Six Words: Lawyer, Pity, Soar, Philosophy, Faithful, Bland
The lawyer had dreams
She studied books filled with reams,
She studied so faithfully,
Stared at them balefully,
But philosophy?
Oh, that was a pity.
Her aspirations had soared,
But the books, they just bored;
Bland were the words,
That course – for the birds.
Six Words: Justice, Bite, Presidential, Chain, Order, Suite
On day six, Adam and Chava were created (Chava is the name that Adam gives to the Woman in Genesis 3:20. In Hebrew, Chava is only three letters. Chava gets translated to Eve because of the way it is spelled in Hebrew, חוה. The root of the word Chava is Chai, which means “life”. Adam says that Chava is the mother of all life.). They were given a sort of presidential suite as a home. Not bad for a starter home. There was just one rule to follow. There was a standing order not to bite into the fruit of one special tree. But they were young and lacking in wisdom. Obeying orders did not come naturally. So of course they bit. Thus began a chain of events that included them losing their home and becoming homeless. The free food and lodging ended. As punishment, only by the sweat of the Man’s brow would they get food. But Woman, the bearer of children, would have hardship in bearing those children. What do you think? Is that justice?
Six Words: Fuel, Transform, Kid, Decisive, System, Scene
When you were just a kid, it didn’t take much fuel to transform your system into a lean, mean tantrum machine. You were decisive. Now that you’re older and wiser, you may not be lean and you may not create a scene, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t get just as frustrated.
Six Words: Gold, Prospect, Operation, Perfume, Decade, Fee
It was over two decades ago that Denise and I were in Cairo, Egypt. (There is a city in Illinois with the same name, but there they pronounce it Kay-roe, but that is a different story.) We were trying to walk to the big market area and to get there we had to walk across or around Tahrir Square – which is really a traffic circle comparable in size to traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
It seemed like it would be impossible. Traffic flows non-stop and it seemed like a bumper car track. The prospect of crossing was daunting. Then a man appeared next to me and asked if we wanted to cross. He took my hand, I had Denise’s hand, and we stepped off the curb. He stared down traffic like a bullfighter in a ring (did you know that France has bullfights too, but there the bulls are the heroes and they are never harmed?).
We made it across and he offered to lead us to the market. Almost immediately, we passed a perfume shop and he said it was owned by his cousin and he needed to duck in for a moment and invited us in too. It was a small operation and once we were inside, looking at the gold and multi-colored bottles, they offered samples at no fee. We escaped, I think, without making a purchase. We took a different way back to our hotel.
Six Words: Squeeze, Judge, Jelly, Tin, Quiet, Passage
In a basement in Kharkiv, a boy looked around, trying to judge whether he could move outdoors to pee. Then, quietly, he squeezed through the passage between sheets of tin that had once been a fence. In his pocket, a tin of sardines and a packet of jelly. Once, not long ago, he had more. Once, not long ago, he had parents.
Six Words: Tempt. Experiment, Club, Channel, Forward, Scramble
A mad scramble,
The fish in the channel,
Always going forward,
Their annual attempt
To return to their breeding ground,
Like a soccer club or rugby club,
Goal seeking, rarely achieving.
While the game wardens
and dam builders
Watched to see –
would they survive.