Month: October 2001

Shine Perishing Republic

While this America settles in the mold of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire,

And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens,

I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.

Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.

You making haste, haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly

A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains: shine, perishing republic.

But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center; corruption

Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there are left the mountains.

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.

There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught-they say-God, when he walked on earth.

Robinson Jeffers

Lest we delude ourselves into thinking America’s present crisis and people’s diverse reactions to it are anything new, this insightful, but disturbing, poem first appeared in 1926.

Those, like myself, who see the source of America’s international problems stemming from our attempts to extend our capitalistic empire, rather than our democratic ideals may, indeed, sigh with regret when we realize that as early as 1926 insightful citizens were warning of the dangers of empire, a warning never taken seriously.

Those who know history are only too aware that all empires decline and fall, whether they be Egyptian, Greek, Roman, English, or American. It is only a matter of time before ours, too, falls, though some may find some small comfort in the fact that this poem was written almost 75 years ago; so our decline may not be as "meteoric" as Jeffers envisioned.

For me, though, the most powerful, and frightening, line in the poem is beware the "love of man" for "There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught-they-say God, when he walked on earth."

The dilemma that each of us critical of America faces is whether to retreat within ourselves in order to save ourselves or to reach out to try to change a society that does not appear to want to change, that is happy with life as it is. And if we reach out, will we inevitably be pulled along with those we come to love?

Too Much Time on My Hands

When I tell people I’ve started writing a blog, I would like to think that their first question would be, "What’s the address of your blog?"

It’s not.

Few friends ever get around to that question. Inevitably their first question is, "What is a blog?" Strangely enough, as often as I have been asked that question, I still don’t have an answer. What’s worse, I’m not even sure why I produce one, much less why others do it.

All I really know is that when I’m not hiking I spend a lot of time on the web, and there are certain pages that I go to more often than not. Now, I still have my home page set to MacCentral, and I still start out by reading some news pages like the Seattle Times and the New York Times, but beyond those I have begun to spend more and more of my time on blogs.

Almost invariably I start out with wood s lot. Sometimes I end up spending the entire session following the links on his page. Now, I know virtually nothing personal about wood (and that doesn’t bother me at all), but I do know that his interests and mine must be remarkably similar, though certainly not identical – I have neither the time nor the desire to plow through some of those articles he refers to. I have discovered new interests, though, by following some of those strange links. I’m always amazed, and a little awed with the extent of his links and the kind of in-depth articles he can find on an internet that increasingly seems to be dominated by sheer fluff. And, hey, anyone who links to Leonard Cohen articles is just all right with me.

Strangely enough, the blog I read most often after wood s lot is the journal of a writing man, which is almost diametrically the opposite of wood s lot . It’s a personal log with nary a reference or link in it, though it occasionally includes a poem or a pleasant picture of the English countryside. Mostly, though, it is simply a statement of the personal moods of the oldgreypoet, little more than a nice, short visit with an interesting fellow in England. Maybe it fulfills my need for some social interaction on a day when I’m stuck inside talking to a machine, but, for whatever the reason, I find it a pleasant break in the day.

I have never really trusted definitions, and I have certainly never wanted to be "defined" by others, but I suspect that any definition of a blog would have to somehow find a means of including these two sites in its definition.

No No No

Counting the Mad

This one was put in a jacket,

This one was sent home,

This one was given bread and meat

But would eat none,

And this one cried No No No No

All day long.

This one looked at the window

As though it were a wall,

This one saw things that were not there,

And this one cried No No No No

All day long.

This one thought himself a bird,

This one a dog,

And this one thought himself a man,

An ordinary man,

And cried and cried No No No No

All day long.
Donald Justice in Understanding Poetry


That’s me, the one crying no, no, no all night long, crying no as our government does their best to convince me that their view, and only their view, of the world is "real," crying no as the mainsteam media create hysteria over bio-terrorism while simultaneously telling us that we are hysterical and should remain calm, crying no as the alternative media tell me that it’s really Americaâs own fault and that we should do nothing more to enrage our many enemies.

As I look at the television, the mediaâs window on our world, I feel exactly like I’m looking at a wall, unable to see anything in it that resembles reality. Other times I think I see things that are not there, things our government and the media would like us to believe but really arenât there, arenât true.

Between government spin, Taliban spin, and media spin, little wonder that I feel dazed and disoriented, having little idea what really is the truth.

And damn right I’m mad, mad, mad. I’m mad at the terrorists that caused such mindless destruction. I’m mad at our country for mindlessly dropping bombs that will undoubtedly save a few American soldiers lives, but only at the cost of many more innocent Afghan lives, a cost we may well have to repay with interest at a later time.

I’m especially mad that when people hear me saying no, no, no, they suggest that I’m unpatriotic, that I really don’t understand the danger our country is in, that, perhaps, I am crazy.

It’s hard for me, an ordinary man, to understand why the whole world isn’t crying no, no, no.

The Fury of Aerial Bombardment

The Fury of Aerial Bombardment

You would think the fury of aerial bombardment
Would rouse God to relent; the infinite spaces
Are still silent. He looks on shock-pried faces.
History, even, does not know what is meant.
You would feel that after so many centuries
God would give man to repent; yet he can kill
As Cain could, but with multitudinous will,
No farther advanced than in his ancient furies.
Was man made stupid to see his own stupidity?
Is God by definition indifferent, beyond us all?
Is the eternal truth man’s fighting soul
Wherein the Beast ravens in its own avidity?
Of Van Wettering I speak, and Averill,
Names on a list, whose faces I do not recall
But they are gone to early death, who late in school
Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl.

Richard Eberhart in Understanding Poetry

I know, I know, I promised myself not to read the news anymore, to take some time to find some sanity in my own life, but it’s difficult to ignore the news, no matter how depressing it is.

Although I’ll admit that I think the worst news is the possible use of smallpox as a weapon by terrorists(UN’s smallpox terror alert), I am almost as worried about the continued bombing in Afghanistan, particularly the bombing of population centers. Netscape’s top story, US Jets Hit Hard Near Taliban Front, though it has a decidedly American slant, presents the kind of details that may move even Americans to question the wisdom of long-term bombing and certainly provides reason why the Islamic world is so outraged.

Despite our precision bombing, bombs continue to crash helter skelter into residential neighborhoods killing innocent Afghans. One bomb crashed into a residential neighborhood, destroying two houses. An Associated Press reporter saw the bodies of seven dead at the scene and later at a city hospital. All were said to be related.

At a nearby hospital, Dr. Izetullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name, wept as he pulled back bloodstained sheets to show the bodies of the four children – all boys, ages 8 to 13. Izetullah said 13 dead had been brought to the hospital.

If the comments of Haziz Ullah are typical, the reaction does not bode well for Americaâs attempts to create a coalition government after it eviscerates the Taliban leadership.”This pilot was like he was blind,” neighbor Haziz Ullah said. “There are no military bases here – only innocent people.” The neighborhood holds no known Taliban military sites, although a Taliban army garrison and other installations are several miles away.

So, what does precision bombing mean? Certainly several miles would seem imprecise, at least for a smart bomb like the ones we are dropping.Thankfully, as the story points out, President Bush said the United States had been “as careful as we possibly could” to avoid killing civilians. Surely that oft-repeated phrase will comfort the parents of those who died and defuse the growing anger in the Islamic world.