The thing with feathers

 A few weeks back, there were plenty of things I wanted to post about. The (now successful) UAW strike. A major win on child nutrition.  But after the terrible events of the last month, they seemed out of place and tone deaf and I couldn't think of any appropriate thing to say. 

A saying of the Buddha's kept running through my mind: "Better than a thousand empty words is one word that brings peace." Since the market seemed pretty saturated with empty words I paused.

Then I had a dream. 

Although the latest scientific research seems to suggest that dreams are the brain's way of processing memory and recent events, and some are clearly just plain static, I still think they can often bring deep insights from the unconscious. There's a reason that meaningful dreams occur throughout the Bible and many other sources, myths, and legends.

I don't go all the way with Freud or Jung...but I do go a good bit with both. This dream seemed to have something to say about the state of the world and I've shared it with several people.

It went like this:

I was in a city at war with a real life friend and comrade. No other context given. In the waking world, several years previously we were part of a delegation to the West Bank and Gaza that left a huge impression on us both. In the dream, we were part of the underground resistance to an unnamed invader.

In the beginning, we were running through battered streets, trying to avoid being killed or captured, we passed a beautiful bird that appeared to have been damaged by a vehicle crash or explosion. It seemed to be dead or dying. Since we were being pursued, we didn't have time to stop. Besides, we didn't know what else to do aside from making sure it was out of its misery.

After a number of encounters, we ran back the way we had come. To our surprise, the bird was on its feet and starting to flap it's wings. We looked at each other and said something like, "Holy ****, the bird might actually recover!"

I woke up and immediately this well knwon poem by Emily Dickinson came to mind: 

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

My takeaway: the thing with feathers really might recover. 

 

How bout a poem?

 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-1882

I can't say I'm a huge fan of American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. My closest brush with him was staying near his house for a few days in Cambridge years ago. His longer poems like Evangeline and Song of Hiawatha never tempted me, although I kind of like his translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. He was even a character in Matthew Pearl's entertaining 2003 mystery The Dante Club, but I digress.

Anyhow, I somehow stumbled upon a charmingly retro poem of his that I think is worth sharing,  especially in times like these:

A Psalm of Life

What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

   Life is but an empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

   And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

   And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

   Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

   Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow

   Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

   And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating

   Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,

   In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

   Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!

   Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act,— act in the living Present!

   Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us

   We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

   Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,

   Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

   Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,

   With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

   Learn to labor and to wait.

A poem for an indefinite time out period

In a time like this, I thought it might be appropriate to share this poem by Chilean poet and Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda (1904-1973). It might help a little.

Keeping Quiet

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Is it starting?

No, I'm not talking about the impeachment of a certain elected official, although that would be fine with me. I'm asking whether it might be time to get the US to get serious about climate change.

I recently picked up a book of poems by Mary Oliver and opened it randomly. The first line that struck my eyes had this to say:

Loving the earth, seeing what has been done to it,
I grow sharp, I grow cold."

The rest of the poem is here. I'm right there with her, although cold part doesn't sound too bad at the moment.

I really hope that the US is approaching a sea change when it comes to climate action. There were actions around the country last week. West Virginians are planning an awareness event tonight. A recent poll shows that more Americans are finally starting to view the issue as a crisis.

Earlier this week, there was an event I'd never have expected: Robert Hanshaw, the Republican Speaker of the WV House of Delegates, and Evan Hansen, a Democratic delegate who is a strong environmental advocates spoke to a group of students about climate change. As in it being real and all.

The Hansen part wasn't a surprise, but the Hanshaw part was, given his ties to the gas industry and the power of the extractive energy lobby in WV, especially but not exclusively with Republicans.

(In fairness, I've seen decades of Democrats grovel before the extractive overlords as well.)

I'm not about to give way to a fit of uncharacteristic optimism, but I think the way may be opening. It's probably already too late to undo some serious damage even if we started with a blank slate today. But I think we can still do some harm reduction if we generate and demonstrate the political will.

The alternative is disaster.

A poem for Memorial Day

Walt Whitman, one of America's greatest poets, volunteered as a nurse to soldiers during the Civil War. One of my favorite poems of his is titled The Wound-Dresser. It's about someone who once wanted to charge into battle but eventually devoted himself to helping the wounded and dying and remembering the dead. It's a good reminder of the cost of war to those who do the actual fighting.

Here it is:

1 

An old man bending I come among new faces, 
Years looking backward resuming in answer to children, 
Come tell us old man, as from young men and maidens that love me, 
(Arous'd and angry, I'd thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war,
But soon my fingers fail'd me, my face droop'd and I resign'd myself,
To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead;) 
Years hence of these scenes, of these furious passions, these chances, 
Of unsurpass'd heroes, (was one side so brave? the other was equally brave;) 
Now be witness again, paint the mightiest armies of earth, 
Of those armies so rapid so wondrous what saw you to tell us? 
What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics, 
Of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains? 

2 

O maidens and young men I love and that love me, 
What you ask of my days those the strangest and sudden your talking recalls, 
Soldier alert I arrive after a long march cover'd with sweat and dust, 
In the nick of time I come, plunge in the fight, loudly shout in the 
rush of successful charge, 
Enter the captur'd works--yet lo, like a swift-running river they fade, 
Pass and are gone they fade--I dwell not on soldiers' perils or 
soldiers' joys, 
(Both I remember well--many the hardships, few the joys, yet I was content.) 

But in silence, in dreams' projections, 
While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on, 
So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand, 
With hinged knees returning I enter the doors, (while for you up there, 
Whoever you are, follow without noise and be of strong heart.) 

Bearing the bandages, water and sponge, 
Straight and swift to my wounded I go, 
Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in, 
Where their priceless blood reddens the grass the ground, 
Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof'd hospital, 
To the long rows of cots up and down each side I return, 
To each and all one after another I draw near, not one do I miss, 
An attendant follows holding a tray, he carries a refuse pail, 
Soon to be fill'd with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill'd again. 

I onward go, I stop, 
With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds, 
I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable, 
One turns to me his appealing eyes--poor boy! I never knew you, 
Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that 
would save you. 

3 

On, on I go, (open doors of time! open hospital doors!) 
The crush'd head I dress, (poor crazed hand tear not the bandage away,) 
The neck of the cavalry-man with the bullet through and through examine, 
Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life 
struggles hard, 
(Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death! 
In mercy come quickly.) 

From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand, 
I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood, 
Back on his pillow the soldier bends with curv'd neck and side falling head, 
His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the 
bloody stump, 
And has not yet look'd on it. 

I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep, 
But a day or two more, for see the frame all wasted and sinking, 
And the yellow-blue countenance see. 

I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet-wound, 
Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, 
so offensive, 
While the attendant stands behind aside me holding the tray and pail. 

I am faithful, I do not give out, 
The fractur'd thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen, 
These and more I dress with impassive hand, (yet deep in my breast 
a fire, a burning flame.) 

4 

Thus in silence in dreams' projections, 
Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals, 
The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand, 
I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young, 
Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad, 
(Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have cross'd and rested, 
Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips.) 

Happy birthday, West Virginia

I've used this poem before to celebrate the day, but it still seems to fit:

Appalachia
By Muriel Miller Dressler
I am Appalachia. In my veins
Runs fierce mountain pride; the hill-fed streams
Of passion; and, stranger, you don’t know me!
You’ve analyzed my every move–you still
Go away shaking your head. I remain
Enigmatic. How can you find rapport with me–
You, who never stood in the bowels of hell,
Never felt a mountain shake and open its jaws
To partake of human sacrifice?
You, who never stood on a high mountain
Watching the sun unwind its spiral rays:
Who never searched the glens for wild flowers,
Never picked mayapples or black walnuts; never ran
Wildly through the woods in pure delight,
Nor dangled your feet in a lazy creek?
You, who never danced to wild sweet notes,
Outpouring of nimble-fingered fiddlers;
Who never just “sat a spell,” on a porch,
Chewing and whittling; or hearing in pastime
The deep-throated bay of chasing hounds
And hunters shouting with joy, “He’s treed!”
You, who never once carried a coffin
To a family plot high up on a ridge
Because mountain folk know it’s best to lie
Where breezes from the hills whisper, “You’re home”;
You, who never saw from the valley that graves on a hill
Bring easement of pain to those below?
I tell you, stranger, hill folk know
What life is all about; they don’t need pills
To tranquilize the sorrow and joy of living.
I am Appalachia: and, stranger,
Though you’ve studied me, you still don’t know.

Apropos of nothing again

For some reason, this cheery little jingle by William Butler Yeats has been going through my mind lately:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre  
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst  
Are full of passionate intensity. 

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.  
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out  
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert  
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,  
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,  
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it  
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.  
The darkness drops again; but now I know  
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,  
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,  
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? 

Perhaps you will remember John Brown

On this date 157 years ago, assuming I got the math right, John Brown and his band of black and white guerrillas began their raid on Harpers Ferry in what is now West Virginia. It was an epic fail tactically but a huge win strategically in that things got pushed to the point of no return. I'm not big on theologizing history, but sometimes it seems like Brown was God's monkey wrench that got thrown into the machinery of a sinful land.

Here's a poem about him by Langston Hughes:

Perhaps
You will remember
John Brown 

John Brown
Who took his gun,
Took twenty-one companions,
White and black,
Went to shoot your way to freedom
Where two rivers meet
And the hills of the
North
And the hills of the
South
Look slow at one another —
And died
For your sake.

Now that you are
Many years free,
And the echo of the Civil War
Has passed away,
And Brown himself
Has long been tried at law,
Hanged by the neck,
And buried in the ground –
Since Harpers Ferry
Is alive with ghosts today,
Immortal raiders
Come again to town –
Perhaps,

You will recall
John Brown.”

A poem for Independence Day

This poem by the great African American writer Langston Hughes talks about making America great again, even for those to whom it hasn't yet been great). It's shown up here before on this holiday. There's a lot of talk today about making America great again, but I don't think Hughes' vision is what a certain political candidate has in mind.

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

Poetic interlude

I haven't read much of Seamus Heaney (aside from his Beowulf, which was great), but I think I need to read more. By accident yesterday I came upon this selection from his Cure at Troy, which is his rendering of Sophocles' tragedy Philoctetes.

THE CURE OF TROY

Human beings suffer.
They torture one another.
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.

History says, Don’t hope
On the side of the grave,’
 But then, once in a lifetime
 The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea- change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles.
And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle self-healing,
The utter self revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
And lightening and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.
It means once in a lifetime
That justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.

Obviously, we're not there yet, but it's good to recall that such moments sometimes exist.

Ash Wednesday

So this is my favorite religious holiday and I couldn't make it out to get my ashes due to weather and roads. In lieu of all that, here's the last stanza of T.S. Eliot's poem about this day:

Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated 

And let my cry come unto Thee.

Two liner

Yesterday, the Spousal Unit and I hiked a bit around the Robert Frost Interpretive Trail in Vermont. Along the way, I found a two line poem I had previously missed called "The Secret Sits." Here goes:

We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows

I think he might have been right about that one.

ONE LINK FOR THE ROAD: It looks like the Affordable Care Act is reducing the deficit.

Independence Day

Happy 4th to one and all from the crew at Goat Rope Farm. I can't think of a better way to salute the day than a little radical but patriotic poetry, like this one by Langston Hughes. It starts like this:

Let America be America again.Let it be the dream it used to be.Let it be the pioneer on the plainSeeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

The rest is here. Enjoy!

A poetical Puritan

I would have been pretty useless in the English Civil War of the 1640s. Politically, I'd probably be sympathetic with some of the Roundheads. Theologically, cradle Episcopalian that I am, I'd be with the Cavaliers. And Puritanism just plain gives me the creeps.

However, I must say the Puritan poet John Milton had his moments. I just came across these lines from his Comus:

If every just man that now pines with want
Had but a moderate and beseeming share
Of that which lewdly pampered luxury
Now heaps upon some few with vast excess,
Nature's full blessings would be well dispensed
In unsuperfluous even proportion...

LESSONS LEARNED? Here's economist Jared Bernstein on how safety net programs performed during the Great Recession.

THIS OUGHT TO BE JUST THE THING to start another ruling class  hissy fit in West Virginia.

THIS IS SOOO GROSS. Have you watched a lamprey video lately?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

It is time to be old?

This blog has been running a series about the life and writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson for a good while now. As the series draws to a close I'm looking at some of his poems. Today's feature is "Terminus," named after the Roman god of boundaries.

It's interesting because it is about aging and yielding gracefully to it. You can compare and contrast that sentiment with Tennyson's poem Ulysses, in which the hero closes by saying

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Emerson, by contrast, aims to trim himself to the storm of time. As it turned out, the poem was prophetic. In his last years, he developed dementia and the man of words developed aphasia, forgetting his own name at times.

As someone who isn't getting a whole lot younger at the moment, I kind of like both poems but at the moment I'm leaning to Tennyson. This weekend I plan on dragging my creaking bones to a half marathon trail run on very hilly ground and I hope not to yield before crossing the finish line. Anyhow, here's one to think about:

Terminus

 It is time to be old,

To take in sail:--

The gods of bounds,

Who sets to seas a shore,

Came to me in his fatal rounds,

And said: 'No more!

No farther shoot

Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root.

Fancy departs: no more invent;

Contract thy firmament

To compass of a tent.

There's not enough for this and that,

Make thy option which of two;

Economize the failing river,

Not the less revere the Giver,

Leave the many and hold the few.

Timely wise accept the terms,

Soften the fall with wary foot;

A little while

Still plan and smile,

And,--fault of novel germs,--

Mature the unfallen fruit.

Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires,

Bad husbands of their fires,

Who, when they gave thee breath,

Failed to bequeath

The needful sinew stark as once,

The Baresark marrow to thy bones,

But left a legacy of ebbing veins,

Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,--

Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb,

Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.'

As the bird trims her to the gale,

I trim myself to the storm of time,

I man the rudder, reef the sail,

Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:

'Lowly faithful, banish fear,

Right onward drive unharmed;

The port, well worth the cruise, is near,

And every wave is charmed.'

DO IT. Here's a link to a publication by AFSC on why WV should expand Medicaid coverage.

WHAT WAS FOR SUPPER? According to the earliest known cookware, it was fish soup.

BACK TO THE AGING THING. It looks like today's adults live longer but are less healthy than recent but older generations.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

I keep, and pass, and turn again

Say what you want about the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, but he gave me an easy topic to blog about during a busy couple of months. For that I'm grateful, anyway.

For the last month or two I've been looking at some of his most influential essays or lectures, but it turns out that what Waldo really wanted was to be a great poet. I'm not sure he hit the mark, but it wasn't for lack of trying. One line from an 1837 Fourth of July poem about his town of Concord during the American Revolution became quite famous, as in "the shot heard round the world."

I can't claim that I've read all his poems but I did find two that I really liked. Today's feature is the poem Brahma, which was published in 1857. It reflects his interest in the spiritual literature of India and was heavily influenced by the Bhagavad Gita. The poem also captures some of the monistic (as in all is One) and pantheistic (as in all is God) themes of Transcendentalism.

Here goes:

Brahma

If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

IGNORANCE is alive and well, according to this writer.

MONKEY TALK. Did human speech develop from this kind of primate communication?

ARE WE ALONE? Here's an interesting item on the search for extraterrestrial life.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

It's kraken time

Several years ago, I posted a copy of this 1830 poem by Tennyson called The Kraken:

  Below the thunders of the upper deep;
  Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
  His antient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
  The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
  About his shadowy sides: above him swell
  Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
  And far away into the sickly light,
  From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
  Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
  Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
  There hath he lain for ages and will lie
  Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
  Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
  Then once by man and angels to be seen,
  In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

For a look at a real kraken, click here. This is by far the best looking giant squid I've ever seen. Real footage will be available soon.

MORE FEDERAL BUDGET DRAMA TO COME. But dealing with it by cuts alone is a really bad idea.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: DEEP

A little Walt for the 4th

America

Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
Chair’d in the adamant of Time.--Walt Whitman

Would that it were so. Happy Independence Day!

NOTE: Sorry for irregular posting. Power outage due to storm knocked me for a loop for a few days. No climate change here, boss!

Weekend lightning bug poem

The firefly's flame
Is something for which science has no name
I can think of nothing eerier
Than flying around with an unidentified glow on a
person's posteerier. --Ogden Nash

Out-classed

I used to think I was a pretty good BS artist. It kind of comes with being a hillbilly. But this weekend, I was dealt a lesson in humility and now realize I am just a piker.

It went like this...a week or so ago, the Spousal Unit and I went on a hike in the hills surrounding Goat Rope Farm. As usual, we took a camera and got a cool picture of a black snake.

Now, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a blogger in possession of a snake picture must do something with it. I scanned the web in search of a good snake poem for the weekend post. In doing so I discovered that there is something of a shortage of good snake poems.

I did, however, find a fragment of one by Percy Bysshe Shelley that appeared to have been written after said poet hit the laudanum a bit too hard. In case you missed the weekend post, here it is:

Wake the serpent not -- lest he
Should not know the way to go, --
Let him crawl which yet lies sleeping
Through the deep grass of the meadow!
Not a bee shall hear him creeping,
Not a may-fly shall awaken
From its cradling blue-bell shaken,
Not the starlight as he's sliding
Through the grass with silent gliding.

I then asked whether any reader had any idea what Shelley was talking about. Who should step up to the plate by my father-in-law who sent me an email that read in part:

Shelley's poem, is a romantic affirmation of the dreaming state, which to the snake--and to the poet--is often more colorful and meaningful than waking reality. But if you were to ask Shelley to explain the meaning of the poem, he would probably read it, then read it again, pause a while, and read it again. Then he would say, "I don't know what the hell I meant by that poem!"

So I guess we can interpret it in any way we want, and all of us would be right. But let's make another attempt at understanding it: the snake is evidently asleep through the entire segment of the poem. His dreaming journey is not yet finished. So we should not wake him to interrupt that dream.

"Let him crawl which yet lies sleeping...." includes what follows of his dream. If he were awake, and taking this same journey through the grass, would he devour those things he would come across? Perhaps that is why we should not wake the sleeping serpent. As long as he is asleep, he is harmless.

Another interpretation, far more esoteric: can the serpent represent evil? If so, then we should let evil sleep. Once we arouse evil, it can destroy us. It's like that old West Virginia mountain saying: "Let sleeping dogs lie."

Holy hermeneutics, Batman! I know when I've been out-gunned. Now that he primed the pump, I can see a whole range of interpretations. Aside from the obvious Freudian one, it occurs to me that the snake, like most creatures including humans, runs on automatic pilot most of the time, which is analogous to being asleep.

Hats off to you, Pops!

OUT OF AFGHANISTAN. Here's WV's Senator Joe Manchin calling for a stepped up troop withdrawal.

IT'S HAPPENING, BUT WILL WE GET OUR ACT TOGETHER? Here's a fairly optimistic view of how we might finally respond to climate change.

SUGGESTIONS ON FOCUSING YOUR MIND here.

WEIRD BUT COOL SCIENCE PICTURES here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED