Ira Maine, Poetry Editor introduces todays poetic offering thus:

Revelations and Seamus Heaney. (or vice-versa)

I hate, as you all know  to be the bringer of disturbing tidings but it is my sad duty to inform yizzall that Australia’s latitude and longitude are not what they seem. By next year, and looking on the last time these facts were checked, Australia will be two metres closer to New Zealand than we were in 1994. Of course, New Zealand does not, and will not stand still in the face of this dirty great, hulking, kangaroo infested behemoth bearing inexorably down on it so, like any self respecting non-behemoth it has collapsed its tents, fired up a couple of old Villiers, and chugged slowly away in the direction of Asia The upshot of all of the foregoing revelations is that The Geocentric Datum of Australia, the country’s coordinate system, which hasn’t been checked since the mid nineties, tells us that we are about a metre and a half more nor’nor’easterly than we were a few years back. Sooo… what worries us all here at Chateau Disaster is this: what if this continues?  What if this aimless drift continues until we wake one morning to discover that we have hit an unexpected iceberg and that Australia is, before our very eyes, rapidly sinking? Or even worserer, New Zealand has run out of fuel, come to a juddering halt and we’ve run slap bang into it (or her).

There is one bright spot to all this. If the Australian government were to order all ships, boats, tankers etc. to go to Western Australia and push, and then we add to this by erecting vast sails all over the country, in no time at all we would be whistling across the ocean, picking up NZ and Indonesia on the way and  bumping up against China before we knew it. Immediately, the refugee problem would be solved, the tyranny of distance would cease to exist and Chinese goods would be gratifyingly inexpensive. Our children, just by being there would learn from the earliest age, to speak several wonderful Asian languages and the whole enterprise would lift the Australian economy enormously. I think our government should seriously consider this option.

The second (but not the last) thing I would like to consider here is flossing. Flossing has become an art form, a prayer offered up to the goddess of oral hygeine, Hygeia, whether we’ve got teeth or not. Winkling the bit of string between the old tombstones, then pulling and heaving in the approved manner has been the de rigueur and terribly fashionable habit seemingly for centuries. Film stars do it! Advertise it! Promote it! There’s Todd and Rod and Angelina glinting and sparkling in the limelight! It must be right!

I must go down to the sink again,
Where flossing I have been,
Convinced by advertising
If I don’t they’ll all turn green!

The British Society of Periodontology, (the bastards) and in the face of all this Hollywood glamour, has concluded (how could they?) that, like hair restorer, flossing is a waste of time (even if famous film stars do it?) and you are far better off with a decent toothbrush. In direct contradiction of this, The American Academy of Periodontology has chosen to ignore its own government’s medically approved Dietary Guidelines (which has also sidelined flossing) and forge ahead with flossing. Both the Brits and the US say that there is zero scientific evidence to support the practice. If there is now no evidence to support the use of floss, I wonder why it was deemed acceptable in the first place? Murkier and murkier if you ask me…

The latest recommended thing for scrubbing the inter-tooth gunk away is a single tufted interdental brush. I wonder if it will last as long as flossing?

For my big finish I include Seamus Heaney’s poem A Postcard from Iceland

There is nothing obscure or difficult about this poem. The warmth of the bubbling water and mud is so close to Heaney’s own body temperature that it feels as if he is grasping another hand as he plunges his hand into the warm mud. The guide points out to Heaney that the Icelandic word for hand is luk which gives us the origin of our own  descriptive term, luke-warm. Please forgive this bit of self indulgence, but I do find the origins of words interesting.

This piece overall is a bit more eclectic than usual but the flossing and the tectonic stuff have both been demanding something from me for some time. Australlia has actually moved on the face of the earth by about two metres since 1994 and flossing is no longer recommended by the Brits or the US.

POEM: A POSTCARD FROM ICELAND

by contemplativeinquiry