Why can’t our method of understanding understand ever? Answer: According to Einstein, problems cannot be solved at the same level as the level we created them at or cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created them.

I remember copying that down some time ago and was intrigued by his thoughts on problems not being solved at the same level.

Sunday morning I did my usual late morning walk around the Mill Pond and was surprised to see so few others. It was another beautiful morning; a morning almost over crowed with monarchs. There was a fleet of them out in back at home that caught Mello’s attention. I wondered if they weren’t just passing through with fall right around the corner and where do they go from here. I guess that’s their privilege to know.

I stopped at the shady bench where shade is provided after passing by what looked to me to be a stork standing ankle deep in water. After following a few shady minutes I move on across the walking bridge and sit on the sunny bench and read a couple short chapters of The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966 by Richard Brautigan. Brautigan was a big influence in my reading life back in those days.

In the book he is in a library where people come not to check out books but to give books away. He also resides there. Where I am in the book an attractive young woman has stopped in that he is quite taken by and she decides to stay there.

“Do you want to sleep with me?” she asks, not looking at me, but not looking away either. Her eyes were somewhere in between half-looking at me and half thinking about something else.”

I’m impressed by the way he arranges his words.

At the moment I am on the Chapter, The Decisio,n a two- page chapter I haven’t read yet. After finishing Counting toward Tijuana, a three-page chapter, it’s taking me back in time when Brautigan was still alive. Maybe it’s time to bring him back, if not him, his books and his poetry. Brautigan’s poetry would have drawn more students into it then the literature and poetry demonstrated to us in high school with perhaps the exception of Frank Bridges. I suspect there were others.

On my walk home from the Mill Pond I saw Fidel again. I mentioned Fidel in my column last week that I emailed to the Herald that didn’t get there. Fidel is an employee with QPP that I initially met at the Brick House quite some time ago. When I do see him he is riding his bike and I enjoy talking with him.

Back in the park area between the swimming pool and the library are some signs posted to influence children in an educational way. The one that caught my eye last week and again this week is titled “Let you child lead the way.”

Then says: Watch what your child likes to do. Is it playing with other children, looking at bugs or heading for the slides. Do things your child likes to play. And is your child starting to point at something? Ask, “What do you see.”

Trail tip: When you follow a child’s lead, curiosity and confidence grow.

If children playing in the park area decide they want to go to the library, that too is good. There they might give some thought to investigating Haiku. Haiku is a short Japanese poem consisting of three lines with five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second and five syllables in the third line. The library has books on this for adults and children. It’s my understanding the first two lines have some association and the third line stands alone.

At the end of our writers group at the library we often close the night with a haiku or two. Nature is a good source for Haiku. It helps to look out the window.

Betty Benner, a good writer of poetry and Haiku recently passed a book on to me by James Hillman entitled A Terrible Love of War. What I have yet to share with Betty is that Mello, our dog, demonstrated her obvious opposition to war too. Mello ripped the book cover off and a portion of the back cover. This may come as a surprise to Betty but with her knowledge of Mello she might not be that surprised.