6.18.2021 – defy ignorance

defy ignorance
of vested prejudices
vested interests

17 syllables, 7 words and more situational application than you can shake a stick at, if that’s your idea of a good time.

If I started listing the different situations in the current news cycle that these 7 words could be applied, the list would soon be hiring than the Empire State Building and its 102 floors.

I adapted today’s haiku from a “Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West” written by Wallace Stegner and published in 1954.

Major John Wesley Powell was the one armed explorer of Wonderful World of Disney fame who rafted down the Colorado River in 1869 and located the Grand Canyon and invented a tourist sport at the same time.

Major Powell also served as the second Director of the United States Geological Survey, a post he held from 1881–1894.

When Mr. Stegner wrote about Major Powell, Stegner was able to comment about the problem of living out west.

Living out in the American West where there was LOTS of SUNSHINE, LOTS of WILD FIRES and VERY LITTLE WATER.

Mr. Stegner was able to comment about as Major Powell noticed that there would be issues.

Major Powell published in 1878 a government paper titled: Report on the Lands of the Arid Regions of the United States.

According to one account, Major Powell, “. . . unflinchingly described the scarcity of water, and summarized that much of the American south-west, if it must be settled, should be settled lightly and modestly. Overpopulate it, and it will be unforgiving.”

According to Mr. Stegner, “As a government scientist, Major Powell was now defying ignorance. He was taking on vested interests and the vested prejudices by which they maintained themselves.”

As one account puts it, Major Powell was a sage.

And what does sage mean?

According to the online Merriam-Webster it means:

Wise through reflection and experience.

Proceeding from or characterized by wisdom, prudence, and good judgment.

One (such as a profound philosopher) distinguished for wisdom.

A mature or venerable person of sound judgment.

So what happened to Major Powell and his report?

No one listened to him.

6.16.2021 – first and foremost my

first and foremost my
occupation is reader
not a thing wrong there

I was reading an interview with Fran Lebowitz and I loved when she stated that her occupation was ‘reader.’

Then later in the day I went back and looked for the quote and it is driving me nutz as I while I can find the article I was reading, I cannot find the quote.

What is odd is that the first line and third lines are there.

But not the one where she says her occupation is reader.

It bugs me that I cannot find it.

Because I love that line.

Who says your occupation has to provide money?

I have an occupation.

I am a reader.

I read.

I am occupied with my reading or I am when I not occupied with being at the beach.

I design websites for money to pay for room and board and provide for my family.

As for my occupation, I am occupied with reading.

First and foremost!

And there is not a thing wrong with that.

I can’t wait for the next time I have to fill out paperwork for anything.

I had to change the last line around a little.

Not a thing wrong there.

In the article, Ms. Lebowitz had just commented, “I’m just finishing Cynthia Ozick’s new book (“Antiquities”). She’s a fantastic writer. This is a very short novel, especially in these days when novels tend to be 7,000 pages long.”

To which the author replied, “I’m glad you picked fiction, because I find as I get older, many of my peers say they can’t focus on fiction.”

Ms. Lebowitz replied as only she can, “There is something wrong with them.”

Kinda love that a lot.

Lesson today?

If your peers say they can’t focus on fiction, there is something wrong with THEM.

6.15.2021 – another story,

part our history
be re-created over
and over again

Based on a passage from My Life Through Food, (Gallery Books, New York, 2021).

The passage reads:

Losing a beloved family heirloom is a very real personal loss; they’re things that cannot ever be replaced or re-created.

But perhaps the most precious heirlooms are family recipes.

Like a physical heirloom, they remind us from whom and where we came and give others, in a bite, the story of another people from another place and another time.

Yet unlike a lost physical heirloom, recipes are a part of our history that can be re-created over and over again.

The only way they can be lost is if we choose to lose them.

For more on this book, please see the post 11.8.2021 – our history’s parts.

Please note, this post was NOT created on the date in the title.

6.12.2021 – became poetry

became poetry
highest communication
untranslatable

Adapted from an essay with these lines.

Do you remember the best kiss of your life?

I imagine that you do.

It’s an evocative question?

The essay ends with this line.

Kissing at its best becomes a fluency, a poetry; the highest form of communication, a physical language.

The best kiss of my life?

I don’t even want to share it.

It was a conversation, almost.

And, in this instance, untranslatable.

Almost poetry on its own.

An Ode to the End of Covid maybe.

(the essay is I don’t know whose idea it was to smoosh our faces together, but I could kiss them by Hannah Jane Parkinson, under the heading, The Joy of Small Things.)

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.