Here there be dragons?

We can't speak for elsewhere, but where we are March is going out like a lamb. Clear, blue, sunny skies and temperatures in the low 50's℉. If it weren't for pandemics, stay-at-home mandates or guidance, and related matters this could be a very enjoyable Spring day. In fact, it is a very enjoyable Spring day. I've never been very good a compartmentalizing the various aspects of my life and how I feel about it all. One day I'm like Eeyore; the next Tigger; the next Piglet; on a good day I make it to Winnie-the-Pooh territory; but never, ever have I grown up enough to be a Christopher Robin; nor do I want to if grownups are the ones who have made our world the way it is.

This being the end of March, we could well be in the midst of Winnie-the-Pooh and  the Blustery Day, but we're not. We're all the way through March and, for the second year in a row, we've not flown our dragon kite during this month. Kite flying is something one should be able to do while maintaining proper physical-social distance. We had previously made tentative plans with the Daughter Person to fly the dragon kite with her. But then CORVID-19 and stay-at-homes and self-isolations and all that erupted. If not being able to go fly a kite becomes our most severe coronavirus disruption, I'll take it.

Meanwhile, I continue to ponder what our next new normal may look like, and then the one after that, and the one.... Fortunately, there are lots of people and organizations working to bring enhanced levels of sanity to our worlds, although why there aren't more folks lined up behind them is a good question.

Did you know that Minnesota has a Sustainable Farming Association? That organization is one of several in Minnesota that are members of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. Since farming, and our food systems, are among the systems I believe need a complete remake, I'm heartened to have discovered (uncovered?) the existence of these organizations. Perhaps we'll eventually be able to tame, or slay, the huge, corporate dragons that continue to undermine the sustainability of real food farmers and rural communities.

The Farm

By Joyce Sutphen

My father’s farm is an apple blossomer.

He keeps his hills in dandelion carpet

and weaves a lane of lilacs between the rose

and the jack-in-the-pulpits.

His sleek cows ripple in the pastures.

The dog and purple iris

keep watch at the garden’s end.

His farm is rolling thunder,

a lightning bolt on the horizon.

His crops suck rain from the sky

and swallow the smoldering sun.

His fields are oceans of heat,

where waves of gold

beat the burning shore.

A red fox

pauses under the birch trees,

a shadow is in the river’s bend.

When the hawk circles the land,

my father’s grainfields whirl beneath it.

Owls gather together to sing in his woods,

and the deer run his golden meadow.

My father’s farm is an icicle,

a hillside of white powder.

He parts the snowy sea,

and smooths away the valleys.

He cultivates his rows of starlight

and drags the crescent moon

through dark unfurrowed fields.

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A time for regrowth

Despite the sunny skies and warmer temperatures, I'd been feeling glum and gloomy. There's still a patch of ice and snow near the front walk. I hadn't noticed many signs of real greening. The small, ephemeral pond behind the house refroze overnight. I've yet to hear any wood frogs or spring peepers. Other years by this time we've had day lilies emerging.

day lilies emerging: March 24, 2012

Photo by J. Harrington

After looking at the picture above, I took my grumbly self outside to double check if I'd missed something. Turns out I had. In the front flower garden, underneath the leaf mulch [sounds better than if I'd not gotten around to cleanup last Autumn, doesn't it?] the Better Half point out new, green growth. Across the front walk, there's what looks like strawberry plant(?) leaves, newly green, bringing signs of new life and hope. As the numbers of those stricken by COVID19 continue to surge, as the death count increases frighteningly, I feel a greater need to see signs of the continuity of life. I understand that your mileage may vary.

As I catch the daily news reports, I find myself sometimes thinking back to President Kennedy's inauguration and his inspirational challenge to us “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,” I find that far different in form and substance than anything I've heard in the past three plus years. I'll take a chance on being guilty of waxing nostalgic, but it seems to me that another passage from Kennedy's inaugural speech could well fit the circumstances faced today by all of us, especially the kind of voters who elected Kennedy. Please consider, as we move closer and closer to November, which candidate you can envision offering something like the following:

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

I can see Bernie, and, maybe, Joe, but definitely not Donnie, defending and restoring our sadly eroded human rights. The time is past for us to return to growing a heritage of which we can be proud. We won't get there with a "Me first" philosophy that really means "Only Me."

Remember

Joy Harjo - 1951-

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star's stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother's, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

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Leaf us be together!

Last night's snow has mostly melted. Clouds cover today's sky. Tomorrow is forecast to be sunny, then partly cloudy then, come April Fool's Day: cloudy again? for several days more? Sigh!

maple buds swelling

Photo by J. Harrington

The buds on the maples in front of the house have swollen. Several days ago we noticed green leaves emerging from the dogwood stems we collected earlier this month. Signs that life goes on despite the trials and tribulations we humans inflict on ourselves.

Did you know that the United Nations once had an Earth Sabbath Service? That's the source of today's poem. It seems to me we're way  past time for it to be reinvigorated. We need all the help we can get to learn to heal the earth and ourselves and each other. I've been rereading a book, Earth Prayers. I first read it a decade or so ago, I think. This time around I'm more sensitive to climate breakdown, the sixth extinction, and zoonotic infections, so the prayers for the earth's, and our, health are affecting me more.

red osier dogwood leaves opening (in the house)

Photo by J. Harrington

There's also an organization promoting the Earth Charter, "an ethical framework for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in the 21st century." The way I see it, the kind of capitalism we've been practicing has lead us down a dead (literally) end road. We need to either turn around or cut across a field to find a more, and different, successful strategy and basis for an economy. Have you heard or read anything about Doughnut Economics?

There are ever so many new tools and philosophies we can adopt to lead happier, healthier, more equitable and satisfying lives. Ask yourself that famous presidential political question: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" Then ask yourself "What are you going to do about it?" Remember, more of the same never solved a problem.

A Prayer of Healing

Reader: We join with the earth and with each other.
To bring new life to the land
To restore the waters
To refresh the air

We join with the earth and with each other.
To renew the forests
To care for the plants
To protect the creatures

We join with the earth and with each other.
To celebrate the seas
To rejoice the sunlight
To sing the song of the stars

We join with the earth and with each other.
To recall our destiny
To renew our spirits
To reinvigorate our bodies

We join with the earth and with each other.
To create the human community
To promote justice and peace
To remember our children

Reader:We join together as many and diverse expressions of one loving mystery: for the healing of the earth and the renewal of all life.

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In like a lamb, out like a...? #phenology

There are a few stubborn patches of snow left where the shade or the snow, or both, was deep. Mostly, though, the snow is gone. We mention that because our collection of photos taken during April shows a distressing number of pictures of snowfalls from 5" to 15". Now, come April, even fifteen inches of snow doesn't last long but  it does represent a significant psychological setback and we don't need any more of those these days. The precipitation we're expecting this afternoon could be up to an inch of rain and/or an inch or two of slush overnight. This is Spring in the North Country. According to the Climatology Working Group, we don't even have complete agreement regarding whether there's any month in which snow hasn't fallen in (Northern) Minnesota.

14" new snow, April 17, 2014

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, as we say goodbye to March and welcome April, there's lots to look forward to, including:

• National Poetry Month
• April Fool's Day
• Passover
• Easter
• Earth Day's 50th Anniversary
• Ramadan
• Spring's first wildflowers?
• Budburst on trees?

pasque flower, April 10 2016

Photo by J. Harrington

It's unlikely either hummingbirds or monarch butterflies will have arrived during April. May is a more normal arrival for each of them. That's also when we look forward to leafout.

In April

James Hearst

This I saw on an April day:
Warm rain spilt from a sun-lined cloud,
A sky-flung wave of gold at evening,
And a cock pheasant treading a dusty path
Shy and proud.


And this I found in an April field:
A new white calf in the sun at noon,
A flash of blue in a cool moss bank,
And tips of tulips promising flowers
To a blue-winged loon.


And this I tried to understand
As I scrubbed the rust from my brightening plow:
The movement of seed in furrowed earth,
And a blackbird whistling sweet and clear
From a green-sprayed bough.

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Regenerating hope and food

Several years ago I read a book that I consider transformative, at least it's been transforming me. Those of you familiar with Myers-Brigg and Personality Types probably know what I mean when I confess to having a classic "Type A" personality with very strong leanings toward command-and-control processes. Reading Mariam Horn's Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman reinforced my growing acknowledgement that we could never afford enough enforcement personnel to solve all our pollution problems through command and control approaches, any more than the traffic cops we currently have catch all the speeders. This is akin to the proverbial "if the mountain won't come to Mohammed" situation but as I look about me I realize we're not all suddenly going to sit down and sing Kumbaya.

is this regenerative agriculture?

Photo by J. Harrington

Some folks already recognize that we all depend on each other, while others are constantly surprise to discover that they aren't at the center of the universe. We need to encourage more of the former and discourage inappropriate behavior by the latter. Part of that no doubt involves applying a Psychology of Sustainable Behavior.

is this regenerative agriculture?

Photo by J. Harrington

So, how can we create a system that motivates farmers and ranchers and others toward stewardship in the ways that they produce food for us? Should it all be based only on monetary incentives or do we also need to change other elements of our food system? One option is to include substantial support for farmers and ranchers in any Green New Deal (GND) legislation. What should we be supporting? Here's a list of Regenerative Agriculture Practices:

• Aquaculture


• Agroecology


• Agroforestry


• Biochar


• Compost


• Holistic Planned Grazing


• No-till


• Pasture Cropping


• Perennial Crops


• Silvopasture

Follow the link at the end of this sentence to learn what many farmers and ranchers are looking for from a Green New Deal. Then let's all hope and pray and work to get a better Green New Deal for us all.

A Poem on Hope

It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old, 
for hope must not depend on feeling good 
and there’s the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight. 
You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality 
of the future, which surely will surprise us, 
and hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction 
anymore than by wishing. But stop dithering. 
The young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them? 
Tell them at least what you say to yourself.

Because we have not made our lives to fit 
our places, the forests are ruined, the fields, eroded, 
the streams polluted, the mountains, overturned. Hope 
then to belong to your place by your own knowledge 
of what it is that no other place is, and by 
your caring for it, as you care for no other place, this 
knowledge cannot be taken from you by power or by wealth. 
It will stop your ears to the powerful when they ask 
for your faith, and to the wealthy when they ask for your land
and your work.  Be still and listen to the voices that belong 
to the stream banks and the trees and the open fields.

Find your hope, then, on the ground under your feet. 
Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground underfoot. 
The world is no better than its places. Its places at last 
are no better than their people while their people 
continue in them. When the people make 
dark the light within them, the world darkens.

–Wendell Berry

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"Being there" on a Spring morning

Thanks to the Better Half [BH], this morning we enjoyed the year's first confirmed sighting of a red-winged blackbird. BH had motored off to the local grocery store at the proverbial crack of dawn. After she parked, she sent me a text telling me to go take some pictures of the sleeping swans on the Carlos Avery Sunrise River pools. I promptly put down my coffee cup, pulled on my jeans with the drivers license in the pocket, grabbed the camera, climbed into the Jeep, and headed off.  The ponds are about a ten minute drive from the house.

Spring morning ducks in flight

Photo by J. Harrington

It was that kind of morning and scene that reminded me of why I had been an ardent waterfowl hunter for many years. It was all about Being There, as Gene Hill, one of my all-time favorite writers, put it many years ago. The pool surfaces were mirror smooth. There were a few ducks in the air. Many of the swans were awakening as the sun climbed higher  and got brighter. A few remained sleeping with their heads tucked under their wings or else they were seeking an underwater breakfast. Watching the swans, geese, ducks and sunrise, just "being there," made me realize how lucky I've been in my life so far, to have been able to enjoy so many mornings like this.

Spring morning swans sleeping (center right)

Photo by J. Harrington

After taking a few pictures, I turned the Jeep around and headed home to reheat  the coffee. That's when I saw, perched on a roadside post, the blackbird [no photo of this one]. I've heard an occasional call or two this week, but this was my first sighting. And, as I look out the window while typing this, I just noticed a purple finch at the feeder. Spring is here. May we all enjoy all of it. May it not be our last but may its pleasures last us a lifetime.

Spring Morning 

Marion Strobel

O day—if I could cup my hands and drink of you, 
And make this shining wonder be 
A part of me! 
O day! O day!
You lift and sway your colors on the sky 
Till I am crushed with beauty. Why is there 
More of reeling sunlit air 
Than I can breathe? Why is there sound 
In silence? Why is a singing wound 
About each hour? 
And perfume when there is no flower? 
O day! O Day! How may I press 
Nearer to loveliness?

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Should Earth Day 2020 focus on Green New Deals?

This year, on April 22, we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day. One of the environmental organizations to which we belong  has published a series of essays on how Earth Day can be "reinvigorated and reinvented." This year's unsurprising theme is "Climate Change" and there are calls for Climate Strikes from April 22 -- 24. Meanwhile, food shopping is becoming more and more of a challenge. The Minnesota Farmers Market Association tells us that "Farmers' Markets Exempt From Restaurant and Bar Closures." It remains to be seen if "social distancing" guidelines will be observed or  other issues arise.

in an era of pandemics, is our food system secure?

Photo by J. Harrington

As of this posting, it appears unlikely that, by late April, the country will have returned to what used to pass for normality, so we're going to float an alternative idea. We're anticipating that, if much of the country is still under various forms of coronavirus lockdowns, or federal martial law, a climate strike isn't going to be very noticeable. How about if, instead, we all commit to harassing our federal and state legislators to enacting Green New Deal legislation before the November elections?

Many politicians are going to be looking for votes come November. (Too many will also be looking for corporate campaign contributions.) We can loudly and clearly let candidates for reelection know that we want a Green New Deal enacted if they want our votes. A similar message can be  delivered to those seeking to oust an incumbent. As long as Mitch McConnell is Senate Majority Leader, my expectations for success are tempered, but we might as well try. We need the practice and, at the moment, as far as I know, all that's been proposed at the federal level is a resolution.

will your legislators vote for a Green New Deal?

Photo by J. Harrington

In Minnesota, we have actual legislation proposed [HF 2836 and SF 3143]. Either is a good place to start but could probably be much improved if they incorporated language from the federal resolutions regarding agricultural changes and transitions related to secure, local food and carbon sequestration. If you wonder how and why more attention needs be paid to agriculture, please read this open letter from the Agroecology Research Action Collective. The COVID 19 pandemic has made clear many of the limitations that rural America labors under, including insufficient internet coverage and bandwidth and the need for better regional healthcare systems and access to such systems. It's unlikely that urban agriculture will ever be adequate to feed entire metropolitan areas, so we're looking at the need for better food systems that serve both large and mid-sized producers and individual and institutional consumers. One thing that's become clear to me as I've read about the effects of COVID 19 and how various communities have responded, we need to build better infrastructures across the rural-urban divide. We are indeed all in this together and we need each other whether we like it or not.

On the Fifth Day

Jane Hirshfield - 1953-

On the fifth day
the scientists who studied the rivers
were forbidden to speak
or to study the rivers.

The scientists who studied the air
were told not to speak of the air,
and the ones who worked for the farmers
were silenced,
and the ones who worked for the bees.

Someone, from deep in the Badlands,
began posting facts.

The facts were told not to speak
and were taken away.
The facts, surprised to be taken, were silent. 

Now it was only the rivers
that spoke of the rivers,
and only the wind that spoke of its bees,

while the unpausing factual buds of the fruit trees
continued to move toward their fruit.

The silence spoke loudly of silence,
and the rivers kept speaking 
of rivers, of boulders and air.

Bound to gravity, earless and tongueless,
the untested rivers kept speaking.

Bus drivers, shelf stockers,
code writers, machinists, accountants,
lab techs, cellists kept speaking.

They spoke, the fifth day,
of silence.

—2017

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Wild turkeys: extirpated to indigenous?

This morning, for the first time in months, there were turkeys in the back yard. A flock of 10 or 12 hens hunted and pecked their way through the hollow behind the house. I suspect they spent much of the Winter roosted in one of the nearby pine plantations and are returning to more open fields now that mating season is here. The wild turkey was indigenous to Minnesota, was extirpated during settlement, and has been restored from wild birds living elsewhere. Does that make the current descendants indigenous or naturalized?

wild turkey hen visits back yard in Spring

Photo by J. Harrington

Last night I started (re)reading Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass. This will be at least my third or fourth time reading it. I've discovered  and signed up for an on-line reading group at Emergence Magazine that's chosen "Sweetgrass" as its kickoff selection. My memory isn't what it used to be (never was) so I'm once again enjoying both the substance and  the style or her writing. There are two particular themes I'm intrigued by and want to understand more and better. One has to do with being indigenous or naturalized to a place. The other is "reciprocity" and how Kimmerer understands it.

For much of human’s time on the planet, before the great delusion, we lived in cultures that understood the covenant of reciprocity, that for the Earth to stay in balance, for the gifts to continue to flow, we must give back in equal measure for what we take.

I'm looking forward both to the reread and to the online discussion. I promise to let you know what I think of the substance and the technology as the events occur. If it's not yet clear to you, I think very highly of the author and her book. It's now available in paperback. 'Nuff said.

We Who Weave

By LeConté Dill

     On Tyrone Geter’s “The Basket Maker #2”

Weave me closer

to you

with hands dyed indigo

that rake oyster beds

awake

Smell you long

before

I see you

Vanilla sweet

Sweetgrass weaving

wares that keep Yankees coming

on ferries, no bridge

Waters been troubled

Makes you wonder

who put the root on whom first

with doors dyed indigo

Pray the evil spirits away

at the praise house

Make John Hop to stave off John Deere

We migrants

fighting to stay put

Even nomads come home

for a Lowcountry boil

a feast for hungry

prodigal sons

and daughters

with hearts dyed indigo

Dying for you to

weave us closer

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Can we afford to not care about everyone?

The remaining snow cover is shrinking into smaller, more widely scattered patches. Unless we get a significant renewal it'll be gone within the week, except for the huge mounds in parking lots etc. Other years we've been visited by purple finches by now. Still no signs of them at the feeders. Neither have we yet seen any red-winged blackbirds. We have, however, stumbled onto an interesting phenology site for our neighbor to the East. The Wisconsin Green Schools Network has an Environmental Education for Kids site with a March Phenology page that shows a large flock of male red-wings and the observation that they return in late February and early March. We're aware that just because we haven't seen any doesn't mean they've not returned. We'll keep our eyes and ears open.

where are this year's purple finches?

Photo by J. Harrington

The COVID 19 pandemic has raised several issues that contribute to a long-standing rural-urban divide that should be or more concern, I believe. At the moment, rural communities are strongly recommending vacationers and second home owners stay away. Rural areas have heightened vulnerabilities during this pandemic. Limited health care systems infrastructure among them.

The W.F. Schumacher Center for a New Economics has, for many years, been hosting annual lectures exploring how "small is beautiful" applies to today's issues. Vermont is building a new economy through the vision and actions of Vermonters for a New Economy, building on efforts initiated through the Donella Meadows Project. Minnesota's farming, mining economies may be exposing the state's populations to pollution-based health risks while the tourism sector contributes to the spread of exogenous diseases. Are we overdue for thinking about how the next Seven Generations will live and make a living?

we should soon see male red-winged blackbirds

Photo by J. Harrington

If, as some now argue, habitat destruction is a significant and growing factor in the "direct and indirect spread of zoonotic diseases," might we not be advised to reconsider our rural development strategies? Or, would we prefer to deal with something like the COVID 19 pandemic or the spread of Lyme disease on a more regular basis?

One of the lessons being realized as we respond to the current pandemic was nicely described by Donella Meadows in her paper on Dancing with Systems. One of the steps in the dance is to

12. EXPAND THE BOUNDARY OF CARING.

“Living successfully in a world of complex systems means expanding not only time horizons and thought horizons; above all it means expanding the horizons of caring. There are moral reasons for doing that, of course. And if moral arguments are not sufficient, systems thinking provides the practical reasons to back up the moral ones. The real system is interconnected. No part of the human race is separate either from other human beings or from the global ecosystem. It will not be possible in this integrated world for your heart to succeed if your lungs fail, or for your company to succeed if your workers fail, or for the rich in Los Angeles to succeed if the poor in Los Angeles fail, or for Europe to succeed if Africa fails, or for the global economy to succeed if the global environ­ment fails.

“As with everything else about systems, most people already know the intercon­nections that make moral and practical rules turn out to be the same rules. They just have to bring themselves to believe what they know.”

The Paper Boy

By Thomas R. Smith

My route lassos the outskirts, 

the reclusive, the elderly, the rural— 

the poor who clan in their tarpaper 

islands, the old ginseng hunter

Albert Harm, who strings the "crow's

foot" to dry over his wood stove. 

Shy eyes of fenced-in horses 

follow me down the rutted dirt road. 

At dusk, I pedal past white birches, 

breathe the smoke of spring chimneys, 

my heart working uphill toward someone 

hungry for word from the world. 

I am Mercury, bearing news, my wings

a single-speed maroon Schwinn bike.

I sear my bright path through the twilight 

to the sick, the housebound, the lonely. 

Messages delivered, wire basket empty, 

I part the blue darkness toward supper, 

confident I've earned this day's appetite, 

stronger knowing I'll be needed tomorrow.

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Spring's last leaf fall

Overnight a light dusting of snow coated the ground. It's gone now but the  sky remains cloudy and the woods continue to blow. Typical March weather in the North Country. The winds are strong enough to roil bare and barren tree branches. The emergence of Spring is causing leaf buds to begin to swell. The swelling is loosening the stem attachments of oak leaves that had made it through Winter still on the trees. The day has been full of oak leaves falling and scattering ahead of gusts.

maple leaf buds start swelling

Photo by J. Harrington

I remember the folk saying about March coming in or going out like a lion. Mid-March roars are a sort of different story, aren't they? Now that the branches are truly leafless, we will more easily be able to notice the first green sheens at bud burst. This morning we first noticed the buds on our maple trees swelling. Spring's dance steps are intricate enough to make our heads spin. Remember the slight of hand performed by the prestidigitator in an old fashioned shell game? Under which shell is the pea? Mother Nature keeps teasing us with hints of Spring interspersed with lapses back to Winter's fringe. And then, suddenly, daytime highs will leap into the 80s and Summer will have commenced while we look back to claim a day or two of sunshine, 70 degrees, breezes, not winds, as our enjoyable Spring of 2020. Like fans of the Twins, Vikings, Timberwolves and Wild, those of us who look forward to a season of Spring will once again get to "wait until next year." But not before pools of ephemeral beauty put us under a spell of Spring.

our Spring pool

Photo by J. Harrington

Spring Pools

By Robert Frost

These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.

The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods --
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.

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In honor of World Poetry Day

On this World Poetry Day, as much of the world copes with a deadly virus pandemic, almost all of the world's governments and corporations still fail to promptly and adequately respond to climate breakdown, and too, too many politicians continue to seek only achieving a short-term competitive advantage, I do not wonder at the frustration and despair felt by younger generations. In their honor, with hope for the future of our descendants, and in recognition of Minnesota's Nobel Laureate in poetry, today's poem is offered as a prayer on behalf of and to those "in charge," that their decisions may be  based on what is best for  the next Seven Generations. Let us all disprove Auden's assessment that "...poetry makes nothing happen:" We can do that if we only vote for those who live and embody Dylan's wishes.

Forever Young

[listen along: Rhiannon Giddens and Iron & Wine]

Written by: Bob Dylan

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

Copyright © 1973 by Ram's Horn Music; renewed 2001 by Ram’s Horn Music

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Spring(???) comes to the North Country

This morning we finished (re)reading Ted Kooser's Winter Morning Walks; 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison. The last postcard is dated March 20, which was the date of the equinox the year it was written. Yesterday, March 19, late at night, was the official equinox this year. Today is the first full day of Spring in our neighborhood. Earlier this week we found the first tick of the year on one of the dogs. As we write this,  the outside temperature is 21℉, hardly Spring-like unless you live in the North Country. Our Spring weather is about as volatile as the stock market these days. The average high temperature for today is 43℉. Yesterday or Wednesday we saw raindrops suspended from leaf buds on our oak trees. Next week we're forecast to enjoy a string of 50's. North Country Spring is truly a poster child for our turbulent times.

liquid precipitation portends Spring's arrival in the North Country

Photo by J. Harrington

Tomorrow is World Poetry Day. The United Nations notes that

Poetry reaffirms our common humanity by revealing to us that individuals, everywhere in the world, share the same questions and feelings. Poetry is the mainstay of oral tradition and, over centuries, can communicate the innermost values of diverse cultures.

If you follow the "Ted Kooser" link below today's poem, you'll get to read a newspaper column that tells us "The world needs its poets right now, its dreamers and its philosophers, those who ponder and hope." We couldn't agree more. Kooser is one of our favorite poets. The column  from which we pulled the quote helps to explain why, almost as well as reading his poems could. Enjoy Spring, World Poetry Day, remember to Stay Home if the CORVID19 virus has emerged in your country. Whether it  has or not, you'd do well to learn How to Read a Poem, slow down, and enjoy what's left of your life. To which "someone" is it important that you are alive, and walking. Reach out and touch them, even if it's only virtually.

march 20

The vernal equinox


How important it must be
to someone
that I am alive, and walking,
and that I have written
these poems.
This morning the sun stood
right at the end of the road
and waited for me.

—Ted Kooser

[if you choose not to follow the link above, you'll miss a wonderful treat]

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An Equinox equivocation

Cold, damp, cloudy, dreary...Welcome to Spring in Minnesota. The Equinox occurs tonight at 10:49 pm CDT. It's preceded by rain and, maybe, snow forecast for this afternoon. The small pond up the road looked like this yesterday:

approaching Spring Equinox 2020

Photo by J. Harrington

Although I've seen reports of trout anglers doing a "social distance" dance in Southeast Minnesota and Western Wisconsin (the Driftless Area), I'm having a hard time getting motivated to take a long drive, get layered up, and then fight the wind to make a decent cast. Maybe next week?

early May, Driftless Area

Photo by J. Harrington

From a flood risk perspective, thus far we've "enjoyed" a moderate and tempered Spring thaw. The snow cover and banks have diminished slowly and, it looks like, much of the snowmelt has infiltrated the groundwater rather than flow overland into creeks and streams and rivers. Writing this has me looking forward to spending more time outside, poking around, seeing what's going on and maybe even enjoying the feeling of warm sunshine on my back. But not today. Today we're a month or six weeks or more from wildflowers and hummingbirds. Fortunately, Jane Hirshfield has a recently published volume of poems that promises to provide us with a re-grounding and to help us reconcile to the world on which we live and with the universe in which it lives. I can almost envision lolling about with a copy, resting my back against a tree trunk, while zephyrs entwine the crown, and sunlight dapples the pages I'm reading. Remember, no matter how deep the forest, we can only go in halfway, then we're on our way out again.

Let Them Not Say

Jane Hirshfield - 1953-

Let them not say:   we did not see it.
We saw.
Let them not say:   we did not hear it.
We heard.
Let them not say:     they did not taste it.
We ate, we trembled.
Let them not say:   it was not spoken, not written.
We spoke,
we witnessed with voices and hands.
Let them not say:     they did nothing.
We did not-enough.
Let them say, as they must say something: 
A kerosene beauty.
It burned.
Let them say we warmed ourselves by it,
read by its light, praised,
and it burned.

—2014

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It's all right, Ma (I'm only wheezing)

Once again we hope you and yours are doing well, staying healthy, and washing your hands. In fact, today we hope we're doing well. We made a trip to two different grocery stores. The first one was out of eggs, butter, almost out of flour and the meat shelves were about 75% bare. The Better Half and I each wore latex gloves while shopping and discarded them when we returned to the Jeep. Will such precautions become the new normal? Although people get killed and maimed in auto accidents every day, today was the first time I ever thought that I was putting my life at risk to go grocery shopping. There's a body of literature about real versus perceived risks. It will be interesting to see where corona viruses end up on such lists. Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease is third on this list of odds of death. Both the Better Half and I are, for several reasons each, in elevated risk demographic classes related to COVID19. Although we work to minimize our exposure, no life is risk free nor is the risk management guidance available comprehensive and consistent. In fact, it is at best, in my opinion, marginally better than the insights available to stock investors and we  all know how well that's going. Am I the only one that  wonders if this is what trumpsters were looking for when they voted for him to "shake things up?"

This is not  the first time that US has made a royal mess of things. As evidence see the poem below, written by a Nobel Laureate in the mid 1960's. (Yes, I was around back then.) We have shown a distressing, and now potentially very deadly, tendency to try to evade the consequences of our actions. We can't claim that no one could have foreseen this outbreak. David Quammen warned us about such prospects back in 2012, in his book Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic.

I have a couple of thoughts about our current situation. The first is that we should, we must, use the current breakdown in our systems to build new economies, communities and cultures that are respectful of both the earth on which we live and our co-inhabitants. This comes under the heading of never letting a good crisis go to waste. The second is that  this is the time to acknowledge that neoliberal capitalism is a failed system. We can't enjoy the benefits of global economies unless they are all built on level playing fields of social justice and environmental protection. No more moving manufacturing to where environmental regulations are less onerous and effective and/or labor is less expensive just to pass the savings on  to the consumer. Look at the earth rising or the pale blue dot NASA photos and tell me where you can find to park your "externalities." It's past time for us to grow out of being consumers and  time to become citizens of earth.

mid-March marsh, sandhill cranes

Photo by J. Harrington

Today, as we were leaving the second grocery store, a flock of sandhill cranes flew overhead. They've been around for at least 2.5 million years. In our current form, we humans have been around for about one-quarter to one-fifth that amount of time. Do you suppose there's anything we could learn from a species that has four or five times our experience living successfully on earth? If not, please join me in a sing-a-long of today's poem:

It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)

Written by: Bob Dylan

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying

Temptation’s page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you’d just be one more
Person crying

So don’t fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It’s alright, Ma, I’m only sighing

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don’t hate nothing at all
Except hatred

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked

An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it

Advertising signs they con
You into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks they really found you

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy, insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something they invest in

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn’t talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer’s pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death’s honesty
Won’t fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
what else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only

Copyright

© 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music

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The swans of St. Patrick's Day #phenology

This St. Patrick's Day morning the Better Half returned from doing some errands and kicked me out of the house. Actually, she told me that the Sunrise River pools were covered in swans and I should go take some pictures. She was right. Never before in my life have I seen so many swans in one place at one time. Below are a couple of the results. But first, let me add that I had been considering W. B. Yeats' The Wild Swans at Coole in honor of the Irish and the swans. Yeats' poem is set in October, not early Spring, so we went and found a different poems about swans, this one published in The Irish Times. The swans we saw this morning are tundra swans and we didn't hear whooping and there were, as you can see, many, many more than two, but all in all we came close enough for today's poem.

St. Patrick's Day: swans at the Sunrise River pools

Photo by J. Harrington

St. Patrick's Day: swans at the Sunrise River pools

Photo by J. Harrington

In a related event, while taking the pictures we heard, but did not see, a red-winged blackbird. Spring is here. No, we hadn't any thought of dyeing the swans green in honor of the day. But we will share an Irish blessing with you because, as we know, these days we can all use all the help we can get.

May the road rise to meet you,
and the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm on your face
and the rains fall softly on your fields.
And until we meet again
May God hold you gently in the palm of his hand.

Two Ivory Swans

Moya Cannon

Two Ivory Swans

fly across a display case

as they flew across Siberian tundra

twenty thousand years ago,

heralding thaw on an inland sea,

their wings, their necks, stretched, stretched

vulnerable, magnificent.

Their whooping set off a harmonic

in someone who looked up,

registered the image

of the great journeying birds

and, with a hunter-gatherer’s hand

carved their tiny white likenesses

from the tip of the tusk

of the greatest of all land-mammals,

wore them for a while,

or traded or gifted them

before they were dropped down time’s echoing chute,

to emerge, strong-winged,

whooping,

to fly across our time.

The British Museum, April, 2013

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On choosing a "least worst" alternative

The political system in the US sucks! But, maybe less so than anywhere else? Four years ago I had to hold my nose to cast a vote in the presidential election. I did, for all the good it did us. Now, almost four years later the stock market is tanking, again; COVID-19 is ravishing populations, economies and health systems world-wide; and it looks like I'm going to have to hold my nose again this November.

Fortunately, some years ago the Better Half taught me that sometimes the best choice available is the least worst alternative. I hate that but I'm glad she either learned it or figured it out and taught me. It looks like it may be a useful, perhaps essential, skill in our continuing deterioration (hopefully not a death spiral) into a "New Normal."

So far, we've been lucky that our household's problems have been only of annoying and aggravating significance. Many others aren't so lucky. Here's a quotation from an email that landed in my Inbox a bit ago:

According to the Brookings Institute, 44 percent of all workers in the US (53 million) now qualify as “low wage.” These workers labor every day to sustain their families and build a better life, but they’re struggling against a system that prioritizes profits over the well-being of families and communities. This is not an accident — it’s the result of policies driven by special interests at the expense of working families, and it’s on us to demand changes.

Over the last few decades, our policymakers have failed working people as the American middle class has been hollowed out. The gap between millions on the bottom and a few at the top is now at unprecedented levels.

Isn't this the kind of economy, based on the types of policies, that turns US into a proverbial "shithole country," rather than making us great again? Once again we will belabor the point that COVID-19 provides us an opportunity and the necessity to acknowledge that we're all in this together. We can create a world in which each of us wins more easily and readily or we can continue one in which some win much too disproportionately. An economist named Kate Raworth has written a book that debunks (almost?) all of the economic myths on which our economies are currently operating. I'm about halfway through Doughnut Economics. Much of it is consistent with my preexisting biases, which no doubt helps explain why I'm enjoying reading it. One of those biases is a belief that only a damn fool burns down his house to stay warm. Another is the belief that "we all do better when we al do better."

So, since my preferred candidate has withdrawn, between now and the time of the Democratic convention, I'll be comparing the two nominees to see which I think is the least worst alternative (each, as far as I'm concerned, has a number of large, ugly warts). Then, assuming there's an election come next November, I'll have gone through a similar evaluation between the Democratic nominee and  the current occupant of the White House. We already have an unfortunately large number of examples of how badly the latter can screw up things. It'll have to be an educated guess about the alternative, based on statements and track records. Fortunately, focusing on selecting a least worst alternative, instead of trying to choose the best, should make choosing, and the rest of my life, considerably easier over the next six months or so. Naturally, all of this presumes the individual parties mentioned in this posting manage to stay upright and functional until election day.

An Old Story

Tracy K. Smith - 1972-

We were made to understand it would be
Terrible. Every small want, every niggling urge,
Every hate swollen to a kind of epic wind.
Livid, the land, and ravaged, like a rageful
Dream. The worst in us having taken over
And broken the rest utterly down.
                                                               A long age
Passed. When at last we knew how little
Would survive us—how little we had mended
Or built that was not now lost—something
Large and old awoke. And then our singing
Brought on a different manner of weather.
Then animals long believed gone crept down
From trees. We took new stock of one another.
We wept to be reminded of such color.

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