I am writing by hand now every day. Have been since the middle of August, my mad money spent on postcard stamps. Pick up the pen, find the message that goes on the card I am scrawling for a voter in a state that is not this one, and get to work
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Out the Window, Wednesday
Out the window, Wednesday, there’s still life, flora and fauna, chittering nut hatches, bleating red-tailed squirrels. One of my cats sits at the base of a Doug fir, waiting, hoping, but the odds are against him, just like they are against me, too, in spite of all my pretending that I’ll figure it out, find the answer, we end up the same, dead in the end…
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Book Report: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
It seems fitting to post this nod to an excellent primer about tyranny today, February 29, 2024, after the clearly compromised majority of our current Supreme Court decided yesterday to hear a treasonous criminal’s plea for immunity from any and all crimes committed when he was the (accidental) President of the United States…
Playing with Form: Erasure vs. Found Poetry
Several years ago, during the nadir of our accidentally-elected political clown show and just before the pandemic, I found I only wanted to read history and biography. I was trying to understand how we got ourselves in the mess we were clearly in
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Some days are just dazzling…
And even the mottled, somewhat raggedy witch hazel leaves become a yellow luminescence against the afternoon and its celebration of sky-blue sky. A day to walk, observe, look up, celebrate the riot of color of the so many neighborhood shrubs and trees. A day to rake more fallen browning leaves, to sweep, to wait for the finches and bushtits to arrive for their before dinner dip
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What a Difference a Week Makes…
It’s been one week and a handful of hours since Obama became our 44th President. Seven short days and climate change, torture, ethics, and a …
Praise Song, Praise Singing!
It was lovely to hear Elizabeth Alexander read her poem, “Praise Song for the Day”, written for the occasion of Barack Obama’s inauguration. But somehow it fell flat for me; maybe it was because of where it came during the Inauguration Program…
The City of Barack
Apparently 75,000 people assembled somehow, someway on the banks of the Willamette River earlier today to hear Barack Obama speak for half-an-hour. Lines wound around downtown corners, landmarks, blocks—
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Day of Peace
Without opening your door, you can know the whole world, says the Tao te Ching. And I want to believe that, this Monday, 3rd anniversary of the horror-show we wrought in Iraq. I sit in quiet, in stillness; there isn’t even wind in the trees…
Disaster Preparedness?
Sunset here on the fault line that could lead to an earthquake any second any day here in the Coast Range of western Oregon. Maybe because of the acreage, the well, the short bike ride or even walk into town, but I feel safe here…
