Happy St Patrick's Day

The Legend Of The Shamrock

I'll seek a four-leaved shamrock in all the fairy dells,
And if I find the charmed laves, oh, how I'll weave my spells!
I would not waste my magic might on diamond, pearl, or gold,
For treasure tires the weary sense, such triumph is but cold;
But I would play the enchanter's part, in casting bliss around --
Oh! not a tear, nor aching heart, should in the world be found!
To worth I would give honor! -- I'd dry the mourner's tears,
And to the pallid lip recall the smile of happier years,
And hearts that had been long estranged, and friends that had grown cold,
Should meet again - like parted streams - and mingle as of old;
Oh! thus I'd play the enchanter's part, thus scatter bliss around,
And not a tear, nor aching heart, should in the world be found!
The heart that had been mourning o'er vanish'd dreams of love,
Should see them all returning - like Noah's faithful dove,
And Hope should launch her bless'd bark on Sorrow's darkening sea,
And Misery's children have an ark, and saved from sinking be;
Oh! thus I'd play the enchanter's part, thus scatter bliss around,
And not a tear, nor aching heart, should in the world be found!

--Samuel Lover

It's A Fine Day (somewhere)

I woke up on this St Patrick's Day to news that four teenagers from my town had been killed by a drunken driver. Our town is not so large that a tragedy of this kind will fade quickly from memory. I pray for the families so terribly affected by this outrage.

It's fair here today. The house windows are opened, and the furnace has been put to nap. My companions rest in sleep as the sun shines on their relaxed bodies. I know they'll soon want to go out into the fair day and play a bit in the yard.

My neighbors across the way have been caring for a disabled adult child for as long as we've known them. Recently, there has been an increase of activity in and out of their home. Nurses in white, nurses in blue, paramedics aboard a city fire engine; and private ambulances stop for short, and intermittent times almost on a daily basis. It's so easy to read the signs of a very hard circumstance.

Our dear neighbor on the other side of our fenceline, has been assalted by consequential maladies making her infirm. When we speak, I'm angered that her doctors can't seem to find the right treatment to make her whole again. She needs an advocate walking by her side. All I can do is pray for her.

I find it amazing, as I age, that I've taken back and embraced this tenet of Faith given to me in my youth: prayer.

Waiting on Spring

A Waft Of Perfume

A waft of perfume from a bit of lace
Moved lightly by a passing woman’s hand;
And on the common street, a sensuous grace
Shone suddenly from some lost time and land.
Tall structures changed to dome and parapet;
The stern-faced Church an oracle became;
In sheltered alcoves marble busts were set;
And on the wall frail Lais wrote her name.
Phryne before her judges stood at bay,
Fearing the rigour of Athenian laws;
Till Hyperides tore her cloak away,
And bade her splendid beauty plead its cause.
Great Alexander walking in the dusk,
Dreamed of the hour when Greek with Greek should meet;
From Thais’ window attar breathed, and musk:
His footsteps went no farther down the street.
Faint and more faint the pungent perfume grew;
Of wall and parapet remained no trace.
Temple and statue vanished from the view:
The city street again was commonplace.

--Ella Wheeler Wilcox

My Companions & Me

For the mostpart, the daylight hours are quiet for my companions and me. We sit shuttered inside the house waiting for this mean winter to end. Often times, no, many times during the day we hear the urgent sirens of ambulances racing down the nearby main street. A major trauma center hospital is only two miles south of where we live, so it is the choice for many of our neighbors when faced with physical catastrophes. Each time I hear an ambulance wail, I'm reminded that I'm not a kid anymore. And my neighbors, moreso, for most of them are years older than me. Simply put, our town is very grey and wrinkled; slow-of-step, and easy to tire. One of my mothers' favorite bywords was: "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." It's amazing how comments such as this don't have any meaning until put into the proper context. Mom, I understand.

My companions are dear to me. I've never heard them complain about anything they have to deal with day in, day out. If they want my attention they'll seek me out, and stay close by to me until I decide I have time for them. They like most of the music I listen to, as long as its not played too loud. They don't watch television, but are okay with me whiling away hours doing so. But I know they don't like the television news or televised Tiger games; because both of these tend to raise my blood pressure and cause me to start yelling out loud. That scares them. So one leaves the room, and the other cowers by my wifes' side until my ranting has subsided. I keep trying to be better about this, but so far nature wills out.

They like to eat. I like to eat. So we together eat. Alot. The big white box in the kitchen is our tabernacle. The three of us cherish it and even fawn over it, waiting for the next great taste to be liberated from behind its locked door.

It's been said that no matter how crowded and confused and chaotic your life becomes, God always provides a place in your heart to take in more beings to love. My two companions prove that saying. I'm grateful for you Zoe. I'm grateful for you Dohzia. I'm mightily glad that God lets me share so much of both of your lives.

The Flogging Shall Continue. Part 2

SONNET XIX
ON HIS BLINDNESS

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
'Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?' I fondly ask.
But patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies,
'God doth not need either man's work or his own gifts.
Who best bear his mild yoke, they serve Him best.
His state Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.'

John Milton

A New Use For Speed Dial...

I've just completed reading a news report that further proves the banking industry "just doesn't get it." The report laid out the rewards still being granted to retired or fired CEOs from Citibank, Wells Fargo, Wachovia and Merrill Lynch. Seems the old farts, who previously raided their companies for millions in salary and fringes, remain today on the balance sheets. These banks, and the slugs currently in charge allow the replaced managers office and seceraterial support; cars and drivers, free air transportation for any purpose, and millions more dollars in on-going retirement or severance pay. Guess who's footing the bills for these feather beds!

Because the banks "just don't get it," and because Congress "just doesn't get it," I think its' time for all of us to put our local Congressman/woman & our duly (ha!) elected U.S. Senators on our speed dial on our personal phones. Doing this could be fun--informative--blood pressure reducing, and; simply maddening for our Representatives. It's the right thing to do!

If we all put these dolts on speed dial, imagine the ease we'd all have in communicating our sheer disgust to any of our Representatives after we read heard or witnessed their latest follies on the news or in print. Let's say my Congressman/woman represented 132,000 people here in the neighborhood. He/she says something really stupid; or votes for some onerous bit of legislation loaded with pork...Imagine the impact of say, 90,000 really, really angry calls into the Congressional switchboard during the standard business day. (Does Congress have a standard business day?)
I think a month, or so of being under the microscope this way might open up some eyes inside the Beltway.

It is after all our Country; is it not?

Oh, these passing years!

Integer Vitae

The man of life upright,
Whose guiltless heart is free
From all dishonest deeds,
Or thought of vanity
The man whose silent days
In harmless joys are spent,
Whom hopes cannot delude,
Nor sorrow discontent;
That man needs neither towers
Nor armour for defence,
Nor secret vaults to fly
From thunder’s violence:
He only can behold
With unaffrighted eyes
The horrors of the deep
And terrors of the skies.
Thus, scorning all the cares
That fate or fortune brings,
He makes the heaven his book,
His wisdom heavenly things;
Good thoughts his only friends,
His wealth a well-spent age,
The earth his sober inn
And quiet pilgrimage.

Thomas Campian

There is an athlete taking center stage, who's current challenge to keep a job, makes me think of my fleeting years. His name is Ken Griffey, Jr.

As fine a baseball player as has been seen in the past 30 years; Griffey, Jr. is at the end of an illustrious career that may see him enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. And even though he has achieved wonderous things in his career, his age and loss of step; and salary requirements work against him in this off season. Will he fade into retirement; as I have? Or, will some team somewhere reward him for all he has done for the game? Nothing's certain in this close to a miserable winter.

I get a bit melancholy thinking of Griffey, Jr.

Our first sight of him was when he broke into Major League Baseball as a super-talented and athletic performer with the Seattle Mariners. His "persona" then--and even today, attracted fans like us to appreciate his skills, and his exhuberance. He might have always played with an opponent of our team; but much like Mickey Mantle before him, the fan in all of us held him in special esteem.

Today his step is slower. His defense not as reckless as in his youth. His booming bat not so dangerous any longer. And his options so much less...

We watched him as a man-child and were thrilled by what we witnessed. We watch today as his choices diminish.

Once upon a time, he was young. And we were young. But no longer; either he, or we. A sad and dark winter, it is!

In The Winter Of My Age

On Growing Old

What is it to grow old?
Is it to lose the glory of the form,
The lustre of the eye?
Is it for beauty to forego her wreath?
Yes, but not for this alone.
Is it to feel our strength
Not our bloom only,
but our strength decay?
Is it to feel each limb
Grow stiffer, every function less exact,
Each nerve more weakly strung?
Yes, this, and more! but not,
Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dreamed 'twould be!
Tis not to have our life mellowed and softened
as with sunset-glow,
A golden day's decline!
Tis not to see the world
As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes,
And heart profoundly stirred;
And weep, and feel the fulness of the past,
The years that are no more!
It is to spend long days
And not once feel that we were ever young.
It is to add, immured
In the hot prison of the present, month
To month with weary pain.
It is to suffer this,
And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel:
Deep in our hidden heart
Festers the dull remembrance of a change,
But no emotion none.
It is last stage of all
When we are frozen up within, and quite
The phantom of ourselves,
To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost
Which blamed the living man.

--Matthew Arnold

THE GRAND CONSPIRACY

Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that Wells Fargo Bank was throwing a shindig for its most "talented" employees. This soiree is to be staged at the Wynn Hotel (Las Vegas' most expensive lodging); and it is to occur over 12 days time. Now, in case you might have missed the news, Wells Fargo was deemed a failed bank by Congress, and presented with a 25 billion dollar gift by the U.S. Treasury. All part of the bail out or fail mentality rife inside the Beltway.

A spokeswoman for Wells Fargo replied to the incredulity expressed by the press, that this par-tay was in keeping with the banks "corporate culture".

I don't know about you, but this arrogance and financial misappropriation, kind of reminds me of the mindset of the french aristocracy on the eve of The Revolution. And it reminds me too of the great ballroom scene Edgar Allen Poe created in his Masque Of The Red Death. Its' simply a large caste of people believing they are divinely annointed to rape the land and its' inhabitants for their own personal gain.

I believe that the actions of the dumb and lunatic in Congress; and in the international banking community, will bring us to a point where civil unrest and civil disobedience will bring this republic to ruin.

And I believe this destruction will occur in my lifetime. That saddens me because I love my country.

The Flogging Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward

Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this,
The intelligence that moves, devotion is;
And as the other Spheares, by being growne,
Subject to forraigne motions, lose their owne;
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a yeare their natural forme obey.
Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit,
For their first mover, and are whirld by it.
Hence is ite, that I am carryed towards the West this day,
When my Soules forme bends toward the East.

There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,
And by that setting endlesse day beget;
But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall,
Sinne had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare ['almost be glad, I do not see,
That spectacle of too much weight for meet;
Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;
What a death were it then to see God dye?

It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke,
It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke.
Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,
And tune all spheares at once, peirc'd with those holes?
Could I behold that endlesse height which is Zenith to us,
And to'our Antipodes, Humbled below us?
Or that blood which is The seat of all our Soules, if not of his.
Make curt of dust, or that flesh which was worne
By God, for his apparel!, rag'd, and tome?

If on these things I durst not looke, durst I
Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,
Who was Gods partner here, and furnish'd thus,
Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom'd us?
Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye,
They'are present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and thou look'st towards mee.
O Saviour, as thou hang'st upon the tree;
I turne my backe to thee, but to receive
Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.
O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee,
Burne off my rusts, and my deformity,

Restore shine Image, so much, by thy grace,
That thou may'st know mee, and I'll turne my face.

--John Donne

This is simply, one of my favorite poems; and Donne is one of my favorite writers.

Its About The Economy, Stupid!

Yesterday, the citizens and residents of these United States learned that the Manufacturing Sector of our economy puked out another 20,000 good jobs when Caterpillar disgorged that total from its employment ranks.

That's astonishing! Reported cross-country with no emotion or inflection in the words of talking heads and scribbling, fear-filled scribes, we all digested the news with a head shake, a forlorn sigh, and a dismissal. It was on to simple suppers and another pull on our beverage of choice.

Our new President, seven days into his "Change You Can Believe In" campaign, genuflected to the power brokers he is beholden to, by upholding and defending Federal and state Clean Air mandates that North American auto manufacturers simply cannot meet at present. Thank you, Mr. President.

I was taught, oh, so many years ago, decades even; that it was my responsibility--along with every other citizen, to understand the tenets, rules and values of this democratic republic. And, by way of that understanding, speak out and challenge the Federal Government if and when it strayed from it's duty:"of the people, by the people and for the people..."

I sincerely believed that I could do that just by participating in the Democratic Process.

But something dark and sinister happened along the way. An Oligarchy of the rich and beautiful, that had lead fairly isolated lives here in the United States; combined with their kindred spirits world-wide. Suddenly, instead of having the power to influence my local and regional legislators simply by reminding such that they served me as a citizen; I saw, we all saw, that our elected representation listened most keenly not to us, but to only those that delivered vast sums of money into political PACS.

Life in these great United States evolved from "one man, one vote", to the new Golden Rule: He who has the gold, rules.

So it is that we march ever toward repression, tho' mad as hell. Raise Up Your Glass to the fall of the Militia, the emergence of benevolent One World Government, Groupspeak as the new gospel, and holding all possessions in common.

I never thought losing my voice, and my individual rights and responsibilities could be this cruel or this frustrating.

To assuage my fractured ego, I'll take my cupcake and milk into the tv room, plug in a DVD of another profane comedian, and bliss out on ignorance and nothingness.

God Bless America.

To Althea from Prison

When love with unconfined wings,
Hovers within my gates;
And my divine Althea brings,
To whisper at he grates;
When I lye tangled in her haire,
And fetterd to her eye,
The birds, that wanton in the aire,
Know no such libertye

When flowing cups run swiftly round,
With no allaying Thames;
Our carelesse heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty griefe in wine we steepe,
When healths and draughts go free;
Fishes, that tipple in the deepe,
Know no such libertye.

When (like committed linnets) I,
With shriller throat shall sing;
The sweetness,mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King.
When I shall voyce aloud, how good,
He is, how great should be;
Inlarged winds, that curle the flood,
Know no such libertye.

Stone walls doe not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Mindes innocent and quiet take,
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedome in my love,
And in my soule am free;
Angels alone that sore above,
Enjoy such liberty.

--Richard Lovelace

Having the time--for the first time in many decades, to do a bit of musing; I decided to start this blog as a sort of retirement journal.

I've chosen a cross-section of my favorite poets to lay a cornerstone for each new post. Today it is Richards Lovelace,a Cavalier Poet writing during the reign of King Charles I in the 1600s.

This poem, while not my favorite of his production contains one of the most famous couplets in the English Language. That's why it's here.

In tomorrow's post I'll have a different poet, and probably a different theme.

I'm in my third month of retirement.

And I'm loving the h-e-double hockey sticks out of it! I'm drinking more coffee, more tea, more adult beverages; and generally lazing through each new day.

It's truly amazing when you can wake up each day and remember its a "weekend" kind of day. I haven't shaved yet today, and I don't intend to. I haven't combed what little hair I have yet; and probably, if I have to go out somewhere, will just throw a cap or hat on the noggin.

The dishes from Saturday's dinner are resting in close proximity to our kitchen sink. I promised to do them today. But that exercise doesn't have to start until at least 4:45 PM; and I can still finish up before my beloved arrives home from work. Too cool!

Did you know that when you are retired, Cocktail Time is anytime you want it to be.

As this blog/journal moves along in its time space continuum, I'll be adding new comments as I'm inspired to. For now I'll close so I can get this entry out into cyber space.

Starting out...

My wife asked: "What are you doing today?"

I said, "nothing."

She replied: "You did that yesterday."

I said, "I'm not finished."