thunder crests the hill;
the cat Linger’s on the porch
dry, nibbling chicken.

Confederacy

the good news: we live in a federation where progressive states can amend their laws to help assure equality.

the neutral news: we live in a federation, where voters in backwards states can add laws that will drive many educated and openminded citizens to go live in more progressive states.

the bad news: we live in a federation, where the grandchildren of many backwards voters will grow up to wonder why everything sucks where they live.

I read about Maurice Sendak’s dysfunctional family, his parents to whom he never “came out”. His parents, who lost all their kin in The Holocaust. I think about our species, capable of systematic, soul-deadening atrocity. Together, they produced this man who pronounced himself too fucked up to raise children, who never stopped being angry.

Who wrote children’s books. I pull those books from the boxes where they’ve been since my son ceased to be a child — these books, in which Sendak shared a child’s truth. I think of the millions of impressionable, but not innocent, minds that heard these stories over and over again, as they drifted off to sleep. I reflect on the power of words and pictures, and the slow course of human progress.

And I feel a little hope.

champion of nocturnal play, 
the year’s first lightning bug 
beckons at the window.

a strange summer night:
i sleep beneath spring stars, 
under leafless trees.

#hammock #haiku

female cardinals
red and gray, bruised rain clouds,
linger over seeds.

#spring #haiku

in the night, dripping 
wet blanket on the line,
laden with spring rain
— you on my mind.

welkin flowstone
moon over Appalachia,
winter’s waning glow.

#HearthHill