Category: Creative Works

Dear frontal lobes

The frontal lobes, crowning glory of the human brain, central to human achievement, center of rationale thought, ability to plan, organize, and … drum roll, please … inhibit impulses!  Ah … the power of control!  To delay gratification, avoid lashing out, think before reacting, plan instead of going off willy-nilly.

Thank you, frontal lobes, for being my guiding force.  You’re there for me from my first waking moments, all day long, and into those last waking moments – I can’t stop thinking!  Or organizing, planning, remembering, controlling!

Hmm … maybe I could send you on a vacation, dear frontal lobes.  You know, just for a while.  I think we could use a little break from each other.  Would you like to go on a cruise, 80 days in a hot air balloon, a missionary trip?  There would be lots for you to do, like help the captain navigate the ship, monitor prevailing winds for the balloon ride, look at blueprints for the school you’d be helping to build.  Doesn’t that sound nice?

And, don’t worry about me.  I’ll do okay without you for a while.  There’s a few people I’d like to scream at, some projects I’d like to blow off, some stairs I’d like to sweep from bottom to top.

Catch up with you later, dear frontal lobes!

                                         ~ Maryann Schroder

Campfire

Darkness cloaks
like a curtain slowly drawn from east to west
until the sun is no more,
and a drapery of stars sets the background.

It’s there, in star-lit darkness,
that the frantic pace slows.
A campfire burns.
Periodically, smoke billows.

We talk in hushed tones
about the day past,
about tomorrow
and more tomorrows to come. 

We’re warmed,
by the fire,
by our dance of stories;
some new,
most from the fabric of our shared past.
Told, reexamined with wisdoms of our here and now.

The past never stands alone.
The future is not a blank slate.

Now and then our dialogue is punctuated
by the task master in one of us.
“Should we walk the dogs?”
“Did you call the insurance company?”

But, as the fire dwindles and one or the other of us asks
“Put on another log?”
we leave the questions behind
to once again talk in hushed tones
about tomorrow and tomorrows.

                                        ~ Maryann Schroder