March 1st
March and it feels like seasonal grid-lock
To the East each morning black birds flock
I know it could all just fade to white
For there was no answer in the night
Nor in the day when blue chases the gray
And these words have no clue, no sway
Other than the thought loud in my head
Maybe I should have just stayed in bed
Hoping the bear hibernates a while longer
Until we are much wiser and bit stronger
Early in the morning I hear the marsh
birds sing their lonely songs, with
repeating melodies, as if they have
no other purpose but to fill the world
with sound.
And I sit with wonder, and think
then write these lonely words, with
repeating rhythm on this page
with no purpose but to fill the world
with thought.
In a world in which fire is applied
to move the will of the people
to futilely change the arrow of time;
such heat as applied will be absorbed,
returned in an expanding system
which consumes everything on its way
toward further disorder, for entropy
will not be denied and heat moves
to cold, never the other way around.
And the source of fire will too burn
in an inexorable drive toward chaos.
Ukraine is in a fight for existence, not just existence of a people and a culture, but for the right to self-determination. A fight for freedom! This is the same fight that the United States Capitol Police were in on January 6, 2021. The fight to preserve democracy. In that moment, it was every bit as existencial as facing Russian tanks driven to attack by an autocrat with a megalomania messiah complex… Putin, believing that he can change history and reverse the will of the Ukrainian people. This is not about a threat that Ukraine posed to Russia, this is about raw naked aggression and power and his threat to use his nuclear weapons to keep others from interfering. He justifies his actions with his own big lies, he justifies on the basis of power. This is a cousin of the autocratic, lying, megalomania that was Trump’s attempt to stay in power and banish the will of the people in democratic America. You wonder why Trump idolizes Putin…. well you see it on display right now. Anti-democratic autocrats hate government of and by the people. We should be learning a great lesson right now.
God Help Ukraine! God Save democracy!
Downhill Run
A white picket fence on an azure sea
cutting the waves on a close haul.
Rounding tight,
jibing for a downhill run
raising colorful spinnakers.
A spectacle for those who care to see
Another race around a track
going nowhere but,
such as the winds allow.
Rounding tight for downhill runs
then floundering when the winds fail.
A spectacle for those who fail to see.
Some rather, wander aimless this sea
going everywhere as the waves allow,
never finding a downhill run
until rocky shores do avail
themselves of an end of sorts.
A spectacle no one should ever see.
Time
If I moved forward in time
would the ghost of myself
give warning to myself?
Knowing if I moved backward in time
I would just laugh at the
mistakes myself is making!
If a Breeze
If a breeze would just be pleasant
and not aspire to a hurricane.
If a rose would just blossom
without the bite of thorns.
If the sea would wave calm and cool
and not rage violent and incoherent.
Then we might never understand
just how dangerous beauty could be.
Buzzards
Just outside, a bald eagle
beautiful, makes a kill, a
large fish, too large to fly with.
This predator appears to me
as regal and beautiful, even
fearless… and yet the buzzards
who will feast on the remains
ensure I don’t have to clean
up the mess the eagle makes.
Does not the eagle then serve
the buzzards? Do they in turn
serve me, cleaning every scrap?
Irrationally, I see them as ugly
thieves and purveyors of doom.
Conditioned as I have been
to love one and not the other.
There’s a Song in There
With melodies that are whisper thin
and lyrics obscure, as if another language
and rhythms of a distant place and time.
It came from somewhere,
and aimlessly going nowhere.
It soothes my soul, and yet
I wonder why it’s here?
Who sent it, or did I conjure
from a past lost in memory?
If I could find the lyrics, I imagine
a beautiful poem of a loss
that is great, and find that is more.
I know not this story,
I know not this song.
But I hear it in my heart,
I hear it in the wind,
it brings me hope,
it brings me peace.
All I need to do is listen
to the song in there.
What a weekend of NFL post season excitement!
The Bengals are finally going to an AFC championship game, they got past a very good Tennessee Titans team. Joe Burrows looks great, but this was a great defensive struggle, with remarkable plays. In the end, the Bengals win with a last second field goal of 52 yards!
San Francisco comes from behind thanks to superior special teams play, and took the lead on a cold snowy field in Green Bay with a last second field goal to put a dagger in the hearts of GB fans! The winning quarterback is Jimmy Garoppolo and not MVP, Aaron Rodgers.
Our Bucs made an incredible comeback, and lost at the very end. It was hard to watch, Cooper Kupp running past our defense, and catching critical passes from Matthew Stafford, striking deep into our hearts and delivering a win for LA, in what we can only hope is not the last game for the GOAT, Tom Brady!
And the game of the weekend… maybe of all time, was Bills and Chiefs. Three lead changes in the last two minutes, and a tying field goal to get to overtime. Josh Allen played an amazing game as did Patrick Mahomes. Allen was nearly perfect, he just made one mistake. He called tails on the OT coinflip, and never got to touch the ball again as Mahomes lead his team to an OT touchdown!
Wow!