Don's Blog Last Editorial from Missouri Medicine 3-30-26

This is the last of my editorials that were published in Missouri Medicine. It appeared in
May/June of 2004.

Flower for the Day Tiny Bluet 3-26-26

On a recent walk I noticed our first miniature, tiny bluet (Houstonia pusilla). It is also called small

bluet, star violet, and least bluet. 

Tiny bluet is a gentian in the rubiaceaefamily.

It has a tiny blue toned yellow centered four lobed flower. It is a ground cover which

multiplies by self sowing.

Afternoon on a Hill

I will be the gladdest thing

Under the sun!

I will touch a hundred flowers

And not pick one.

 

I will look at cliffs and clouds

With quiet eyes,

Watch the wind bow down the grass,

And the grass rise.

 

And when lights begin to show

Up from the town,

I will mark which must be mine,

And then start down!

Houstonia pusilla
Conservation status
Secure (NatureServe)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Tracheophytes
Clade:	Angiosperms
Clade:	Eudicots
Clade:	Asterids
Order:	Gentianales
Family:	Rubiaceae
Genus:	Houstonia
Species:	H. pusilla
Binomial name
Houstonia pusilla Schöpf

Edna St. Vincet Millet

Don's Blog Diversity 3-24-26

Here is my editorial from Missouri Medicine from June 2003. I had been retired for three years. You will have to increase the print  size but I think you will enjoy my non-political take on the topic.

Don's Blog Primum, Non Nocere 3-23-26

Here is my editorial from Missouri Medicine from January 2002. An editorialist
took the position that a several thousand year admonition (he translated it as a
dictum) regarding the primary responsibility of a physician had become 'harmful'.
I demured.

Don's Blog Advise and Consent 2-17-26

Here is my editorial perspective from Missouri Medicine in December 2001,

one quarter century ago.

Jerry is no longer with us but we think about him lovingly.

Today is his wife's birthday.

Flower for the Day Hyacinth 3-16-26

This weekend the hyacinths (Hyacinthus orientalist) exploded. They are fragrant spring blooming perennials in the 

Asparagaceae family. The name comes from Greek mythology:  Hyacinth was killed by Zephyrus, the god of the west wind, jealous of his love for Apollo. He then transformed the drops of Hyacinth's blood into flowers.

Hyacinthus grows from bulbs, each producing around 4-6 narrow untoothed leaves and 1-3 spikes or racemes of flowers. Cultivars of H. orientalis have dense flower spikes and are generally very robust.

The hyacinth appears in the first section of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land during a conversation between the narrator and the "hyacinth girl" that takes place in the spring.

You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
"They called me the hyacinth girl."
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

Enlarging print

I have an iMAC computer. If you want to enlarge the print of a page with print that is to small making it difficult to read
this works for me.
In the blog I sent today double click on the first page of the editorial. It then shows up on a separate
page in the upper left part of the screen. On the bar at the top of the page there are two small magnifying glasses in the center. Click on the magnifying glass on the right (+) once. That page becomes magnified. To read it easily use the
up or down bar on the right of the page or the right or left bar at the bottom of the page.
I hope this helps you as it helped me.

Don

Don's Blog Giant Spiders 3-10-26

Here is my submission from May of 1997 in Missouri Medicine. Although I was no longer editor
of the journal I still submitted Perspectives. As before, these pieces are much more easily read on the computer.

Don's Blog Bedrock 3-7-26

Last night March 'came in as a Lion', complete with huge thunder boomers and rain.

I love it when it rains like that because the dry stream beds in the woods behind our house 

fill with rushing water. 

Years of erosion by gravity driven water have uncovered the bedrock underneath. Bedrock is 

the solid rock that lies underneath areas of broken and weathered rock and loose deposits of 

soil, sand, and pebbles near surface of the earth's crust. The top of the bedrock is known as 

rockhead.

With the rushing water cleansing the bedrock it is more than pleasing to the eye and the ear

and the feet. It is great to scramble on.

 

Yes,I love it when there is a heavy rain.

in time of daffodils (who know

know the goal of living is to grow)

forgetting why, remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim

the aim of waking is to dream,

remember so, (forgetting seem)

in time of roses (who amaze

our time of now with paradise)

forgetting if, remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond

whatever mind may comprehend,

remember seek (forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be

(when time from time shall set us free)

forgetting me,remember me

ee cummings

Flower for the Day Dwarf Iris 3-6-26

This time of year the garden is brown and looks empty, until you bend over

and look closer. Today these little dwarf iris (Iris reticulata) appeared in multiples. 

I would swear they were not here yesterday. The gnome garden is a treasure trove.

These are so early that the bright yellow center ridges on the outer petals have 

not yet appeared.

 

It is also called the snow iris, netted iris or golden netted iris. It is characterised by 

a fibrous net surrounding the bulb. The leaves appear after flowering. Like other irises, 

it has two types of tepals, three large sepals (outer petals), known as the "falls", and 

three inner, smaller petals known as the "standards". 

Here is a Borges poem again from Katie.

 

                       Things

My cane, my pocket change, this ring of keys,

The obedient lock, the belated notes,

The few days left for me will not find time

To read, the deck of cards, the tabletop,

A book and crushed in its pages the withered

Iris, monument to an afternoon

Undoubtedly unforgettable, now forgotten,

The mirror in the west where a red sunrise

Blazes its illusion. How many things,

Files doorsills, atlases, wine glasses, nails,

Serve us like slaves who never say a word,

Blind and so mysteriously reserved.

They will endure beyond our vanishing;

And they will never know that we have gone.

Jorge Luis Borges

Essentially all things in their illusion, even the iris, will never

know that we were here.

Flower for the Day Daffodils 3-3-26

The winter landscape was dull. And we closed our eyes one day and when we opened

them there were green shoots that had already emerged from the ground. And we  blinked

and there was a bud forming.

And blooming followed.

And produced this delicate daffodil.

And we knew that the light and the warmth had come. And the promise for the future is real.

How the Light Comes

I cannot tell you
how the light comes.

What I know
is that it is more ancient
than imagining.

That it travels
across an astounding expanse
to reach us.

That it loves
searching out
what is hidden,
what is lost,
what is forgotten
or in peril
or in pain.

That it has a fondness
for the body,
for finding its way
toward flesh,
for tracing the edges
of form,
for shining forth
through the eye,
the hand,
the heart.

I cannot tell you
how the light comes,
but that it does.
That it will.
That it works its way
into the deepest dark
that enfolds you,
though it may seem
long ages in coming
or arrive in a shape
you did not foresee.

And so
may we this day
turn ourselves toward it.
May we lift our faces
to let it find us.
May we bend our bodies
to follow the arc it makes.
May we open
and open more
and open still

to the blessed light
that comes.

 Jan Richardson

Don's Blog Writing a Story 3-2-26

Today you get to write your own story. Here is a view through our dining room window this morning.

This is the way we live our lives. We look at the image and we know something has happened. Then 

we make an interpretation about what happened. You cannot not do it.

Now the fun part: Don't just move on to the next image in your busy life. Stick with this one. Write about what you see, perhaps in great detail. Now how about a story about what you see.

Get creative: what really happened - before, during and after. Let's have a story that you can tell your family and friends

or even publish. A poem or a short story or a long story. Something with drama and emotion. Something to make us cry. Something to inspire us. Something to make us laugh. Do it yourself. Be original. Be creative. Don't ask Claude. Go beyond your Self.

The image itself is no more than a hint. That's the fun (and the power) of it.