Dear President Trump, OMG has time gotten wonky. I thought I had opened the tab holding W. B. Yeats’s poem “The Stare’s Nest By My Window” days and days ago, but it was just yesterday morning that it was the featured ‘poem-a-day’ poem (an interesting choice for Mother’s Day). It was a very long, very … Continue reading We’re in trouble when our enemies have more substance than our loves
poetry
This virus is a wake-up call that we can’t afford to sleep through
Dear President Trump, There’s a beautiful (very long) poem by Kristen Flyntz titled An Imagined Letter From Covid-19 to Humans that I got from a friend at church. I looked it up online and found that it appeared a little over a week ago and has been circulating on various social media sites. I’m including … Continue reading This virus is a wake-up call that we can’t afford to sleep through
Tarnished silver lining
Dear President Trump, I don’t have much for you today, but here it is – a haiku summing up where I’m at: Tarnished Silver Lining Trying not to touch my face sort of distracts me from everything else. May we be safe from an increasingly politicized, opaque public health system. May we be willing to … Continue reading Tarnished silver lining
History and privilege
Dear President Trump, Yesterday morning I read poet Lisel Mueller’s WP obituary first because it was at the top of the stack (Katherine Johnson had just died and so hers hadn’t yet made it to the main page) and about midway through there was an interesting quote in reference to her poem “Happy and Unhappy … Continue reading History and privilege
Negative and positive implications: discuss
Dear President Trump, I did include the tag “Climate Change” with yesterday’s postcard on my blog since it’s almost certain that the freeway ornamental cherry is routinely blooming in January when its holiday lights are still on it because of global warming. I didn’t, however, have it in me to call this angle out and … Continue reading Negative and positive implications: discuss
Guided by poems
Dear President Trump, Our church celebrated its 150th anniversary with a doozy of a service this morning. We opened with a short poem by Hafiz: Everyone Is God speaking. Why not be polite and Listen to God? Pretty dang provocative, right? And radical. And incredibly hard for me to wrap my head and heart around … Continue reading Guided by poems
Revolutionary evolution
Dear President Trump, The Poem-a-Day this morning is by Todd Fredson and is entitled [Erratum: Found Ecology Piece], the brackets being part of the title (you can read it here if you want: https://poets.org/poem-a-day/ for today’s date). It’s a short poem and seems simple enough, but it’s had me thinking hard all day. It’s nominally … Continue reading Revolutionary evolution
Kindness and calm
Dear President Trump, I hope you’re having a nice Thanksgiving visiting military people in Afghanistan. I really do hope this, both for your sake and for theirs. It was good of you to go and do that. There are other things I could say about you and the military, but for today I won’t pick … Continue reading Kindness and calm
Language matters ~ a lot
Dear President Trump, The other day Laura played me a song from Brittany Howard’s new album Jaime. The song is “13th Century Metal” (see Genius Lyrics). It’s Howard’s riff on what we need to do to come out of our own 21st century Dark Age. She promises to think before she speaks and to be … Continue reading Language matters ~ a lot
Faith in love
Dear President Trump, About six years ago I had what I refer to as my personal poetry year. I’d never written poetry before and except for one that popped out in 2016, I’ve not written any since. I barely recognized myself or my mind during those months of 2013 when it seemed like just about … Continue reading Faith in love