One day this upcoming week, we'll do our best to pick up a copy of his very recently published novel, Little Boy. If we lived in times less insane, Ferlinghetti would already have been officially declared a "National Treasure."
On the home front, snow banks continue to melt. Red-winged blackbirds have returned, along with ducks and more geese. We're still awaiting our first sightings of sandhill cranes and tundra swans. We suspect this week or next will produce the major arrival of those headed for here and further North. We doubt that will happen until there's lots more open water on/in the shallow and smaller ponds. In the interim, we're being amused and entertained by a murder of crows that continues to roost in the tops of the oak trees behind the house.
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| a murder of crows behind the house
Photo by J. Harrington
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We finally broke down and bought a fire pit so we can enjoy the fruits of cleaning up dead, dropped and broken branches without having to get or activate a burn permit from MNDNR. It's a variation on our "Small Is Beautiful," going local, bioregionalism theme. In a similar vein, today we added a small pot of lavender to the window sill in our den. It smells good and it's a very, very micro-miniature version of what we occasionally contemplate doing with several acres of the property. Remember the old saying about "walk before you run?"
To the Oracle at Delphi
Great Oracle, why are you staring at me, do I baffle you, do I make you despair? I, Americus, the American, wrought from the dark in my mother long ago, from the dark of ancient Europa— Why are you staring at me now in the dusk of our civilization— Why are you staring at me as if I were America itself the new Empire vaster than any in ancient days with its electronic highways carrying its corporate monoculture around the world And English the Latin of our days— Great Oracle, sleeping through the centuries, Awaken now at last And tell us how to save us from ourselves and how to survive our own rulers who would make a plutocracy of our democracy in the Great Divide between the rich and the poor in whom Walt Whitman heard America singing O long-silent Sybil, you of the winged dreams, Speak out from your temple of light as the serious constellations with Greek names still stare down on us as a lighthouse moves its megaphone over the sea Speak out and shine upon us the sea-light of Greece the diamond light of Greece Far-seeing Sybil, forever hidden, Come out of your cave at last And speak to us in the poet's voice the voice of the fourth person singular the voice of the inscrutable future the voice of the people mixed with a wild soft laughter— And give us new dreams to dream, Give us new myths to live by!Read at Delphi, Greece, on March 21, 2001 at the UNESCO World Poetry Day
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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.
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