouted It’s bees. And I just got stung twice, too.

OMG, I thought and from the look on Papa’s face, I knew he felt the same. Y’all go on, he said. I’ll clear the table.

We took off to look for a doctor but had no luck until seeing a CVS Minute Clinic after what seemed to me to be an eternity of driving. Rural medicine in full display. Pretty raced in to the CVS but returned with the news that the pharmacists were afraid to prescribe Benadryl for a child younger than four. Our heroine Pretty did purchase Children’s Tylenol which Ella’s mother made sure we administered when she talked to Pretty on the phone. Ella slept the next half hour as Pretty drove me home.

Haiku #3

Cries of pain linger

from stings of mad hornets. Too

young to understand.

So here’s to the weekend – good luck to the Olympians who will be putting the final touches on the games for everyone to enjoy, to the winners who will celebrate on the journey home and to those others who won’t have medals to angst over as they make the flights to their families and friends. Oh no. Both winners and losers will angst over whether those planned flights will fly.

And here’s to our brave granddaughter who scoffs at not only the regular bumps and bruises but also the stings of a heretofore unknown enemy.

A special “here’s to” for Pretty who was wounded as she defended our Ella in the midst of a crisis. She moved swiftly to save the day.

At this time Ella is at home with a peace offering of vanilla ice cream. I have now reached the altered state I need to take a nap.

Stay safe, stay sane, get vaccinated and please stay tuned.