Haiku My Heart
March 2, 2012
Haiku My Heart is a weekly gathering of people. We write and create our poetry and share it with each other. This weekly calling on each other to share our thoughts has a very healing effect for me. Stop on by at Rebecca's recuerda mi corazon blog, and see more Haiku and find out how to participate.
Rising rippling air
Warming heart, soul and woodwork
Good warm memories
This chimney is exhausting the carbon laden air from the oak, birch, maple and ash that is burning down below. Why do these hot exhaust gasses make the air ripple? It is so simple of an answer, light refraction.
Light travels faster in hot air than in cold. You are actually seeing the light ‘bending’, refracting, when the hotter air from the chimney hits the colder air of the outside. The hot air rises naturally up to the skyward portion of the pipe as it is lighter than the heavier cold air.
Not many think of this simplicity when they see the ‘heat’ coming from a chimney, and maybe less so while living life, but in it's simplest form, life, being alive, is just that, simple. We are born, then we die.
More importantly than the reason why the light refracts and makes ripples to me is the memory of being outside on that cold winter’s day looking up at the chimney’s end and going back inside to get the camera to take the picture. Along with it came the fond memories of the cabin we lived in when all we had was this old wood stove and the gathered wood stacked outside by the big pine tree for heat.
Seems as though they were simpler days back then. Home ownership sure lets the money leak out of my wallet a lot quicker than renting a two room cabin in the woods. Health issues back then weren’t as much of a concern as they are these days. The Grandkids were younger, and therefore less complicated, and one of them was yet to be a thought. And old friends were still around to impart their wisdom.
These kinds of memories are what happens in between the lines of "We are born..." and "...then we die"
Why am I lamenting about this today? Maybe it is a simple case of getting older and wanting my load to be easier to carry. I’m heading into the weekend with plans to be in attendance to say goodbye again to a great friend and spirit man, Chris Leath, that passed one year ago. In his culture, someone has taken care of his soul for a year. Now, it's time to release it forever to the Universe. I’ll remember him and simpler times.
Peace
