Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Pleasing some of the people some of the time?

The National Weather Service has a graphic on Twitter suggesting Winter lovers should cheer up because, despite the upcoming warming, many of our largest snowfalls occur in March and April. Based on my experience, that's true. It's also true that longer days and a sun that keeps climbing higher in the sky mean that the snow is likely to melt sooner than not. That's the good news for those of us who tolerate, rather than love Winter.

April 19, 2013 snowfall
April 19, 2013 snowfall
Photo by J. Harrington

April 23, 2013 snow melt
April 23, 2013 snow melt
Photo by J. Harrington

It seems as though Mother Nature and the National Weather Service have figured out how to please most of the people, most of the time. Now, can we get them to offer lessons in people pleasing to our politicians? Or have most of us become consistently too hard to please too much of the time?

Please Don't

By Tony Hoagland
tell the flowers—they think
the sun loves them.
The grass is under the same
simple-minded impression

about the rain, the fog, the dew.
And when the wind blows,
it feels so good
they lose control of themselves

and swobtoggle wildly
around, bumping accidentally into their
slender neighbors.
Forgetful little lotus-eaters,

solar-powered
hydroholics, drawing nourishment up
through stems into their
thin green skin,

high on the expensive
chemistry of mitochondrial explosion,
believing that the dirt
loves them, the night, the stars—

reaching down a little deeper
with their pale albino roots,
all Dizzy
Gillespie with the utter
sufficiency of everything.

They don't imagine lawn
mowers, the four stomachs
of the cow, or human beings with boots
who stop to marvel

at their exsquisite
flexibility and color.
They persist in their soft-headed

hallucination of happiness.
But please don't mention it.
Not yet. Tell me
what would you possibly gain

from being right?


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