Time for rebirth

The snow cover is leaving, again. This time perhaps until the start oof next winter. We’ll see. It’s about time, since sandhill cranes should arrive soon. Signs of open water have appeared on the creek north of the property. The Sunrise river has been at least partly open for more than a week now. Perhaps the rebirth of nature will help trigger a similar rebirth of sanity and what passed for democracy for US. The continued and increasing insanity emanating from Washington, D.C. and Mar-a-Lardo has put me in a deep funk. I may have done better anticipating the outcome of last November’s election if I had kept in mind H.L. Mencken’s all too true observation: “No one in this world, so far as I know... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.” I doubt we’ll accomplish much to increase their intelligence by banning books, words, or ideas but that won’t stop kakistocrats from trying.

ice and snow melts, open water flows

Photo by J. Harrington

I continue to hope that what we’re experiencing will turn into a non-fatal wake up call that facilitates a societal, economic and cultural transformation for US. Money has become too dominant a measure of success in life. I continue to look toward (the original) Robert F. Kennedy’s assessment:

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

Perhaps the current malaise among Democrats could be eased, even erased, if they read, contemplated, and responded to Kennedy's entire speech from which the extract above was derived. Some of US are reaching a point at which we are no longer “proud that we are Americans.”

Rebecca Solnit has written about “Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities.” For any who ever claimed democracy was easy, they probably changed their mind when they discovered the barbarians inside the gates. We can do better. We have done better. We will do better. We must. It’s imperative for US to share why we are proud too be Americans as we work together to fulfill the promises embodied in our Declaration of Independence as we recognize our interdependence on each other and the air, water, soil and habitats on which we are totally dependent.

Narcissus

Patricia Hooper

Near the path through the woods I’ve seen it:
a trail of white candles.

I could find it again, I could follow
its light deep into shadows.

Didn’t I stand there once? 
Didn’t I choose to go back

down the cleared path, the familiar?
Narcissus, you said. Wasn’t this

the flower whose sudden enchantments
led Persephone down into Hades?

You remember the way she was changed
when she came every spring, having seen

the withering branches, the chasms,
and how she had to return there

helplessly, having eaten
the seed of desire. What was it

I saw you were offering me
without meaning to, there in the sunlight,

while the flowers beckoned and shone
in their flickering season?

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