Brain of Lazarus
“Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
“Pine City Dawn Magic” In winter the vines go dry and fall. Frost paints itself on the hands of blades of grass and the feet of trees; Ice builds on the surface of stagnant water, a ghost town in white. A child grabs a metal dowel and poke holes through the sheet of ice. The depth and the cracks remind me a spiderweb until it all falls. The weather forecast said the sunrise would be at 6:46, though no one has seen any color change in the sky; still the same unsaturated navy. The color is reflected in everything here, always: the water, the wood, our hands, our feet. I feel the gradient of the navy and the lavender and orange before I am able to see it. This is my accidental dawn. Pine City has always been a great second home for me; I’d take it over Houston anyday. Pine City has a special magic at dawn with each person in the city--those who can experience it, respectivelhaving zir own person rituals. Each is nearly separate and can be destroyed by any voyeur. Strong ones exist though and are exceptions. Take this woman: Kira. She wakes up before her husband, mother and infant daughter, both of whom she caretakes, to get helmetless on her blue bike and get breakfast at Star Girl Donut Shop for everyone in the house and a. Sure the other woman over the counter sees her, interacts with her, but the ritual does not end. I can’t say if it is the same for the cashier; the numerous interactions have slowly corroded the magic over the period of her early morning shift. But why does Kira’s ritual not end? Does she consider the woman over the counter not to be a person? If that is not the case, do animals break this magic? The only answered that can be offered: unreliability is part of the magic as well.
“Dear Diary: Kira, 2014� Today I found in my pocket a pebble from the lake. It was like a cloud or a bloom, speckled white and full of memories I had as a girl just like my daughter, Joy. O, Joy, you little girl of one, So full of this world now. It seems like your days have melted, Puddled there on the floor. I found you in a crib, my girl. Completely there, then.
“Brain of Lazarus” That mind— that mind made for the stones of the special rituals of morning. That pink, nearly brown, that lost hall of gray earth, hand of healing and crying, of wood and myrrh of all the neurons unseen in the ancient world of sea and star. That silver moves me to waking. Moves me to that sky island near the hand that rock of morning. My vanity for rising up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; sue me— I know my time. There is a time for beloved sleep, wake, venture the sands of my body and my gods. Time to rise, my newly gray self toward the light of night.
Fungi[edit] The primary decomposers of litter in many ecosystems are fungi. Unlike bacteria, which are unicellular organisms, most saprotrophic fungi grow as a branching network of hyphae. While bacteria are restricted to growing and feeding on the exposed surfaces of organic matter, fungi can use their hyphae to penetrate larger pieces of organic matter. Additionally, only wood-decay fungi have not evolved the enzymes necessary to decompose lignin, a chemically complex substance found in wood. These two factors make fungi the primary decomposers in forests, where litter has high concentrations of lignin and often occurs in large pieces. Fungi decompose organic matter by releasing enzymes to break down the decaying material, after which they absorb the nutrients in the decaying material.[4] Hyphae used to break down matter and absorb nutrients are also used in reproduction. When two fungi’s hyphae grow close to each other, they will then fuse together and form another fungus.[4]
“Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”