7.29.2020 – night of summer stars

night of summer stars
low, near, lazy in the sky
sky of summer stars

Walking at night in the warm dark of summer in Georgia is something you to cannot explain to people up north.

I remember our first 4th of July fireworks down here and realizing it was near midnight and I was still in a T shirt and shorts.

No sweatshirt.

No hoodie.

No long pants.

Up north in Michigan, I was lucky to go out at night and not end up wanting a coat.

Jim Harrison in the Brown Dog novellas writes about a summer in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan without tourists.

It was so cold that people went to the 4th of July fireworks in snowmobile suits and watched the rockets red glare through snow flurries.

Walking in the warm dark of the Georgia night.

Stars so fat and close.

No big names but the North Star and the Big Dipper, maybe Booters, but so many stars without names.

Warm and lazy stars of summer time.

Maybe global warming will bring this Michigan.

Maybe that might bring me back.

Summer Stars
by
Carl Sandburg in Smoke and Steel (Harcourt, 1920).

Bend low again, night of summer stars.
So near you are, sky of summer stars,
So near, a long arm man can pick off stars,
Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,
So near you are, summer stars,
So near, strumming, strumming,
So lazy and hum-strumming.

7.26.2020 – disasters, trials of

disasters, trials of
common fate, can create bonds
of community

Today’s haiku comes from this snippet of text.

New bonds of community are often created by disaster, as Rebecca Solnit charts in A Paradise Built in Hell.

The shanty town built by survivors of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and the self-organised evacuations New Yorkers arranged with strangers after 9/11, show how people facing a common fate can see themselves as belonging to a single group.

Like the Covid-19 mutual aid groups we see today, these altruistic communities provide glimpses of an alternative world.

From the article, “People power: the best books about the allure of crowds and community“

7.25.2020 – the path most taken

the path most taken
Titanic mentality
the end doesn’t change

It seems to me that in the old show, F Troop, a comedy about the good old days in the US Cavalry in the post Civil War West, there was this ongoing gag.

One of the Native American characters was always reading a book on the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

At some point some one would say, “Are you reading that again?”

And the character would answer, “I like how it ends.”

Last night I was watching TV and low and behold a lady from where I live in Gwinnett County was on CNN.

She was telling the CNN Anchor why she and other parents wanted the schools here in Gwinnett, the nations 4th or 5th largest school district, to be open in a few weeks.

She said she felt she was on the Titanic and there was no room in the lifeboats for her and other people who felt like her.

Her comments stuck with me.

It comes to me that the Titanic is a great analogy for where this great county is right now.

All the technology you can ask for.

All the power and services you can ask for.

All the anything you could ask for.

And neighbors, let me tell you, the story ends the same way.

THE

SHIP

SINKS.

We can argue on the course that got us here.

We can argue about who gets in the lifeboats.

We can argue about how to launch the lifeboats.

But in the end.

The story ends the same way.

The

Ship

Sinks.

I am getting more and more used to the idea that WE ARE ON THE TITANIC.

We are sinking.

Congress seems to think we have time to argue about it.

A lot of people seems to think we have time to argue about it.

This morning on TV I heard what I think was a one time Sec of Treasury in another (GW BUSH, OBAMA) administration who said it wasn’t the amount of financial aid in the next the stimulus package it was the LENGTH OF TIME the package would be available.

I cling to that.

One voice saying look at the length of time here folks.

I feel like these arguments and discussions on payments, masks, schools, quarantine, social distancing and what not are important, but in the grand scheme, no one will care.

Why?

Because.

The

Ship

Sinks.

The end of the story stays the same.

Only this time, I do not think any one is going to like how the story ends.

7.23.2020 – every nation gets

every nation gets
the government it deserves
argue, though it fits

“Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite” said Joseph de Maistre (1 April 1753 – 26 February 1821) as recorded in the Correspondance diplomatique, tome 2. Paris : Michel Lévy frères libraires éditeurs, 1860, p.196.

And if you wonder why every nation gets the government it deserves, Maistre argued that constitutions are not the product of human reason, but rather come from God, who slowly brings them to maturity.

Or, as Thomas Jefferson put it (and I have quoted this quote far to often but I am going to keep quoting it until it sinks in);

“Indeed I tremble for my country when reflect that God is just:

that his justice cannot sleep for ever:

that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events:

that it may become probable by supernatural interference!

The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest”

Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII: Manners

7.21.202 – ten, twelve hours a day

ten, twelve hours a day
8 cents a box, drops to 6
pictures for today

Today’s haiku comes from the poem, Onion Days, by Carl Sandburg, that I recently ran across.

It is a poem about a woman who picks onions 10 to 12 hours a day for 8 cents a box.

The owner of the farm worries about how to make his farm produce more efficiently so he hires more workers so he only has to pay 6 cents a box.

The poem was written in 1916.

I also recently watched the movie ‘The Irishman”.

I wonder if its time for DeNiro and Pesci to close the door on mob movies but I digress.

The movie was about Jimmy Hoffa, a man today more famous for not being here than for what he did when he was here.

And that’s too bad.

Right or wrong in his methods, Hoffa cared about the people who did the working.

Not sure there is anyone in that role today.

His first strike was on the loading dock of a grocery company in 1931.

The crew on the loading dock was expected to work 12 hours shifts.

They were paid 32 cents an hour.

12 cents in cash and 20 cents in credits at the grocery store.

BUT they were only paid for the time they spent actually unloading trucks.

Hoffa organized the crew and on a hot summer day when truckloads of strawberries rolled in, they went on strike.

They demanded a full 32 cents an hour in cash and a minimum of 4 hours pay for a 12 hour day.

The grocery store, a place called KROGER, gave in a signed a one year contract.

Congress will meet this week to ‘discuss’ a further stimulus package.

How many of them are really thinking of the people who work.

Don’t the men and women of Congress enjoy chanting the Nicene creed with their daughters on each side of them joining their voices with theirs?

I am lucky.

I have a well paying job and am allowed to work from home.

No one would ever write a play about me.

But as Mr. Sandburg says in his poem about Mrs. Gabrielle Giovannitti …

or the crew on the loading dock …

or the people who need to work and can’t work because there is not enough work …

or can’t work enough because stores are closing …

because restaurants are closing …

because businesses everywhere are closing …

No dramatist living COULD put them into a play.

No one could capture that.

In 1916, in 1931, or today.

But I hope the men and women in Congress at least think about them this week

– – – – – – – – – – –

Onion Days in Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg, (1916)

Mrs. Gabrielle Giovannitti comes along Peoria Street every morning at nine o’clock

With kindling wood piled on top of her head, her eyes looking straight ahead to find the way for her old feet.

Her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti, whose husband was killed in a tunnel explosion through the negligence of a fellow-servant,

Works ten hours a day, sometimes twelve, picking onions for Jasper on the Bowmanville road.

She takes a street car at half-past five in the morning, Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti does,

And gets back from Jasper’s with cash for her day’s work, between nine and ten o’clock at night.

Last week she got eight cents a box, Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti, picking onions for Jasper,

But this week Jasper dropped the pay to six cents a box because so many women and girls were answering the ads in the Daily News.

Jasper belongs to an Episcopal church in Ravenswood and on certain Sundays

He enjoys chanting the Nicene creed with his daughters on each side of him joining their voices with his.

If the preacher repeats old sermons of a Sunday, Jasper’s mind wanders to his 700-acre farm and how he can make it produce more efficiently

And sometimes he speculates on whether he could word an ad in the Daily News so it would bring more women and girls out to his farm and reduce operating costs.

Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti is far from desperate about life; her joy is in a child she knows will arrive to her in three months.

And now while these are the pictures for today there are other pictures of the Giovannitti people I could give you for to-morrow,

And how some of them go to the county agent on winter mornings with their baskets for beans and cornmeal and molasses.

I listen to fellows saying here’s good stuff for a novel or it might be worked up into a good play.

I say there’s no dramatist living can put old Mrs. Gabrielle Giovannitti into a play with that kindling wood piled on top of her head coming along Peoria Street nine o’clock in the morning.