May this be an election day we can celebrate later

It's almost 70℉ outside. As I stepped outside to empty some recycling my first thoughts were "we'll pay for this." That made me realize I'm almost a naturalized Minnesotan. Then it occurred to me, maybe we already have paid for this, with  the snow and the cold that's but recently moved on. Since I sincerely and deeply believe we'll see more snow before we reach next Spring, the morning was spent getting the snowblower running and changing its oil. Missions accomplished and with not a bit of frostbite. Keeping busy with time-consuming and irritating chores is a good way to keep from fretting about what's going on at the polls today.

we already paid for today's weather in late October

Photo by J. Harrington

I gave myself some early Christmas presents again this year. They both arrived yesterday, earlier than the package-tracking app had me anticipating. Over the years I've become a serious Joni Mitchell fan. Many of her songs are among my all-time favorites and she and I are about the same age so many of her songs are also included in the soundtrack of my life. I'm now the quite pleased owner of her book Morning Glory on the Vine, early songs and drawings and her recently released package of 5 CDs and a booklet, Joni Mitchell Archives – Vol.1: The Early Years (1963-1967). The early arrival is a more than fortuitous event since I've decided, if I don't like how the election turns out, to revert not to a second childhood but to a second (or third or fourth) young adulthood. Maybe I'd be happier if I decided to spend my remaining time as a folkie-hippie type. It's possible, even probable, that I drifted away prematurely form those threads as I aged. Come to think of it, becoming a grown up was never one of my major aspirations.

It's been a treat to listen to some of the earliest Joni, when she was still Anderson, singing traditional folk songs on the first CD. Tomorrow we'll listen to some of her initial recordings of some of her own work, like Urge for Going and Circle Game and several others I don't think I've ever heard. Her version of Molly Malone definitely triggered a flashback to my younger days and family gatherings on the Irish side of the family. My fingers are crossed that we have the luck o' the Irish at the polls and end up today with more to look forward to than back on.

Let America Be America Again

By Langston Hughes

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!

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.