A Green Lizard

A Green Lizard (Chong Khae, Thailand) A seven-inch green lizard runs the length of the patio, goes off the cement slab, through the bamboo fence, and disappears into the tall grass beyond. A green lizard, so straight, narrow, and low to the ground it seems to be on tracks, runs like my old American Flyer at a breakneck, scale-model speed straight by me and off the patio. A two-tone green lizard in the handsome company colors of the Royal Asian Express with two bright-yellow headlights in its aerodynamic engine flashes by my feet, pours over the dip at the end of the cement slab, and disappears like a piece of sucked up spaghetti between the bamboo as it heads east for the for the event horizon in the tall grass beyond. Its real name is the Royal Asian Dart but most just call it The Lizard, and its more rocket ship than train! Hold on boys! This ain’t no girly zero-at-the-bone poky as a centipede milk snake train, this is the Dart and he’s a balls to the wall blur tonight, hangin’ fire on the rails! Whoosh! If I were reincarnated as this green lizard what would I miss most? Well, words for sure but not poetry for the lizard is Buddha’s own karma packed poem. He’s by me in a second. I look out at the tall grass. I can almost hear him disappear. Clickety-clack, Clickety-clack, Clickety-clack, Clickety-clack, Clickety-clack All rights to this poem reserved by Forrest Greenwood Fgreenwood@Yahoo.com Lesson plan for A Green Lizard Discussion What happens? A man watches a green lizard run across his patio. The lizard runs so fast that he has to recreate what he has seen in five short entries. In the last two entries he tries to understand what he has just seen and imagined. Words you will need to know. Chong Khae, Thailand A small rice farming village. It’s about 100 miles north of Bangkok. Look for Takhli in Nakhonsawan if you can’t find it on a map. Thailand is a predominately Buddhist country. American Flyer An American model train company. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Flyer Royal Asian Express is a made up company. “event horizon” In space-time (astronomy and physics), a place where gravity pulls everything in as in a black hole, “zero-at-the-bone” a reference to Emily Dickinson’s poem. See: http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2633.html “balls to the wall” Fast. Old speed controllers used two balls. When they spun out to be horizontal (nearly touching the wall) the steam engine was at maximum speed. “hanging fire” The sense here is like the Road Runner taking off and leaving a trail of fire. The dictionary idiom is often the opposite (just as bad often means good). Reincarnation .Buddhist don’t really believe in reincarnation (getting reborn as an animal when you die) except as a parable. Karma is an aura which can be either good or bad. Here it is obviously very good aura. Questions: Is this a poem? (Hear my discussion at http://www.forrestgreenwood.blogspot.com/ Is the piece about the lizard or the man looking at the lizard? How is the lizard like a poem? Why would the man miss words, but not poetry? What gets the man more excited: seeing the lizard or imagining the lizard as a train? What is the “event horizon” in the poem? Is it something we can see? Why do the “clickety-clacks” get smaller at the end? Do you think the word “girly” belongs? Compare the lizard to William Blake’s Tyger written in 1794. http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/tyger.html Contact: Forrest Greenwood Fgreenwood@Yahoo.com My goal is to establish a relationship with teachers, writers, and those willing to be surprised by poetry.