Author: Mike Hoffman

Down and out semi poet who is down and out in the Low Country of South Carolina after living in Atlanta which is not to be confused with the south, the old south or the new south. Atlanta was a global metropolis with all the pluses and minuses that comes with that. The low country, low because it is low, 8 feet above sea level, is not Podunk but once you get to Podunk, turn left. I try to chronicle a small part of all that through my daily haiku for you.

6.13.2025 – how the time matters

how the time matters
in which virtue of even
the best man happens

Proh Dolor! Quantum refert in quae tempora vel optimi cujusque virtus incidat.

Or …

Oh, how much does it matter into what times the virtue of even the best man falls!

Or …

O how much does the time matter in which the virtue of even the best man happens.

Or …

Even the best of men may be born in times unsuited to their virtues.

It is the Latin, Proh Dolor! Quantum refert in quae tempora vel optimi cujusque virtus incidat, that is carved on the tomb of Pope Adrian IV.

He got to be Pope for of one and a half years during the Reformation (January, 1522 to September, 1523).

The ONLY Dutch Pope.

Some felt he would have been a GREAT Pope but for his untimely death and that his attention during his Papacy was taken over by Protestant protests.

Thus the inscription on his tomb, Proh Dolor! Quantum refert in quae tempora vel optimi cujusque virtus incidat, or Even the best of men may be born in times unsuited to their virtues.

I have to say that, while I will not be counted among the best of men, I am certainly born in times unsuited to my virtues.

FDR is once wrote to Winston Churchill that it It was fun to be in the same decade with you.

Well it isn’t fun being in the same decade as that man in office.

Taking a cue from the white house, folks are crabby, folks are mean, folks are cutting and because of this folks are worried and folks are unceratain.

Americans used to and were used to living carefree lives compared to most of the world.

Care Free!

No one was going to come to our door and demand to come.

We never had to ‘show our papers’.

I didn’t even know what ‘papers’ were.

For much of what the World worried about, Americans were care free.

Not any more and all because of one man.

It isn’t fair that I have live in the same decade with that man.

Proh Dolor! Quantum refert in quae tempora vel optimi cujusque virtus incidat.

BTW, after Adrian VI, it was another 460 years before the Catholic Church tried out another Pope who wasn’t Italian.

Did I mention Adrian VI was Dutch?

6.12.2025 – make us one new dream

make us one new dream
us who forget out of storms
let us have one star

Sunrise in storms clouds over Pinckney Island, South Carolina on Thursday morning.

Adapted from a Prayer after World War by Carl Sandburg, in Smoke and Steel as published in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, by Carl Sandburg, Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1950.

Wandering oversea dreamer,
Hunting and hoarse, Oh daughter and mother,
Oh daughter of ashes and mother of blood,
Child of the hair let down, and tears,
Child of the cross in the south
And the star in the north,

Keeper of Egypt and Russia and France,
Keeper of England and Poland and Spain,
Make us a song for to-morrow.
Make us one new dream, us who forget,
Out of the storm let us have one star.

Struggle, Oh anvils, and help her.
Weave with your wool, Oh winds and skies.
Let your iron and copper help,
Oh dirt of the old dark earth.

Wandering oversea singer,
Singing of ashes and blood,
Child of the scars of fire,
Make us one new dream, us who forget.
Out of the storm let us have one star.

6.11.2025 – their destiny is

their destiny is
destruction, glory their shame …
mind on earthly things

Based on the Bible verse that says:

Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. Ephesians 3:19 (NIV).

In his 2nd Inaugural Address on March 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln said this about the two sides in the argument that led to the American Civil War:

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.

There are two sides to the current argument in American politics today.

I am on one side of that argument and I have a certain point of view.

I am told that every time I use a verse from the Bible, the other side can take the same verse and show how it applies to their point of view.

But let us look at this verse again.

Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.

Mr. Lincoln went on to say:

It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully.

So let me present the two points of view in the current argument in photographs.

This is a photograph taken from the website of the Christian Appalachian Project which provides, according to their website, vital services, including home repairs, food assistance, and educational support, aiming to build hope and transform lives.

This photograph … well … you know what this is.

Now, read the verse again, Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.

In Matthew 6:21, the Bible says: For where your treasure is, there your heart …

But let us judge not, that we be not judged.

Though Mr. Lincoln included a warning: The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.”

I am just holding up the mirror.

You can check your reflection.