“Apple”. Neuroplacticity

 Apple”

The brain,

a cathedral of connections, 

a wilderness of lightning and silence.

for a life time words moved through me

effortlessly, from spark to sound 

from thought to speech.

Damaged in a moment, an accident

of chance in time,

neurons once fired in elegant sequence, 

across each sculpted synapse

singing its part in the orchestra of language.

After, a rupture, a loss, a sudden quiet,

blood fled, cells flattened, networks dimmed

the familiar routes went dark.

The words that once leapt from my tongue

now gone.

 

I am not still

The brain, neuroplastic, ever adaptive,

restless and alive as

old highways crumble, I send out scouts,

axons searching like roots through unseen soil.

Dendrites reach out towards the faintest 

electrical whisper.

I guide the rebuilding

Circuits reorganize, neighbouring regions 

awaken to the call.

The right hemisphere listens, hesitant at first,

visual cortex offers image, motor cortex lends rhythm, 

emotions add tone, again an orchestra,

together they begin to trace new routes 

to find the ideas once lost.

I rehearse again and again…

I feel the signal 

practice is in my pulse 

each repetition thickens my resolve,

quickens the transmission,

stabilizes the spark until one day 

the current finds home.

A light flares across a synapse and there it is

that elusive lost word 

rises from silence like a bird returning to its branch.

“Apple” I say

I say it aloud

With excitement and joy

It’s “APPLE”!

The sound is rough and alive.

The meaning complete, whole 

and unmistakable.

I can recall an imagine

think and do, 

The brain is a builder of bridges, 

a keeper of faith and languages,

When one path is lost

Another is found.

Neuroplacticity.

The Archaeological Perspective

 The Archaeological Perspective

Despite its location only 35 km inland from the Pacific Ocean the land still after several centuries remained barren with desert conditions.  Irrigation had revived the economy over the last several centuries and farming had once again thrived when massive desalination plants with new technology were brought on line to these drought prone regions of Peru.  

Unfortunately, the archaeological site including temples and palaces built to the god Pachacmac and a home where the colonial imperialist Francisco Pizarro, had once lived amongst the Incas during his conquest, all had been overwhelmed by the adobe brick homes of the poor squatters who had moved to Lima centuries later. Much of the finer antiquities and artefacts had been lost to the sands and erosion of time. 

At the time that I write, in my journals, about 1700 years after the Spaniards toppled the Inca Empire and approximately, if we are dating by empires, another 900 years after the decline and fall of the American Empire.  Now digging through time on these same historic sites that have seen sequences of abandonment and historic interest depending on finances and  public awareness.

During the Spanish conquistadors and colonial expansion, although it saw the collapse of one imperial empire, that of the Inca’s, who had conquered the surrounding tribes and drove them into submission. It also represented, at least for some a cultural renewal of European design.  This society had new elites but was also inclusive.  It thrived to the time the American empire discovered its new identity as what was called at the time, fascism. A certain propensity for the lack of democratic ideals and a new direction towards authoritarianism and a disregard for wealth division.  From an ethnographic point of view, as a Peruvian archeologist, it was an recall to the old Inca ways of centrality, authority and a perverse type of deity worship.  As it spread through the world like a cancer it took it’s toll on freedoms and prosperity, until once vibrant cultures, societies and economies were flaccid and anemic in their defeat.

From what we, as scientist, can retrieve from what few records remain as so much from the American/Western era was of a digital nature.  We have learned from those mistakes as I write in my field notes with a graphite stylus of the old design.  From this dig and from other scholars around the United World Government States (UWGS), we have discerned that America, once great, had turned to a deity worship practice combining their love of country, militarism and the rule of an authoritarian king, of which they had many, after shedding their brief history of democratic traditions.  Those traditions turned out to be more veneer that substance hiding the true nature of their culture unleashed.

Ironically, at this dig and the ones at such more remote places as the ancient capital of Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and other urban centres of the old American Empire, little of any substance remains other than plastic artifacts.

The Visit

 The Visit

As a young boy my family would travel in our 1952 blue Ford sedan. I sitting in the front between my parents, my father perpetually the driver, my siblings in the back teasing each other.  We drove on that Sunday to visit my aunt Agatha who lived in a bleak brick building on a straight street with a hundred other such houses.  Her house smelled of peppermint and was decorated with dollies of her own making. It was not a place for children, as she had none of her own.  It was not a place I liked to visit and never returned there as an adult. The dinner was very Mennonite, simple with over cooked beef and mashed potatoes with corn accompanied with stilted conversation in  German which I could not follow.  After dinner French doors were opened to the mausoleum style living room which was only opened for Sunday guests and funerals. The room had a museum quality with everything in its place to be viewed, not touched.  The couch where I avoided sitting was completely covered in plastic, as was every lamp in the room.  I believe to preserve the eloquence of a fading dream.

Western Town

 The Western Town (Depression)

The sun hangs low over saddened streets.

The coffee shop slouches on the corner.

Mediocre coffee served with a smile that 

Left with the wind years ago on the day 

hope died.

The post office stands with no purpose,

Door still ajar.

The mail scattered like dried leaves.

The church steeple tilted in prayer

To a heaven that no longer listens.

Houses stare through boarded windows.

Their memories  of people long gone

Stifled and layered in dust.

Down the road

A tumbleweed rolls slowly.

A small ghost from the past

Wandering west,

Where no one waits anymore.

The Suburb (Recession)

The sky hangs grey above silent streets,

Plastic siding faded by years of sighs,

A coffee chain squats on the corner 

With over-priced lattes, rehearsed smiles 

Their names mis-spelled on paper cups.

The church stands locked against 

The emptiness,

Yet homeless 

Sleep in the squalid retreat

They are the faithful

To survival.

Empty homes sit hollow

Down the road,

A plastic bag drifts tumbleweed-style

Wandering west 

Where no one waits any more