12.15.2024 – two years, ten years, and …

two years, ten years, and …
people ask what place is this?
ask where are we now?

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

Grass by Carl Sandburg as published in Cornhuskers (1918)

Yesterday I stood in history or maybe, stood on history.

I was on the front steps of the United States Customs House in downtown Savannah, Georgia.

The building opened in 1852.

The building is kitty corner to the Savannah City Hall on Bay Street and it was on Bay Street, on December 21, 1864, that General William T. Sherman reviewed his Army of the Tennessee after the March to the Sea that started in back in Atlanta, Ga on November 15th.

In the sketch of the event, General Sherman is in front of the old City Hall building and there across the street, is the once again, UNITED STATES Custom House.

In the pictures of me taken yesterday, I am in front of that self same building, 161 years later.

On the steps of history.

Then this morning I was reading an article about the restoration of the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

That building has been in place … since 1100.

Oh …

Before that my morning Bible reading was in the book of Judges and the story of Samson.

Samson, the feller who fell for a girl who lived in … Gaza.

Samson is thought to have been a Judge back in 951–931 (BC).

Oh …

Still, I was sitting on granite steps that had first been sat on 175 years ago.

That’s not bad for the New World.

Two years?

Ten years?

175 years?

Almost 1,000 years?

3,000 years?

What place is this?

Where are we now?

Let the grass work and who would remember?

12.14.2024 – would you meet again?

would you meet again?
delighted to catch up in
the future … as friends

My regular Saturday morning reading includes a few minutes with a Guardian feature titled, “Blind Date”, where two people agree to meet at a local restaurant and then answer questions about their experience.

Often my comments focus on the place where the couple meets as the British restaurants often have great names.

Today’s restaurant was The Tamil Crown located at 16 Elia St, London N1 8DE.

The menu includes:

That’s Pounds by the way, not dollars.

I don’t want to bother with The Google but I wonder what prawn moilee or buttery flaky roti is.

Then there are the participants answers.

Today the first response of the young lady in the Blind Date was:

What were you hoping for?
To meet the love of my life. Failing that, a good story for my next date.

Sadly her last response was:

Would you meet again?
I’d be delighted to catch up with him in the future, as friends.

They must have been some synergy at this date as the young man’s last response was:

Would you meet again?
I’d be happy to meet again as friends.

12.13.2024 -didn’t want to play

didn’t want to play
if don’t want to, ain’t got to …
he ain’t want to play

Matt Barrows and Jimmy Durkin write in their New York Times article, 49ers’ De’Vondre Campbell refuses to play, quits TNF game in third quarter that:

Following their 12-6 loss to the Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said linebacker De’Vondre Campbell Sr. told the team he didn’t want to play and he left the field in the third quarter of the “Thursday Night Football” matchup.

“He said he didn’t want to play today,” Shanahan said postgame, noting the team wanted him to replace Dre Greenlaw when the linebacker left the game in the third quarter with some soreness. Greenlaw was playing for the first time since tearing his Achilles in the Super Bowl and was expected to play limited snaps. Greenlaw replaced Campbell in the starting lineup.

Dre Greenlaw was quoted in the same article, saying “He didn’t want to play so I guess if you don’t want to play, you ain’t got to play. He ain’t want to play.”

Got to repeat that.

He didn’t want to play so I guess if you don’t want to play, you ain’t got to play. He ain’t want to play.

Mr. Greenlaw, I feel I have to mention, is a graduate of the University of Arkansas.

Somewhere in the back of my mind is this bit of history about the World Wide Web but I cannot recall the fellers name in question.

But he traveled the major college circuit trying to build up interest in this thing called the ‘Internetwork of Computers’.

One problem this feller had, he said, was getting past the fact that he had a southern accent and came from the University of Arkansas.

With those two things going for him, he said, college people had a hard time taking him seriously.

Welllll

If you don’t want to play so I guess if you don’t want to play, you ain’t got to play and they ain’t want to play.

Or words that affect.

12.12.2024 – sea sunset give us

sea sunset give us
keepsakes, pay us for prayers
mountain clouds bronze skies

Sea sunsets, give us keepsakes
Prairie gloamings, pay us for prayers
Mountain clouds on bronze skies —
Give us great memories
Let us have summer roses
Let us have tawny harvest haze in pumpkin time
Let us have springtime faces to toil for and play for
Let us have the fun of booming winds on long waters
Give us dreamy blue twilights — of winter evenings — to wrap us in a coat of dreaminess
Moonlight, come down — shine down, moonlight — meet every bird cry and every song calling to a hard old earth, a sweet young earth

Adapted from Good Morning America Part 21 as published in Complete Poems by Carl Sandburg (Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1950).

12.11.2024 – decided i would

decided i would
settle down and just become
a sweet inspiration

in my younger years
before i learned
black people aren’t
suppose to dream
i wanted to be
a raelet
and say “dr o wn d in my youn tears”
or “tal kin bout tal kin bout”
or marjorie hendricks and grind
all up against the mic
and scream
“baaaaaby nightandday
baaaaaby nightandday”
then as i grew and matured
i became more sensible
and decided i would
settle down
and just become
a sweet inspiration

Dreams by Nikki Giovanni, from Black Feeling, Black Talk, Black Judgment, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1968

IN a convocation speech after a campus shooting at Virginia Tech where she was teaching, Ms. Giovanni said:

Nikki Giovanni said: “… We know we did nothing to deserve it. But neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS. Neither do the invisible children walking the night awake to avoid being captured by a rogue army. Neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory. Neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water …”

Of the speech, she would later say that she also sought to express the idea that really terrible things happen to good people: “I would call it, in terms of writing, in terms of poetry, it’s a laundry list. Because all you’re doing is: This is who we are, and this is what we think, and this is what we feel, and this is why – you know?… I just wanted to admit, you know, that we didn’t deserve this, and nobody does. And so I wanted to link our tragedy, in every sense, you know – we’re no different from anything else that has hurt….“

This is who we are, and this is what we think, and this is what we feel, and this is why.

I just wanted to admit, you know, that we didn’t deserve this, and nobody does.

Settle down and just become a sweet inspiration.

Famously she said once, “Sometimes you write a poem because damnit, you want to.”

Ms. Giovanni died Monday, December 9th, Twenty Twenty Four.