Rockland

The river that flows both ways stands at your side like a scepter,

          though majesty belies your humble beginnings.

Once pushed hard and left for dead by the shifting tides
          of an ancient and icy Earth,
Your tousled peaks and windswept valleys now mimic that fortune,

          and savory tears of dew nourish us.

Your ample woodlands cradle crystal lakes, shelter songbirds, deer--

          all creatures of innocence.

O stony fortress, shield your living, your dead--

          for each night the stars shower you

                    --as if in awe--

Heaven seeks to mirror you.

Herenow, your sylvan smile shouts from point to point to point,

These hills are your heart, your home.

          Your Rockland.

The (Not So) Great Compromise

Remember the one-time required (for college) critique, The Pursuit of Loneliness: American Culture at the Breaking Point, which attempted to explain to the nation's non-hippies what had just happened in America? (1970)

Its author, Philip Slater noted then:

"One reason (there are many others, some quite practical) why compromising liberals are so despised and extreme conservatives sometimes respected is that the greater moral absolutism of the latter, no matter how antithetical in content, strikes a sympathetic chord."

If They Ruled the World...

While reading the essay, "Horace", written by the grand old master, Agnes Repplier, I came upon this perpetually sobering observation:

The clear-sighted do not rule the world, but they sustain and console it. It is not in human nature to be led by intelligence. An intelligent world would not be what it is today; it would never have been what it has been in every epoch of which we have any knowledge. Horace had no illusions on this score. He did not pass his life in ignorance of the ills about him. Men lived on their elemental instincts then as now. They wanted to keep what they had, or they wanted to get what their neighbors had, just as they do today. Horace knew this, and he invented no fancy phrases to decorate a bald fact. To understand life was, indeed, a classic form of consolation, a mental austerity...

Monkey Island

North, past caged jackal, eagle, camel, cat.

Empires settled in the dust.

Past wheeled-scholars tethered to their mothers hearts.

To the water's edge I come.

Offering.

In my eyes the clenched apple slowly burns.

(Such fire I bear only to unburden).

You clutch your chosen branch.

Watching.

The tiger's roar silences the sea-lion.

Cowers the wind.

Erases the shadows of once bright stars.

Locks upon the air your stare in mine.

Crushes the hopes of these least lonely souls.

2010: The Mid-Term Elections

There is so much to complain about and so much time.

Not even two years have passed since the Obama administration assumed power, but it seems like I've been hearing about its multifarious, if not nefarious, incompetence for a much longer time. Were I a less skeptical person I would probably be hard-pressed, by now, not to agree with much of the diatribe being hurled at The President, his advisers, and his fellow Democrats.

It is unfortunate that so many of our pundits, politicians and corporate leaders are acting so disingenuous and clueless about how America has fallen into such a pitiful economic and political state. (Pun intended?)

The widespread damage that the recklessly conceived and sold, unregulated "weapons of financial mass-destruction" has wrought had for decades been brewing in the shallowed halls of Congress and the even shallower halls of boardrooms during the corrupt, inept and short-sighted administrations of Democrats and Republicans alike.

Clearly, most Americans are either already suffering from the effects of the lousy economy, or fear the strong likelihood that they may soon join the bourgeoning ranks of those suffering. This astute majority of the sometimes working poor are as apt as they are correct to be angry, worried, and even downright depressed.

All of us, though, should take some comfort in the fact that the Democrats have by now proven that they are not even remotely cagey enough to have caused the amount of economic damage that their colleagues from across the aisle have been relentlessly blaming them for. Surely they had to have a lot of help from their very accusers and the well-heeled, too big to jail corporate sponsors of both major parties. Enter the Body-Politic Snatchers: The Herb People.

People, like politicians, are quite capable of voting with their wallets instead of their brains. So, on the first Tuesday of November I fully expect to be surprised with something far worse than we've already got. Something I can only imagine.

Primer

She was a no-nonsense English teacher, the classic school-marm: elderly, intelligent, collected, fear-invoking. The lady had mastered the art of garnering respect surreptitiously; it was neither demanded or requested. Her students were captured by forces irresistible and undefinable.

"Tonight you shall read Chapters I through III from your Ivanhoe texts. You shall answer, in your own words, the questions appearing at the end of each chapter. You will write legibly and coherently, and you will not appear in this room tomorrow without this assignment completed. Has anyone any questions regarding this assignment? Good."

I listened to that speech every schoolday throughout the 7th grade; only the titles, chapters, scenes, and verses changed. After the appetizer of Scott, she served us a small dish of Stevenson before heaping a double-helping of Shakespeare onto our plates. For dessert, we dipped into the dynamic duo of Wordsworth and Coleridge. We read, we thought, we wrote. We read, we thought, we wrote.

During the month of June 1955, one student at a time, we rose from our desks, marched to the front of the classroom, turned sharply to face our mates and recited from memory the 625 lines that comprised "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." This was required to receive a passing grade.

On my 13th birthday, later that year, snow began falling in the ebbing hours of that auspicious occasion. I peered out from my quiet bedroom and watched the large flakes covering the parked cars, the sidewalks and fenceposts. A thought crossed my mind:

"He prayeth best, who loveth best

All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all."

Etude for Billie Blake

On the city's summer sidewalks

a lad skips merry and carefree.

Each day a picture in bright chalks

from heaven hangs for none save he.

Each stranger passed is friend denied

tho' he dare not pause delight.

No pleasantries can he abide;

joy's torrent shrouds the child's sight.

Nor books, nor chores stir his happy hands

that deftly fly the soaring kite,

'Tho when time slips its silent sands

they flail--they quake--with fearful might.

When with his shadow of long days

both fade to gray before lone night--

They scold their stars for foolish ways,

and tearful make their homeward flight.

To hear these songs yet being played

Discords the souls these discords made.