We Must Risk Delight.

Poetry
Oct 7, 2022
4 Comments

Two weeks ago I spent an afternoon at a gray, empty beach. Associations to the metaphoric bleakness of the world at large were hard to avoid. Nor was the thought about how perceptually the world seems increasingly gray, compared to what it once was.

Just look at cars. So many more are white and gray now. (Understandably, given that white cars are cheaper than the rest, since they don’t charge for that coat of laquer otherwise added.)

Or look at interior design. Neutral colors, shades of beige and gray, dominate the domain, with gray carpets being preferred over every other hue. 2023 color of the year for walls prediction, for example, is something called Blank Canvas, to be combined with the shades below.

It is the successor to the 2022 winner Evergreen Fog, a subtle greenish-gray hue which was supposed to be paired with this:

And before you worry, “Oh no, another lament coming up,” rest easy – it’s going to end on a positive note! Hah!

Some of the most soothing houses I know have a gray-scale palette and look smashing. Today is not about judging color taste, it’s about documenting change across time – and wondering why we don’t select strong saturated colors to combat am increasingly bleak world, instead of nesting in neutrals, as calming as they are supposed to be.

Some people have looked at the ways colors are distributed across time, from a scientific perspective. Here are data from an analysis of objects from the British Science Museum Group Collection, searching objects and archives from the Science Museum, Science and Industry Museum, National Science and Media Museum, National Railway Museum and Locomotion.

(As a basis for comparison I added the template below.)

7000 photographs of objects across 21 categories were computer analyzed for shapes, color and texture. The most common color found? Dark charcoal gray. Here is a graph of how colors have changed over time. The most notable trend is the rise in gray over time (just look at the upper right corner.)

Part of that has to do with the materials used. Wood, early on, obviously provided reds, browns and beiges. Metal and plastic, now prevalent, tend toward black and grey. Earlier materials also had a tendency to decay, and attempts to prevent that led to interesting colors. Gold pocket watches, for example, had screws that tended to rust. A procedure called “blueing screws”, basically heating them up, stopped the decay and added a blue tinge to the screws/watches.

There is hope, though. Fashion’s darlings black or charcoal gray and white are predicted to be replaced this fall by this:

Of course, there is always a fall-back option for the less daring….

And then there is this – I guess we can delight in platypus-type boots replacing high heels. The short videoclip is strangely amusing.

Let’s return to my beach perceptions, though. Before giving in to the desolate notion of a washed out world, I reminded myself of Jack Gilbert’s call (bolded by me in the relevant stanza below.) We must risk delight. Can’t go on with just wailing. So I directed the camera at every speck of color found or provided, grateful to nature (and my sneakers) that they came through for me, once again.

A Brief for the Defense

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.

We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.

If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

by Jack Gilbert

from Refusing Heaven ( 2005)

And here is another message to the soul – in E major!

L’Shana Tova (5783)

Poetry
Sep 26, 2022
5 Comments

Friderike Heuer The Cook and Pomegranates (From the Series Tied to the Moon – 2018)

The birthday of the world

BY MARGE PIERCY

I begin to contemplate
what I have done and
left undone, but this year
not so much rebuilding

of my perennially damaged psyche, shoring up eroding
friendships, digging out
stumps of old resentments
that refuse to rot on their own.

No, this year I want to call
myself to task for what
I have done and not done
for peace. How much have
I dared in opposition?

How much have I put
on the line for freedom?
For mine and others?
As these freedoms are pared,
sliced and diced, where

have I spoken out? Who
have I tried to move? In
this holy season, I stand
self-convicted of sloth
in a time when lies choke
the mind and rhetoric
bends reason to slithering
choking pythons. Here
I stand before the gates
opening, the fire dazzling

my eyes, and as I approach
what judges me, I judge
myself. Give me weapons
of minute destruction. Let
my words turn into sparks.

Marge Piercy, “The Birthday of the World” from The Crooked Inheritance.

***

Sparks they shall be, my words as well. May 5783 bring more justice and peace, and more acceptance of scientific data regulating pandemics…rationality, in other words. A Happy New Year to all who celebrate.

Unexpected Wonders

Walk with me. I’m systematically doing the rounds of all my special places that will close certain hiking loops after September 30th, to protect migrating birds. Wednesday I was at Tualatin River National Wildlife Refugee.

Fall already visible in the colors. Oaks turning red, yellow poplar leaves dropping, ponds green with duck grits, the whole landscape begging for water colors. Henk Pander, Erik Sandgren, where are you when we need you?

I had come expecting a few straggling flowers and was not disappointed. You have to imagine them bathed in strong smells of wild Thyme, Camomile and something quite sour, hinting at fall.

The usual suspects were still hanging out or taking off for a spin:

Cedar waxwings were stocking up in the Hawthorne,

And then there was this guy, out of the blue, having me stop in my tracks. An adult male harrier, otherwise known as a “gray ghost”, my learned neighbor told me when I asked for help with identification.

You know how during fire works they wait until the end for one final mega explosion? I felt that nature was celebrating the end of summer with a similar display – the pelicans flew over my head, landed in the water, circled and then spread out. Likely on their way down south. Just a stunning sight, and auditory experience, with their wings flapping so close to me.

Anyone with a tendency to anthropomorphize would swear he was grinning at me…

And yesterday off US Hwy 30, some mix and match of the traveling parties, ibises looking on :

The muskrat decided to get out of the way fast, camouflage and all.

Squirrel, on the other hand, was unperturbed, just watching the pelican show while nibbling.

I felt reminded by nature – and in turn want to remind the many people who are dear to me and having a rough time right now – that we aren’t done yet! Change is in the air.

Music is about the Equinox (9/22/2022,) the mood fit.

Delaying in the Dahlias

Art, Poetry
Sep 19, 2022
1 Comments

The only reason that you luck out with all these busy bee (or other insect) photos today is that I needed to counterbalance an account of an anything-but-busy writing routine that I – surprise! – found quite familiar.

This from Brian Bilston, the unofficial poet laureate of the Twitterverse, in an interview with Suffolk (UK) Libraries:

A typical day consists of the following:

7.30 - 9.30               Embrace the art of equivocation

9.30 - 11.00             Read a book on procrastination

11.00 - 11.30           Look up 'avoidance' in the dictionary

11.30 - 12.30           Dawdle, dither, delay continually

12.30                         Break for lunch

1.30 - 2.30               Ponder the intrinsic nature of work

2.30 - 3.30               Re-prioritise some tasks to shirk

3.30 - 4.30               Hem and haw, chew my jaw, lurch and wallow

4.30 - 5.00               Write new To Do list for tomorrow

All the insects were found in dahlias. These are showy flowers in general, and have been favorites for painters for centuries, most often bundled in huge, colorful bouquets. Although there are innumerable new varieties, the basic types and colors can still be found 100s of years later, as the photographs attest.

Some like it daintier (I can relate, but am torn – these flowers lend themselves to bunching.)

Piet Mondrian *Dahlia* – circa 1920-1925

Eugene Delacroix *Still Life with Dahlias, Zinnias, Hollyhocks and Plums*, 1835

Paul Gauguin *Dahlias in a Copper Vase* 1885

Emil Nolde *Rote und gelbe Dahlien*, Undated watercolor

Henri Rousseau *Dahlia and Daisies in a Vase 1904*

And the most recent one from local master Henk Pander:

Henk Pander *Still life with Dahlias 2022*

And one of my all time favorites:

Theo van Rysselberghe *Dahlias (to Mme Madeleine E.R Bonnet*) 1912

Here are some of the ones that caught my eye independent of remembered paintings, again on the daintier side.

All the dahlia photographs shown here were taken during a visit to the Swan Island Dahlia farm near Canby, OR, some weeks ago. The fields are open until the end of September – it is really worth a trip if you don’t go on a weekend, about 30 minutes from Portland.

Here is some pensive music for the fall garden.

There is always beauty to be found.

“Ich will auch im Elend noch die Schönheit finden, denn die Schönheit ist es, die den Menschen Würde gibt. Es gibt immer Schönheit, immer.” – photographer Pierrot Men

(“I want to find beauty even in adversity, since it is beauty that confers dignity to human beings. There is always beauty, always.”)

Pierrot Men has been photographing in Madagascar for decades, and does indeed convey human strength in the depths of misery. I don’t necessarily agree with the first part of Men’s claim, however, since I believe dignity is completely independent of beauty, particularly since beauty is often defined within the context of a time or place. But I do believe it to be true that you can always find beauty.

I saw it when looking at the tree stumps exposed by drought-drained Detroit Lake, their skeletal forms so long submerged under water after the 1952 erection of the Detroit Dam along the North Santiam River in Oregon.

They were bleached to the shades of the surrounding earth, only the shadows from a glaring sun providing some 3-D information at times. But here and there some color popped, little signals of the life once held, not all completely calcified.

Beauty not linked to dignity. But beauty helping me to feel hopeful, which in turn helps to hold out.

As Octavia E. Butler said in the Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, # 1):

“That’s all anybody can do right now. Live. Hold out. Survive. I don’t know whether good times are coming back again. But I know that won’t matter if we don’t survive these times.”

Holding out is also helped by poetry, particularly the sarcastically funny, metaphorically subtle poetry of one of Great Britain’s surrealist poets of the 1930s, Hugh Sykes Davies. Quite the character, as you can read for yourself if you click the link on his name. (It brings you to a long but exceedingly witty biographic sketch.)

A founding member of the London Surrealist Group, he was a man driven by boredom, risk-seeking, strong politics and opinions, always at the periphery of the many groups he temporarily attached to. Friend, then not, to Anthony Blunt, C.S. Lewis, C.P. Snow, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Salvador Dali and T.S. Eliot, among others. Married 5 times, with an equal number of bitter divorces.

Here is a poem from 1936, time of rising fascism and after a falling out with Eliot because of the latter’s religiosity and fascist leanings. Accompanied by my photograph of a stump not (yet) submerged.

Poem (‘In the stump of the old tree…’)

In the stump of the old tree, where the heart has rotted out, there is a hole the length of a man’s arm, and a dank pool at the bottom of it where the rain gathers, and the old leaves turn into lacy skeletons. But do not put your hand down to see, because

in the stumps of old trees, where the hearts have rotted out, there are holes the length of a man’s arm, and dank pools at the bottom where the rain gathers and old leaves turn to lace, and the beak of a dead bird gapes like a trap. But do not put your hand down to see, because

in the stumps of old trees with rotten hearts, where the rain gathers and the laced leaves and the dead bird like a trap, there are holes the length of a man’s arm, and in every crevice of the rotten wood grow weasel’s eyes like molluscs, their lids open and shut with the tide. But do not put your hand down to see, because

in the stumps of old trees where the rain gathers and the trapped leaves and the beak and the laced weasel’s eyes, there are holes the length of a man’s arm, and at the bottom a sodden bible written in the language of rooks. But do not put your hand down to see, because

in the stumps of old trees where the hearts have rotted out there are holes the length of a man’s arm where the weasels are trapped and the letters of the rook language are laced on the sodden leaves, and at the bottom there is a man’s arm. But do not put your hand down to see, because

in the stumps of old trees where the hearts have rotted out there are deep holes and dank pools where the rain gathers, and if you ever put your hand down to see, you can wipe it in the sharp grass till it bleeds, but you’ll never want to eat with it again.

Hugh Sykes Davies, 1936

And here is a walk down memory lane with Jethro Tull’s Songs from the Woods.

An Antidote to Heat

Poetry
Jul 27, 2022
3 Comments

A friend sent me a recent poem by Alison Mandaville, someone new to me. So I explored, jealous to discover the poet grew up in Portland, Oregon, Turkey, Massachusetts and Yemen – just think about the exposure to different cultures and languages. She teaches English at Fresno State University and translates Azerbaijani writers, among many other things. Can’t wait to read more of her work, which has appeared in Superstition, Fifth Wednesday, Skidrow Penthouse, 13th Moon, Seattle Review, Off the Coast, Berkeley Poetry Review, Poets Against the War/Best Poems, Knock, and Magma, among other places.

In any case, the poem I received was thought-provoking, but also too close for comfort given a recent loss of a maternal figure, since grief for a mother was percolating through her lines. (Here is a link, for those interested.) So instead I chose one of her poems that is a perfect antidote to our current heat wave, and even more so a timely reminder that we are on borrowed time. The poem is set in Willapa Bay, located within Pacific County, WA.

Lunch on Willapa Bay

The tide regains its purchase on the land—an economics
of sand. And oysters in the far and distant mud. The land

is almost eternal. And brown. The grays can pass for blues
until I lay open the village egg to yellow. Or come upon

the orange broken float fluorescing in the wrack. The kelp
is not a color I’d paint my house. And I have to paint my house

soon. One egg was hard to peel. The other smooth
as the dead seal before it starts to rot too much. The dip

of salt and pepper. I don’t know what to make of things
I’m missing. A brief shift of birds turns sideways

to the sea water mixed with river water. They catch
the scant March sun. Become visible. Then turn

as one thing—almost—wings shuttered against sight.
The earth will be fine said my friend, the geoscientist.

We could hardly meet each other’s eyes.
If matter is conserved, it’s not as us.

By Alison Mandaville

***

I did not want to interrupt the flow of language by integrating photographs into the enjambment, so some archival images are offered below, in order of appearance in the text.

The incoming tide

The oysters,

The eternal land

brown/grey/blue

Until the yellow egg appears (ok, photographic license… some yellow is present)

The orange float (with avian contender associated with things wrecked)

The kelp, in shifting colors.

The dead seal

The missing things, most likely swept away

The birds turned sideways,

A brief in unison

The earth will be fine.

The anthropocene is but a passing phase.

***

If the heat doesn’t relent soon, you will likely hear a madwoman at the shore of the sea.

Charles-Valentin Alkan was an interesting composer, a Parisian Jew, friends with Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt, who never quite made it. Myths about him abound, including the tale that he was crushed to death by a falling book case as he reached for a copy of the Talmud from the top shelf. Here is a perceptive and informative summary about the man and artist by Jack Gibbons, Alkan’s foremost musical interpreter who unearthed the music in the 1960s.

Unglücksrabe

Random chain of thought on language and politics while I was watching my beloved crows and their babies.

We have a phrase in our household, disaster crow, that loosely refers to someone who attracts accidents or is otherwise stricken by bad luck. The original German was Unglücksrabe, a raven, not a crow. It is well integrated into the German vernacular and originated with a poem, Hans Huckebein, der Unglücksrabe, about a raven who was brought home from the woods by a boy, only to wreck havoc on a household with mean spirited and sinister raven intentions, ultimately hanging himself in a ball of yarn he tried to destroy. All this in a classic poem by writer and famous satirist Wilhem Busch, whose dark, dark stories, often cruel and vile with punitive death at the end, amused generations of Germans, since the lat 1800s.

Young as well as old readers reveled in the mischievous (mis)deeds of various protagonists depicted in early comic strips, almost, the most famous of them Max and Moritz, and rejoiced at their fitting ending, less of a parable than a sadistic lay-out of consequences. What went unmentioned is the in-your-face expressed anti-Semitism, both in Busch’s poetry and his letters. It was only in 1961 and only for some publishing houses that they simply removed the worst stanzas from whole poems, as if they didn’t exist. (I will not give the garbage room, but my German readers can see for themselves in a smart review in the Jüdische Allgemeine.) The public discussions around Busch’s centennial birthday tried their hardest to minimize, often by adding that he attacked others as well, the catholic church included. The desire to revel in texts that celebrate the misfortune of others seems too strong to be abandoned… Schadenfreude as a national pastime.

However, it also serves to extend latent anti-Semitic ideas in a population that was raised on these stories – and we have ample evidence that anti-Semitism is alive and well. Just this week unknown perpetrators cut down 7 trees planted in memory of the victims of Nazi euthanasia programs and forced death marches, kids among them, at the concentration camp Buchenwald in Weimar. Closer to (now) home, Jewish parents were confronted with the new logo of a Georgia school district:

Distribution is now halted, but anti-Semitic incidents in Georgia have more than doubled between 2020 and 2021, according to a report by the Anti-Defamation League. (Ref.)

And just in case it is seen as isolated incidents: last week every single Republican House member voted against a Neo-Nazi probe of the military and law enforcement. )The amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act did pass with the votes of the House Democrats. All they wanted was for the FBI to report the total number of people who were discharged from the military or police because of their links to or support for far-right extremism .)

In any event, what I was really thinking about before getting side lined by politics, was how frequently phrases pick up bird characteristics or are associated with birds in one fashion or another. That’s true for English as well as German.

Here are some: Crazy as a loon (haunting cry), happy as a lark (melodious songs), skinny as a rail (they hide among the reeds in camouflage), like water off a duck’s back (their uropygial glands coat their feathers,) take someone under your wing (fledglings), ugly duckling (before you develop plumage…), night owl, eat like a bird (small quantities,)eagle eye (superior vision, ability to detect prey), birds of a feather flock together, scarce as a hen’s teeth, proud as a peacock, graceful as a swan, dead as a dodo, free as a bird, as a duck to water and, of course, straight as the crow flies. (I found these here; more complicated bits about words associated with birds can be found in Merriam-Webster.)

For an endless list of the equivalent German expressions you can go here. Notable that bad parenting is called having raven parents, funny or unlucky people are called Spassvogel and Pechvogel, respectively. Instead of picking a bone you pluck a chicken, Hühnchen rupfen, and considering someone stupid or mistaken is expressed as “you have a chickadee,” du hast ‘ne Meise, or “you’re obviously chirping”, bei dir piept’s wohl.

Yes, I know, I’m chirping a lot…

Spatzenhirn (sparrow brain), Gänsehaut (goose bumps,) Hühneraugen (corn on the feet/ chicken eyes, literally), Krähenfüsse (crows’ feet in the face) are also known attributes of this writer. A komischer Kauz (weird screech owl) or odd character, after all.

Oh, I revel in applied language. One of my favorites in this context is the German invention of the phrase Nachtijall, ick hör Dir trapsen, a Berlin idiom that is grammatically false. Literally translated it says, nightingale, I hear your heavy footsteps, (an absurd assertion) but the meaning implies something along the lines of being able to tell which way the wind is blowing. Living language blended two lines from a famous song from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, about hearing and seeing a nightingale, creating a whole new meaning with a joke.

Then again, maybe we should stick to the short vocabulary of this crow: woo or wow? Click on this link!

Here is the song about the nightingale from Des Knaben Wunderhorn set to music by Mendelsohn.

The whole cycle set to music by Gustav Mahler:

Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Alte deutsche Lieder (German; “The boy’s magic horn: old German songs”) is a collection of German folk poems and songs edited by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano, and published in Heidelberg, Baden. The book was published in three editions: the first in 1805 followed by two more volumes in 1808.

The collection of love, soldiers, wandering, and children’s songs was an important source of idealized folklore in the Romantic nationalism of the 19th century. Des Knaben Wunderhorn became widely popular across the German-speaking world; Goethe, one of the most influential writers of the time, declared that Des Knaben Wunderhorn “has its place in every household”.

And why stop with avian attribution? Here is your poetry fix for the weekend.

Hang in there, world!

Culture, Poetry
Jul 13, 2022
1 Comments

Instead of a nature walk you get to accompany me on a neighborhood walk this week. I figured I’d do a bit of my daily “practicing hope,” after this sign early on reminded me that we are all kind of limping along. All photographs taken with iPhone within a 2 mile radius in NE PDX.

So what could I interpret in ways providing us all with a bit of optimism?

—> Not everyone sits on a high horse – there are some down to earth ones to be found, always.

—> My favorite birds decorated cottage gardens, and pottery at pop-up sales, arranged on brightly colored shelves. I found the website of the artist, Natalie Warren, here. And am now thew proud owner of a tiny cup painted with a crow’s head. Art + birds, wherever you look!

I know, consumerism. But then again, we need to support local artists!

—> Unclear whose art this was, some shades of Max Ernst, some Phoenix more Escher than ashes, some arrangement of pies that had me lust, fully aware that I have enough to eat and even afford the luxuries of sweets…

—> Happy to note that Yellow Peril support Black Power and that someone, anyone, still remembers Leonard Peltier.

Not everyone, then, withdraws into idyls complete with Gartenzwerg….

In fact, some neighbors very explicitly reminded us that we have obligations to remember:

All of us:

—> In any event, the keys to hope were visible: in explicit and implicit forms – you’ll forgive me if I post an overused poem, but could not escape the symbolism in front of my eyes.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers

BY EMILY DICKINSON

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –

And sore must be the storm –

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –

And on the strangest Sea –

Yet – never – in Extremity,

It asked a crumb – of me.

And because I did not make your brains work today, I will go harder on your ears – here is what I am currently listening to, constantly, some fascinating experimental music from a Chicago/NY based group je’raf. Their political satire is another reason for hope – there are still people out there fighting! AND having fun while doing it.

Ospreys as distraction.

Bird Photography, Nature, Poetry, Politics
Jul 8, 2022
3 Comments

A perceptive friend remarked that I have been offering much contemplation on nature when not writing about the larger art projects across the last months. It is true, I have been using nature to distract myself from politics, the relentless onslaught of bad news, piling up like yesterday’s clouds, pictured below.

So it was yesterday when I hung out with a number of ospreys. Or so it was supposed to be. Alas, the politics refused to leave my head. While the birds circled, hunted, tended to their brood, I thought about how the accumulation of shootings not only numbs us, but makes the average citizen more eager for strongman or authoritarian protection. The repeated shocks drive the last ones away from our attention, to be replaced by the newest massacre.

Remember the supermarket shooting in Buffalo, mid-May? The school shooting in Uvalde, some weeks back, now Highland Park during the 4th of July parade? So far, in the U.S. this year, we have had 322 mass shootings, (defined as 4 or more dead, excluding the wounded.)

And then this:

” the shootings were “designed” to get Republicans to support gun restrictions. Here’s what I have to say. I mean. Two shootings on July 4: one in a rich white neighborhood and the other at a fireworks display. It almost sounds like it’s designed to persuade Republicans to go along with more gun control. I mean, after all, we didn’t see that happen at all the pride parades in the month of June,” Greene said.

“But as soon as we hit the MAGA month,” she continued, “as soon as we hit the month that we’re all celebrating, loving our country, we have shootings on July 4. I mean, that’s … oh, you know, that would sound like a conspiracy theory, right?”

So spouts Congress woman Marjorie Taylor Greene, conveniently forgetting that just a few years back 49 people were killed at an Orlando gay bar. This month police in Idaho foiled an attack by affiliates of a white supremacist group on a Pride celebration in a park. A scooting scare at the SF Pride Parade sent the crowd running (evidence was not found.)

And then there was the Las Vegas shooting in 2017, that killed 60 people and wounded over 400. At a music festival, not during “MAGA” month….

Kathy Fish wrote her most widely anthologized piece to date in response to that murderous act.

“It was first published in Jellyfish Review. It was then chosen by Sheila Heti for Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018 and by Aimee Bender forBest Small Fictions 2018. Variously described as a poem, flash fiction, prose poem, or flash essay/creative nonfiction, this hybrid piece has also been selected for Literature: A Portable Anthology (Macmillan), Stone Gathering: A Reader (French Press Editions), Humans in the Wild: Reactions to a Gun Loving Country (Swallow Publishing), Advanced Creative Nonfiction: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology, (Bloomsbury), and the newly released 15th edition of The Norton Reader (W. W. Norton).“

Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild

A group of grandmothers is a tapestry. A group of toddlers, a jubilance (see also: abewailing). A group of librarians is an enlightenment. A group of visual artists is a bioluminescence. A group of short story writers is a Flannery. A group of musicians is — a band.

A resplendence of poets.

A beacon of scientists.

A raft of social workers.

A group of first responders is a valiance. A group of peaceful protestors is a dream. A group of special education teachers is a transcendence. A group of neonatal ICU nurses is a divinity. A group of hospice workers, a grace.

Humans in the wild, gathered and feeling good, previously an exhilaration, now: a target.

A target of concert-goers.

A target of movie-goers.

A target of dancers.

A group of schoolchildren is a target.

by Kathy Fish

I have no use for conspiracy theories, from any faction. The facts speak for themselves. The number of available guns needs to be reduced. Gun laws need to be reformed, waiting periods initiated, background checks performed. Large capacity magazines need to be prohibited. Politicians need to be prevented from benefiting from lobbyists’ largesse. As long as we do not acknowledge these facts, children remain targets. Or their parents. Or anyone else in the fabric of things.

Come on ospreys, do your thing. Distract me.

Here is a beautiful album that might do the trick.

Grace in unlikely Places.

I was thoroughly bummed. A friend had reached out if I could resume photographing one of his Master Classes, this time at BodyVox and on-line, offering a Dance Workshop on July 8th and a Drum Workshop on the 9th. How I would have liked to do that, but of course I can still not attend inside sessions. It’s been almost three years since I’ve documented those African drummers and I miss it (wrote about them last here.) Check it out – it’s open to all and an exhilarating experience.

My mood did not exactly improve when I tried to soothe my irritation with a walk. The extent of the damage that last summer’s drought and this spring’s cold floods did to the trees at the Oak Bottom nature preserve is now evident, and it is considerable. Worse, there are open fire pits to be found in the park, a clear and present danger to the old growth around it, never mind the trash. I so understand the houseless pitching their tents away from dangerous highways, or sidewalks where the next forced removal is around the corner. But my heart fears for the safety of the forest when fire becomes involved.

Fire ring ashes above, Cottonwood tree fluff lying around like tinder below.

In case we’d forget, someone spelled out the systemic root causes, adding cries for help.

“Capitalism ruined everything.”// Save Kids.

Read by me during a month when the Supreme Court had revoked women’s constitutional rights to bodily autonomy, decided that Miranda rights aren’t really necessary, declared that states can’t regulate firearms, assured that the EPA cannot regulate assaults on our – and the world’s – environment, but states can use new powers in “Indian Country,” not just further diluting Native American sovereignty, but also opening an avenue to criminalize and punish any non-native protesters who come to states that go ahead with drilling and pipelines. Mood further deteriorating.

As Vox Senior Correspondent Ian Millhiser remarked: “The United States has three branches of government, the Judiciary, which makes laws. The Executive, which sends a lawyer to the Supreme Court to argue in favor of laws. And the Senate, which blocks Democratic nominees to the Judiciary. Oh, and the House which asks for campaign donations.”

Still, wildflowers, chicory and sweet peas, morning glory and jewel weed among them, lined the path.

Ducks went about their business, watched over by a solitary heron (where did all the others go?)

Raccoon and I exchanged meaningful glances before we parted.

And the birds ignored it all and just trilled out their song. Or foraged for lunch. Or fed their fledgelings, closer to home. At the equal opportunity bird feeder in front of the study window.

This is about 5 meters from the road which she regularly crosses to get to my roses and hostas….whatever small fruit had managed to set on the apricot trees are gone as well.

Daily practice of hope? Turn to British writer and poet Tom Hirons. How can you not seek help from a poet who describes himself on his website as:

Essentially a cheerful fellow driven to apoplexy and grief by the madness of our times, Tom is calmed most effectively by walking on Dartmoor, by sleeping in the deep greenwood and by the sound of true words spoken.

Holding each other fast against entropy was likely the principle behind this tagger’s planting of joy, which ultimately cheered me up – a distributed garden of flowering hearts, specimens all photographed at Oaks Bottom on this one round yesterday. Grace occurs in unlikely places.