This weekend, do you know where your memories are?

It's Memorial Day Weekend. The remembrance boards for my father and father-in-law are hung. Today is also Bob Dylan's 85th birthday. Here's a link to his Nobel Prize section. Dylan was highly motivated by the works of Woody Guthrie, who was noted for being, among other things, strongly anti fascist, for example, in this song he wrote: Tear the Fascists Down. I started to fuss about "where's our Woody Guthrie?" when I remembered the recent work of Bruce Springsteen: Streets of Minneapolis... not precisely on target, but close enough to satisfy me and shut down my fussing.

In memory of my father and father-in law

Photo by J. Harrington

As I think about it, these days we're still fighting much the same battles, against the same kinds of ideologies and idiots, that Guthrie and Dylan were singing about and my father and father-in-law fought against in WW II; and the North fought the South about in our "Civil War." Pete Seeger has observed the dismaying circularity of these battles in his hauntingly beautiful Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

I grew up during the Cold War period when "duck and cover" was supposed to protect US school kids from nuclear blasts. These days, in this country, we lose more kids to mass shootings than we've lost to nuclear weapons, at least as of the moment I'm writing this. If so many of US want to return to an era past, perhaps we could consider returning to the days of Lyndon B. Johnson and the Great Society. In fact, such an effort might even help unite the Democratic Party and provide respite to a perpetual rehash of what went wrong during 2024, demonstrating for the rest of US that, indeed, some wars don't have to be fought.

Masters of War

Written by: Bob Dylan

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I’m young
You might say I’m unlearned
But there’s one thing I know
Though I’m younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
’Til I’m sure that you’re dead          

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

Sliding toward Summer

Today is the last day of this Minnesota legislative session. The evening weather forecast for today is full of thunderstorms. Some of us don't think that's coincidental. Democrats have a one vote edge in the senate and the house is evenly split with a Republican speaker. Will we ever grow up enough to elect those who believe solving problems is more important than win-lose? Should we only vote for those with knowledge about Multi-solving?

One of my long-time favorite authors has a (relatively) new book. Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass and The Serviceberry, has written Bud Finds Her Gift. I'm planning on sharing it with our five year old granddaughter soon. Meanwhile, Ive been enjoying it myself. (Evidence I'm just an aged kid? Perhaps!)

Large-flowered Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

Locally the trees are mostly leafed out with few bare branches visible. Lilac buds have developed on our bushes. It's about time to look for trillium in bloom. The rain we're supposed to get over the next several days should help bring some additional flowers into bloom but may make planting season messy and muddy for farmers in the area.

Yesterday, I baked a round loaf of sourdough bread full of blueberry jammies. The jammies turned the dough into a slippery, sticky mess, perhaps aided and abetted by suboptimal starter. The crust is darker than I like and the crumb more moist than I prefer. The bread is edible but I need to work on my technique. I'm not baking regularly enough to stay in shape; actually, to keep my loaves in shape. Time to adopt Samuel Beckett's perspective: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."

For the Children

by Gary Snyder

The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us,
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.

In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.

To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:

stay together
learn the flowers
go light

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Happy Mother's Day

May all Mothers and families enjoy a peaceful day full of warm memories. May we all wish for many happy returns of the day. May this May avoid any more Maydays of the alarming type.

female bluebird perched on bare branch

Photo by J. Harrington

Over the past few days we've approached full leaf out on most of the area's trees. Rose-breasted grosbeaks, a male Baltimore oriole, and some kind of hummingbird have arrived at the feeders. A bluebird was flitting around the back yard yesterday. The two serviceberry bushes planted last Summer in the field behind the house are in bloom, as is the pear tree. Pocket gophers are creating an unacceptable number of mounds. We'll plan on using a drag harrow on the field next week and then set traps if fresh mounds show up.

Local roadsides and woods are showing more trees and bushes with white flowers than I ever recall seeing. The Better Half suggests concurrent blooming, rather than being spread over several week makes it seem like there's more flowering. Could our anomalous weather pattern roller coaster temperatures account for the compression?

Farmers have many of the local fields prepared for planting. We're holding off on hanging baskets and planting some annuals until frost advisories drop out of weather forecasts. Maybe another week or ten days will do it. All in all this Spring is shaping up to be about as good as this season usually gets hhere in the North Country. It is a noteworthy improvement over the preceding season and mostly avoids the humidity that's no doubt coming.

The Raincoat

Ada Limón
1976 –

When the doctor suggested surgery
and a brace for all my youngest years,
my parents scrambled to take me
to massage therapy, deep tissue work,
osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine
unspooled a bit, I could breathe again,
and move more in a body unclouded
by pain. My mom would tell me to sing
songs to her the whole forty-five minute
drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-
five minutes back from physical therapy.
She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,
because I thought she liked it. I never
asked her what she gave up to drive me,
or how her day was before this chore. Today,
at her age, I was driving myself home from yet
another spine appointment, singing along
to some maudlin but solid song on the radio,
and I saw a mom take her raincoat off
and give it to her young daughter when
a storm took over the afternoon. My god,
I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her
raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel
that I never got wet.

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

May the Fourth be with you this week! (couldn't resist)

Wild plum and other bushes are in flower. Some farmers have begun field preparation for this growing season. Trees are in various phases of leaf out. We enjoyed a small ceremonial fire to celebrate Beltane last Friday. Dandelions are in bloom everywhere. Pocket gopher activity is obvious in the field behind the house. Deer are shedding their winter coats. Marsh marigolds, which some call cowslips, are blooming. Even though we had a couple of overnight freezes this week past, Spring is peaking as we watch. You are watching, aren't you?

marsh marigolds in bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

The next time we post here it will be Mother's Day. We've managed to get organized early this year so we''re hoping to avoid, or at least minimize, last minute panics. We'll see how the count down to and the holiday herself play out. Meanwhile, we hope all Moms everywhere (actual and surrogate) feel loved and appreciated every day.

The Minnesota Legislature is in its final weeks for this session. They look as if they'll be about as productive and useful as Congress. How do we find ways to elect politicians who are more committed to solving problems than to scoring political points. Perhaps we could be better represented if more folks knew about the Center for Effective Lawmaking it could be a start. We're rapidly reaching a stage where a majority party spends most of its efforts trying to undo what was done to them when they were in the minority. That doesn't help most of US most of the time.

As we approach Mother's Day this year, let's think about the Seventh Generation principle and look for ways to make mothers proud of US and our descendants.

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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Please be kind to each other while you can.