Here there be dragons

After last night’s snow fall of four to five inches, the neighborhood looks more typical for February in the North Country. Most of the winter we’ve been looking at bare ground which neither looked nor felt proper. Once again there’s no precipitation in the forecast for at least the next ten days. Lack of snow this winter doesn’t bode well for easing our ongoing drought.

I’m going to adjust or adapt (or both) to the sliding baseline the current world has obviously encountered. There are entirely too many things in today’s world that don’t work they way I learned they were supposed to and I keep getting bent entirely too far out of shape about it. One example: our Frontier internet service was out for twelve to eighteen hours overnight last night, after providing no functional service for an even longer period a week or so ago. We’ve not yet found a viable alternative ISP but as service continues to deteriorate, that becomes a little easier. Meanwhile, neither the county nor the state offers more than lip service and “thoughts and prayers," if that, as we pay for service not rendered.

Ursula K Le Guin's speech at National Book Awards

Along the lines of enhanced accountability, the Minnesota Reformer has published a commentary that I wish I’d written. Take a look at: I do not want to vote for the Metropolitan Council     Will someone, somewhere, just once, be accountable for something, even a little?

I think I’d be less frustrated if I didn’t feel caught between Auden and Le Guin. The former noted ‘Poetry Makes Nothing Happen’ and the latter’s assessment is captured in the photo above. Can each of them be right at the same time? How? Perhaps the treasure below by Le Guin helps answer that question.

Dear Reader,

Most dragons don’t know how to read. They hiss and fume and guard their hoard. A tasty knight is what they need
For dinner (they spit out the sword),
Then go to sleep on heaps of treasure. They’ve no use for the written word.
But I learned early to take pleasure
In reading tales and poetry,
And soon I knew that I preferred
Reading a book to fighting knights.
I lived on apple pie and tea,
Which a kind lady made for me,
And all my days and half my nights
Were spent in reading story-books,
A life more thrilling than it looks.
Now that I’m old and cannot see
To read, the lady’s youngest child
Comes every day to read to me,
A cheerful child named Valentine.
We’re both as happy as can be
Among the treasures I have piled
In heaps around my apple tree.
No other dragon watches curled
Around such riches as are mine,
My Word-hoard, my dear Library:
For every book contains a world!

       Yours truly,
       Bedraug (Smaug’s Second Cousin Once Removed)