6.9.2021 – it was a dawn to

it was a dawn to
remember on your deathbed
life lived within life

Adapted from Sundog by Jim Harrison, 1985.

It was a dawn to remember with a smile on your deathbed.

The sky was a vivid red as if the forest had caught fire. I drove through clumps of pink fog, re-crossing the river of the day before which lividly reflected the sky.

The roadside and small clearings in the forest were covered with a white blooming dogwood, around which misted coiled and released like unraveling white satin.

I stopped the car and shivered, imagining that I might HAVE died and this was some sort of afterlife designed by H. Bosch and Magritte, much less vulgar that Dali; or it was life lived within a brilliantly colored seashell for which one might not emerge.

I added emphasis to HAVE.

‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ by Hieronymus Bosch.

I would give $199.25 to find out if Mr. Harrison couldn’t spell Hieronymus and in those innocent days before the google, had no easy way to look it up.

5.27.2021 – floods of yellow gold

floods of yellow gold
gorgeous, indolent, sinking
burning, expanding

Adapted from When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d by Walt Whitman

Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes,
With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright,
With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air,
With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific,
In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there,
With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows,
And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,
And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.

Sunset over Pinckney Island and Skull Creek at high tide on the north end of Hilton Head Island.

1.10.2021 – state, inclination

state, inclination
of the day, we judge by
the sky’s complexion

Adapted from William Shakespeare from his play, Richard II.

Big Bill writes in Act II Scene 3;

Men judge by the complexion of the sky
The state and inclination of the day:

Jesus said, recorded in Matthew 16:2-3:

When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’

The old rhyme in my head goes:

Red Sky at Night
Sailor’s Delight
Red Sky in the Morning
Sailor take warning

Of course to be complete I have to include:

Red Sky at Night
Sailor’s Delight
Red Sky in the Morning
Your Barn’s On Fire!

Jesus went on to add, “You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.”

I have very pleasent memories of the many, many meteoroligiists that I had the pleasure of working with in 20 years of online news.

When most most folks see Allison Chinchar now on CNN they see a top notch Meteorologist.

I think of how Allie would burst into my office and empty a bag of Mini Reese’s Peanut Butter cups on my desk before she asked for something she needed online.

I think of Paul Ossmann one time when I was chatting with the weather team at WXIA in Atlanta.

Paul was hunched over his computer and kept muttering profanity.

I asked what was up?

Paulie responded that no matter what model he ran, Atlanta was smack dab in the middle of an upcoming massive snow storm.

His alarm was real.

The storm he saw coming is now known as the Blizzard of January 2011.

I never got out of the house for the next week.

They are a hard working dedicated bunch of scientists and broadcasters who enjoy their role and embrace the public trust in their masthead to inform their audience.

But still, as folks say, everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.

How often do they get it right?

How often do they get it wrong.

And yet Jesus said that we DO know how to interpret the appearance of the sky.

So we got weather forecasting right.

And we know that record.

How can we every expect to even imagine we might be able to get anything in the future right.

Or as Sir Humphrey Appleby said (In Yes Minister) about unforeseen problems, “If I could foresee them, they wouldn’t be unforeseen.”

Lucky for us Jesus still has the anwser.

It is in Matthew 6:34 that Jesus says this:

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

It was a clear white sunny morning today in the Low Country.

No sailors need to take warning.

My barn isn’t on fire.

Heading to the beach.

Tomorrow is scheduled to arrive in 24 hours.

12.13.2020 – heavy leaden skies

heavy leaden skies
dutch mist that gets in your bones
might find challenging

I was reading the online newspaper column “Lets Move To . . .”

It is a regular feature in my favorite online newspaper, The Guardian.

I mention the Guardian a lot in these essays.

I like it because it is from Manchester.

My family, the one non-dutch branch in my tree anyway, came from Manchester.

All the rest of my family tree is firmly planted in the Netherlands.

For 50 years Alistair Cooke, another person who seems to turn up often in these essays, write a weekly column, Letter from America, for the Guardian.

And the Guardian went into business in 1836 and it 1936 its ownership went into a public trust to “secure the financial and editorial independence of The Guardian in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of The Guardian free from commercial or political interference.”

So there you are.

In a recent Lets Move To … column, they went to and recommended the Dutch city of Rotterdam.

They listed good points and bad points or the case for and the case against moving to Rotterdam.

The fact that the Netherlands public schools follow tweetalig onderwijs or Bij tweetalig onderwijs (tto) volgen leerlingen een deel van het voortgezet onderwijs in een andere taal. Meestal is dit Engels which means bilingual public education so that most folks speak english.

Then the article touched on the weather.

The weather was listed under THE CASE AGAINST.

“Heavy leaden skies, and Dutch mist (drizzle) that gets into your bones. Those who like beauty of a more conventional ilk might find it challenging.”

Boy HOWDY!

No wonder my ancestors moved to West Michigan.

They could write back home and say, “You would love the weather. It’s just like home.”

Heavy leaden skies.

Dutch mist?

I got to send that one off to my buddy George Lessens the weather tsar of West Michigan.

Dutch mist that gets into your bones.

Those who like beauty of a more conventional ilk might find it challenging.

NO KIDDING.

12 years ago we moved to the the south.

Just recently I relocated to the Low Country of South Carolina and the Atlantic Coast.

It is December here as well.

We spent the afternoon at the beach on Hilton Head Island.

For those who like beauty of a more conventional ilk there is nothing challenging about living here.

I lived in the West Michigan for 50 years.

I lived in the Dutch Mist for 50 years.

I lived under the heavy leaden skies.

Yes, yes, yes, there were beautiful days and beautiful vistas and if you went to the beach in July all you had to do was dig a shallow hole in the sand to the ice to keep your drinks cold.

All benefits.

But mostly exceptions, not the daily rule.

Leaden skies and dutch mist.

Distant memory.

Kind of a bad dream.

I would write more but we are just off to the beach.

12.9.2020 – man versus nature

man versus nature
acqua alta, time and tide
nature wins again

Gene Hackman in the role of Lex Luther in the movie Superman II, walks through the destruction of the offices of the Daily Planet caused by General Zod and crew when they burst through the walls and windows and he says to himself, “Even with all this accumulated knowledge, when will these dummies learn to use a DOOR KNOB?”

I read today about the city of Venice and its century old battle with the ocean tides.

Much like I am learning about now, if you build near an ocean it is a good idea to keep the ocean in mind.

Or as JRR Tolkien wrote in the Hobbit, “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”

Venice was built on worthless swampy tidal land with, so I was told, the idea that those hordes of Mongols or Visigoths or Viking or who ever else might be coming down the river would have little interest in sacking the place.

The problem with worthless swampy land is that it is worthless swampy land.

And being on the ocean, the water will come up and down twice a day.

In Venice it is called the acqua alta or high water.

Time and tide waits for no one or “And te tide and te time þat tu iboren were, schal beon iblescet.” as it is first found in recorded history back in 1225.

But that did not stop the Venetians.

The latest effort to stop the tide is a project named MOSE or MOdulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico .

According to Wikipedia MOSE is part of the measures to improve the shallow lagoon environment are aimed at slowing degradation of the morphological structures caused by subsidence, eustatism, and erosion due to waves and wash.

Gosh.

I said the latest though it was designed back in 1984.

Venice is in Italy and Italy being Italy, things take a little bit longer.

Again according to Wikipedia, the project suffered from multiple delays, cost overruns, and scandals.

As they say, when in Rome.

MOSE is also a take of on the Italian for Moses and alludes to Moses and the Red Sea.

Again Wikipedia says, “Moses or “Mosè” in Italian, who is remembered for parting the Red Sea.”

And I always thought it was God who did the work but that is another story.

Back in 1984 the MOSE project was designed to close of the lagoons of Venice from the ocean and protect the city from high tide.

And as they say, so lucky for us that the Venetians invented blinds or it would have been curtains for all us.

The project got started.

Everyone got their share.

Everyone got their cut.

Everyone got to get their beaks wet a little.

And after 36 years MOSE was finished and ready to go.

Last week there was the first high tide of the season.

Downtown Venice was a lake.

Okay so it is usually a lake but this was a deeper lake and the kind of lake the MOSE was supposed to stop.

Four feet of water in St. Mark’s Church.

And I did say IN THE CHURCH.

It was deeper outside in St. Mark’s Square.

Seems that, yes, MOSE was ready.

But you see.

No one turned it on.

In the long struggle of mankind versus nature the score remains, Mankind ZERO, NATURE 1,325,211.