POETIC REDISCOVERY

 Back in my university days I was fascinated with the style of Haiku poetry. Even tried my hand a time or two. I came up on a single leaf  that appeared to be frozen in the mid air over the bike path. It was hanging by a single thread of spider silk. It was a windless, cloudy Novenmber day. It was just hanging there. Wish I could remember because Haiku are very much of the moment and that moment was a lifetime ago.

Picked up a daily reader of one Haiku per day through the year. Glad I picked the kindle edition because this isn't just one poem a day. It's one poem per page. Oh well. Anyway I started reading and the next thing I knew I was rewriting the blessed thing. 

Book's haiku

Snowy woodland stream

Outer banks encased in ice

Center swift and mean

 

My haiku

Dark snowy branches

Hanging over icy stream

Between frozen banks

IMHO or not humble. The first one says too much. The traditional poems I’ve read imply more than they say. It’s cold enough for snow and ice. If the stream isn’t frozen it’s because it’s moving too fast. I just started the book, a haiku a day sort of meditation. Hate to say it, but these folks probably spend most of their time in the city.

My physical world may be smaller now but I have a lifetime of memories. Pacific beaches (this part of the country we go to the coast not the beach because you never know what you’ll find when you get there), the little valley where I grew up, mountains, waterfalls, the best.

I do wish that changing the formatting,  or trying to, was more forgiving

I'M HOME

 Had a semi mind blowing moment of clariity this afternoon.  Obviously I knew this. In the front of my brain so to speak. I was reading, looked up and it hit me. It was a short reading that ended with Jesus offering to take the reader "home." That was the blast. We are home. You, me, the maple tree in the courtyard, the courtyard, that barn on the other side of the block across the street, the birds  diving through that maple, are made of star stuff created when stars went super nova and hydrogen mostly born when the universe was created. 

Currently there are questions about whether it was a Big Bang or an event astronomers haven't been able to describe yet. It's less than a century since scientists began to find evidence they believed aswered those questions we've been asking for generations. Where did everything come from" 

I've often wondered how we would look if we could see those around us glowing as the atomic level. I looked out the window and it hit me. What if we could see everything around us down to the smallest earthworm or sparrow glowing, sparkling and realize that there really is no difference. That as much as I miss the valley where I grew up, lived most of my life; I'm just in another room, I'm home. 

Absolutely beautiful image lifted from Spritual Ecology on Facebook. They also have a website. Be careful you could become lost in the eye gazing out inviting you to dive in. 

We are made from starstuff. The atoms that built the earth were cooked in the gases of an exploding supernova.

Just think about it. Before you were you, you were a star. What built you also built the tree across the street, the trout in the stream, the mountains half a world away, the moon, the rest of the planets and just maybe a star that's half way across the galaxy from us.

When the Irish poet Amergin made his boast; when he said he'd been a salmon, a stag, a wild boar he spoke more truth than he realized.

If you want to know what the building blocks of a star look like just g look in the mirror.

It also means that the homeless guy down the street has the universe in him too. That the undocumented immigrant in the the desert has the universe in them too. It also means that your crazy conspiracy spouting uncle is made of the same star stuff. Or whaever friend or relative that's no longer on that list of cards to be sent. What a world it would be if we looked at everyone and everything around us with the same wonder we give a full moon or the most beautiful waterfall we've ever seen.

WHERE I'M FROM

 Did this a few years ago. Along the line I discovered that Kaiser was actually spelled Kisor. All I can find out is that he was from Vermont. And got a message over ancestry from a lady who was familiar with his wife. Dexter Kisor was her relative's second husband and there was no information from her family about him. Total blank.  The Meyers line is solidly German. Arrived in the early seventeen hundreds from the Hanovarian lands brought into the Stuarts when Princess Elizabeth,daughter of Charles I. married the Elector of Palatine and that is a whole 'nother story as the saying goes. The daughter of James II either had no children or children who died well before adulthood. Exiled James II had a son, finally, but a snowball had a better chance of surviving in hell than a Catholic had of becoming king of England. 

Managed to trace a couple of lines to the late fourteen hundreds.Which means that they managed to survie the Protestant Reformation, the Peasant's Revolt, the Thirty Years War and various plagues and famines before emmigrating to the colonies and settled in Pennsylvania. 

There is information that William Penn sent Quaker followers into Germany to recruit Pietist Pretestants to settle in the new colony of Pennsylvania. Not Quakers but with similar beliefs. 

I’m a native Oregonian; a state that has the lowest per capita church attendance in the country. It doesn’t mean we aren’t religious or followers of the spirit. It does mean that we’re hard to pin down when it comes wearing a label. And to be honest all of us, including the remaining Native Americans came here from somewhere else. Some of us just happen to have more family members resting in pioneer cemeteries around the state than others. Me? I’ve got three generations and various cousins planted in a lovely cemetery on the north side of Chehalem mountain above the other side of Newburg. It's also one of the few pioneer cemetary that was planned large enough that it's still in use and well maintained. 

My genes are solidly northern European. Supposedly there’s a Cherokee in my dad’s family tree but I don’t have any proof so that’s a thread in my family tapestry that would be fun to claim but I can’t prove it. (shrug) There’s one German great grandfather; with a name like Kaiser I think I’m safe to assume he was German, not Dutch. The rest is Scots, Irish, English and Welsh. And heck, for all I know there could be a Roman or two in the family tapestry if I went back far enough. Hell, for all I know there was a British trader or two over the years who made it to Goddess knows where and left a calling card or two behind.

My dad’s family name comes out of Yorkshire in England and Vikings settled there in what became the Kingdom of York as well as Ireland so there some Scandinavian sea farers adding a thread to the tapestry. Near as I can discover the original Heaton ancestor was probably a Norman. A man at arms possibly who was in the service somebody and ended up in Yorkshire. For the next five hundred years or so. Have you ever wished you could invite your DNA over for tea, muffins and a good long sit down?

Anyway I originally did this back in my early J Land career. I got it from another writer who has since dropped off the radar. The original template was designed as a stream of consciousness exercise. And Russ was right. You do end up where you didn’t expect to. For the non-Nothwesterners out there; the Hanford reach includes a free flowing section of the Columbia river and the Hanford reactor complex. One of these days the leftover radioactive contamination will probably reach the river and we’ll all start glowing in the dark. Since I originally wrote this I learned that Hanford's reactors provided the Plutonium for those lovely so far never used nuclear weapons. 

As for the Umatilla arms depot? They used to store nerve gas there. That wasn’t so bad. The stuff doesn’t go anywhere unless you combine the two ingrediants and blow it up. So, some geniuses in the Reagan administration decided to make the stuff “war ready’ and installed rocket that would do just that. The government built a very nice, state of the art incinerator to deal with the little darlings. And they finally did. Then nerve gasses were brought in from other bases to be disposed of in Oregon. So, guess whose little sister lives smack, dab in the middle that little piece of God’s little acre? North of the arms depot and south oth the Hanford Reach. So far they aren’t glowing in the dark.

WHERE I'M FROM

I am from Douglas fir, hemlock, spruce and cedar.

I am from the Cascades, the Blues, the Siskiyous, and the Wallowas.

(Also turns out that these days I'm sitting on about a mile of lava spewed out from cracks in the land over about two million years. Some of the flows made it all the way to Pacific Coast.)

I am from clear cuts, choker cables, riggers and log trucks with one log loads.

I am from sandy beaches, basalt cliffs and mudflats.

I am from wild geese calling at sunrise, wrens in the thickets, and great blue herons on the other side of the river.

I am from the little creeks, the mighty Columbia and the Pacific breakers.

I am from tricycles, tetherballs, little sisters with skinned knees and a love for bugs.

I am from the ivy by the patio, the hydrangeas with dinner plate size clumps of blossoms and the garden in the back yard.

I am from a wringer washer, a concrete laundry sink and clothes full of the smell of sunshine.

I am from missionaries, Methodist hymnals, Quakers and fairy rings.

I am from winter gales, spring showers, sunny summer days and autumn fogs and winter frosts.

I am from a little valley in the Cascade foothills, the Hanford Reach, the Umatilla Arms depot, and the Columbia Gorge where condors may soar again.

I am from logging towns with no mills, harbors with no fish, and farms being swallowed by urban sprawl.

I am from shelves full of books, an old flute and feeling out of step on the march to wherever.

I am from feeling like I’m on the outside looking in.

I am from seeing what no one else sees to see.

I am from hearing what no one else seems to hear.

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Russ you were right I did not expect to end up here. \

And if you’ve reached the final lines of the exercise this may be why you’ll find me out hugging the local oak trees these days.

AMAZING GRACE-ALMOST

 As often happens I was looking for something else and ran across this. There are times when I find myself  thinking "do You really mean that the spirit of God/dess (never know) is truely in THAT person? Feel free to fill in the blanks about WHO that person or persons might be. To be honest that is probably one of my biggest possible stumbling blocks and will require the most work. 

Once upon a time I did a journal entry about Moses coming down off Mount Sinai, stone tablets securely tucked under his arm. More to the point I imagined what happened in the first thirty seconds or so after he finished letting the Hebrews in on the Word from on high. Firstnce beginning with “what exactly to you mean by,” followed by the commandment(s) of your choice. T there would be silence, I imagined. Then everybody would be talking at once. Every sentehe gist of the matter being “what I’m planning on doing, or would really like to do, or wish I could do isn’t really covered by…..again the commandment of your choice…..is it?

Ok, intro over. Back in the 1700’s West Indian sugar and all that went with it was oil, high tech and sub-prime mortgages all rolled into one for the English economy. Slave grown and processed sugar fueled the triangle trade. By the late 1700’s the infant abolition movement in England found a public voice. It belonged to William Wilberforce. Member of Parliament from Yorkshire, he spent twenty years trying to get a bill through parliament abolishing the slave trade. It’s the story behind the film, Amazing Grace. He was the voice for the hundreds, if not thousands of men and women who worked to end the trade in human souls. (frankly if I used all the adjectives I'd like to use I'd run out of space, abomination is the kindest)

Is the film totally accurate? Probably not. Did the film take liberties with history? Probably. Was I totally blown away at the end? Yeah. Would I have wanted to ask the man to dinner? I’m not sure. Abolition, free education, decent treatment for animals, efforts to end prostitution; the man was never still. Dinner would not have been boring. A profoundly devout Evangelical Christian, he was influenced by John Newton. The same John Newton who finally traded the slave trade for a pulpit and along the line helped write the hymn that gives the film its name.

But, it’s not the movie so much that I’m writing about at that damnable “surely you don’t mean” gene that human beings seem to have. The western European run slave trade was financed, manned and benefitted people who described themselves as Christians. Most of them saw themselves as good, honorable men and women. 

There are two Creation stories in Genesis. In the first, God Created human beings in His image. In the second, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

And “but surely” rears its ugly, hydra headed, monstrous body. We hear it in the modern Neo Nazi movement. We're confronted with it every single, bloody, shit not again day.

The…….fill in the group of your choice that doesn’t look like me, talk like me, eat what I like, dress like me, love like me, or most important of all believe like me can’t have that divine spark can it? Surely this isn’t the image of God. Surely you can’t mean that I should treat somebody like THAT as if God had come down to walk among us, can you?

WELL, WHY THE BLOODY HELL NOT?

THE UNIVERSE DOESN'T COME WITH A REWIND BUTTON

To Vivek Ramaswamy who has stated that if he is elected he would ask Elon Musk to be in his administration because "he laid off three quarters of the Twitter work force." Ol' buddy, ol' pal just how long would you last if three fourths of the peons who make you life so comfortable decided not to show up for a a month or so. Ever get the feeling some of these wanna be politicians would put most of us in stasis and only wake us up to vote? Of course at that point they wouldn't neeD us anymore.

Caught a film titled Parkland this weekend. Movie is based on Four Weeks in November by Vincent Bugliosi. A minute by minute, hour by hour history of the murder of JFK. Parkland is the name of the hospital where Kennedy was taken after the shooting.

Which sent me back to a morning in eigth grade home room when Jack Carter, the vice principle, came in without a word, gave a note to Mrs Redmond. That's how the kids in a a logging town in the Cascade foothills of Oregon learned that the president was dead. For four days the country almost ground to a halt. There was literally nothing else on the tube. Sunday his assassin was murdered on live TV. 

Civil rights entered a new era, Politics entered a new era. Over the next five years Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Bob Kennedy. Damn. Viet Nam heated up.Johnson had to choose between  guns and butter and chose guns. He didn't resig but he did choose to step aside. Took almost as much courage ias marching in that walk from the Capital to the church where the funeral mass was celebrated. Johnson told the secret service agants that "he didn't deserve to be president if he was afraid to go out where the American people could see him."

 Southern Democrats became Rebulicans. Watergate, innder cites on fire, riots on e campuses, Kent State. Nixon. Oh Lord, Tricky Dick. First president to resign from office for lying about the attempt to steal an election he was going to win anyway. 

Jump ahead to the Reagan years when the US chose to support tin pot dictators who were murdering their eir own people/ The excuse. The fight against communist subversion. And that hoary old accusation just won't go away even though the talking heads hurling the insult probably couldn't define communism if you asked them to.

Heck no generation has avoided the bad going on terrible times. But, it wasn't until the fifties and sixties that using police dogs on kids demonstrating for civil rights, jungle wars and murdered presidents, cvil rights leaders and senators were on on national television. Revolution, the decades leading up to the civil war, the civil war, bank failures, three presidentiala assassintaed, First world war, farmers losing their farms, the crash, depression, the dust bowl. another war. And. So. On. Heck reading this litany you'd find yourself believing that was all that was going on. There were a lot of good times. The country got through it and probably will again. 

One really big difference. Now the nut jobs that never got past the end of the bar or the low power local FM stations have a world wide audience. And the semi not crazy rest of us are still trying to catch up. 

Well this grew like Topsy. Sort of went all over the place. Got some some stuff I'd been thinking about for a long time off my chest. For what all that's worth. Sometimes I find myself believing that the day in Dallas was where step by step is how we ended up here looking backat all those forks in the road knowing that there are no do overs in this universe. Or crystal balls. 

RAISE ANOTHER GLASS

 This is the original companian piece to the last entry. Anyone else believe that we need more EMT'S, caregivers, cooks, truck drivers, and all the other folks that keep the country lurching along and few MBA'S  and so called financial planners. I love all those commercials touting this investment or that one and apparently assuming that nothing bad, like the great recession of 2008, is going to happen in their future. Without further ado, the first responders edition. 

I totally forgot about the police, fire fighters and EMT's when I wrote yesterday's post. I'm a fan of Blue Bloods and a first season episode pegged rookie Jamie Reagans's pay at under $47.000. Subtract the standard deduction and I guess Jamie isn't "pulling his weight." Even though like most other cops he's basically on call 24/7.

Big brother is a detective and their average salary is in the upper eighty grand neighborhood. Which is probably why the wife went back to work as an ER nurse. Still I'm betting their combined salaries don't put them in the $42,000 tax bracket. With two kids I guess they "aren't pulling their weight" either. Even though one of them is periodically risking his life and the other is trying to save the lives of ungrateful asshats like OldMan. 

I suspect that firefighters and EMT's probably pull down similar wages to run towards events that the rest of us run AWAY from. And remember that seventy one cops and over three hundred fire fighters died when the towers collapsed on 9/11. 

So Mr or Ms I pay eighty grand in taxes just what does it take for the folks who risk their necks to save your life and property to "pull their weight," If you're telling the truth about you taxes you are a sorry excuse for a human being. If you're putting out talking points to echo Romney's forty seven percent you are still a sorry excuse for a human being, 

RAISE A GLASS

to all the unseen and often ignored folks who actually keep this country running. When the power goes out who to do you call? A financial planner or an electrician?  If your car breaks down who to you call? A tow truck or a financial planner? Who do you think is going to haul coal to that power plant or build the solar panels? Someone who knows how to drive or build it right or a certain billianaire who is running his company into the ground?

 Nicked this sho tfrom Lisa over at Coming to Terms. Link over in the sidebar. Seeing as how this is Labor Day Weekend. Love (not) this individial's claim that the taxpayer needs twelve thousand bucks for every member of the family. Even the baby who was just born. Without all those little folks mister I'm paying your way probably wouldn't be paying that eighty grand in taxes. 

Some folks can't seem to think past the ends` of their noses.

“If you don't pay at least $12,000 a year in Federal Taxes, you aren't even paying your own way! And less than $2,000 of that is for welfare. So if you have 2 children and a wife, you need to be paying $48,000 a year in Federal Taxes, just to be paying YOUR OWN WAY!

So for all you Party Of Stupid (POS) Whiners...You're welcome! I pay almost $80,000 a year, so I'm paying your way too! 

Unless you are in the 5%, you should stop whining, as it makes you look like an entitlement baby!”

Ran across this charming bit of philosophy on the net yesterday. Frankly I don't know if this person really pays $80.000 a year in taxes or if this is the opening salvo in this election cycles's version of Mitt Romney's “47 percent.” Anyway I decided to have a little fun. 

After spending some time with the IRS tax tables you'd have to be pulling down about sixty grand a year to owe about $12,000 in taxes. And then to have this sorry excuse for human being tell us that if you have a family you should be paying a hell of a lot more. How many average Joe's do you know who make close to two hundred thousand a year?

Anyway that got me thinking. In my scenario this person lives in a big city, say New York or Boston, has a nice apartment and their very own parking space.  Perhaps this is how a  couple of weeks might play out if the little folks who really keep the country going just don't show up.

You're getting ready for work, your housekeeper is due in today. She calls in sick, doesn't know when she'll be in. You usually stop at the local deli for breakfast. It's closed. The owner, the cook and the person who runs the register haven't shown up. Hungry, you head for the office. The doorman is missing. The guy/gal at the front desk is missing. You get to your office. No receptionist, no office assistant. Your computer is wonky. No techies available. The phone is ringing off the hook and you have to answer it yourself. Too bad.

Time to head home. The engine sounds a little rough so you swing by your favorite garage. Nobody there. Guess you'll have to take a cab tomorrow. You get home to your grubby apartment and fix dinner (I'm assuming this doofus is single) cupboards are starting to look a little scant. Better swing by the neighborhood bodega in the next couple of days,

The engine may be running rough but you still have to get to work. The streets are strangely quiet. No cabs, no buses and almost no subways. Nobody to drive them. Ignoring the chattering engine you discover that the situation at the office is the same as yesterday. Recalling the state of the larder you head out a little early via the bodega. It's closed. Not even the owner is in sight. Did you really think that guy or gal made that much money a year?

Your favorite place for dinner is closed. No cooks, bartenders, wait staff or bussers. They sure as hell don't make that kind of money. Hell, tipped staff often don't even make federal minimum wage. The engine may still be missing but tomorrow is Saturday; a good time to head for a real grocery store. Unfortunately the shelves are looking bare. There haven't been any grocery deliveries for three days and most of the stockers, checkers and deli staff appear to have also disappeared into the unknown.

You manage a loaf bread that's a little stale, some lunch meat that hasn't hit the expiration date, some wilted vegetables and some canned goods. To make life even more interesting your gas tank is below half full. The gas station is open but you can't get all you need because there haven't been any fuel deliveries for several days and the manager is trying to stretch supplies. Between explanations he/she is manning the cash register. Don't bother to go searching for another station. They're in the same straights.

You manage to get through the weekend. Comes Monday, oh did I mention it's July and there's a heatwave, and your neighborhood is beginning to smell a little “ripe.” The trash haulers are AWOL, too.

First of the week and no improvement. When you stagger into your apartment that evening the lights are flickering. Turns out your power comes from a coal fired plant and they haven't gotten any deliveries for more than a week. By midweek your apartment is a mess. You're being hit with rolling blackouts and “please don't use the AC” because we don't know when the coal is coming in. As the lights go out again you find yourself wondering if living near a nuclear power plant would be a good or a bad situation.

So Mr. or Ms. (I'm assuming it's a guy since the sign in was OldMan) I pay $80.000 in taxes you've just been brought to your knees because all the peons you dissed in your comment just disappeared a la A Day Without a Mexican. Without all those little people cleaning houses, manning the cash registers, stocking the shelves, waiting tables, delivering the food or gas and picking up the garbage your comfortable life grinds to a halt. It just might be a good idea to show a little respect now and then.

Think about it.