Gay Marriage

The self-righteous knuckle draggers in the Indiana State Legislature are at it again. They are wholly focussed on getting a state constitutional amendment passed outlawing gay/lesbian unions. They are obsessed with the one man-one woman thing. The bible thumpers rage on about the "sanctity of marriage" and how allowing the abomination of gay coupling free reign will undermine the moral fiber of our great, god fearing nation.

What a load of crap! These are by and large the same group of elected officials who spent uncounted hours a year or so ago while in session arguing in outrage against a heathen judge who ruled that they were not to utter prayers on state property that promulgated any specific religion, say, christianity. [Let's not hear any of that "in jesus' name" stuff.] Pretty much nothing got done in that particular session except ad nauseum bitching about not being able to evoke jesus name in prayer. Although, their getting nothing done is pretty much par for the course.

The sanctity of marriage, huh? A union which can be entered into while drunk on your ass in Las Vegas at 3AM at drive-thru nuptuals in a service performed by an Elvis impersonator is certainly something about which to be sanctimonious. How sacred is a union that ends in dissolution more than 50% of the time? Isn't divorce a threat to the sanctity of marriage? Isn't adultery? Adulterers, according to Leviticus 20:10, should be "put to death." How can pious christians remain mute about adultery, which not only involves out of wedlock fornication, but which also implies betrayal, obfuscation and deceit, while in the same breath demand a constitutional amendment against same sex unions? READ YOUR DAMN BIBLES! How is the sin of adultery any less heinous? Could it be that far too many of these hypocrites have been wetting their dip sticks in forbidden fruit as it were? (How's that for a mixed metaphor?) Do they tell themselves that, well, since they've prayed for forgiveness, that it's okeedokee? That they get a pass?

How is it that supposed "literal" christians can rationalize how they pick and choose what portions of the bible to revere and what they are free to ignore? Isn't the bible "inerrant." Isn't it all absolute historical truth? Isn't every word to be strictly obeyed? Who gives anyone the right to be selective? Shouldn't all devout christians who own up to their shortcomings, their lies, their deceits, their lusts immediatly run out and impale themselves on the nearest church spire?

It is so tiresome to hear these lame assed Neanderthalic legislators prattling on about marital sanctity. There is not one member of either Indiana house who has the guts to stand up and attack this proposed amendment directly on its merits. The few voices raised against it have spoken of how it might hurt business. Business for christ's sake! Large employers in the state including Eli Lilly, Wellpoint Insurance and Cummins Engine, among others are concerned regarding how such an amendment might adverselyaffect their recruiting efforts and the application of certain company benefits that currently are made available to employees in same sex relationships. Others raised concerns about the status of men and women who may co-habitate, but are not married, and how it might affect divorced couples. That's great.

But not one of those gutless bastards will even come close to dealing with the true issue at hand: The right of two people to form a legally recognized bond regardless of gender. I am acquainted with a few same sex couples. One of those couples has a 9 or 10 year old daughter. If passed, this amendment could possibly negate their parental rights. Should it become law, the government could perhaps snatch the girl right out of their house, no questions asked. (That'd show them peter puffin' faggots, by god!)

Again, I say that if you are going to outlaw same sex unions, you should also outlaw adultery, divorce and, yes, the loathsome and utterly disgusting intermingling of linen and wool (Leviticus 19:19.) Oh, the humanity!

"Ho, ho, ho" you good christians say. God was just a joshin' about that linen/wool thingy. Bullshit! If gays are an abomination, so too are all godless minglers who keep forbidden linsey-woolsey boxers squirreled away in their chests of drawers, perhaps hidden under their cotton/polyester blend Fruit of the Looms. You all shall be eternally damned to hell, I say, you mongrel garment wearers, you! Fie, I say! Fie on thee! The Minglers Bureau will root you out! (Hey, Budreau, they nabbed some o them minglers! Fill up yer pockets with some good throwin' rocks and hot foot it over't the fair grounds. It's stonin' time agin! Yeehaw!)

In the end, this amendment is not about marriage or its sanctity. It is about hate. It is an abuse of power.

TLS

Hey Kids! What season is it?

It's Spring, by golly! This is my forsythia. I haven't trimmed it back for nearly 10 years. It is one bush which is nearly 20 feet in diameter. This is the first time it has bloomed this gloriously for 4 or 5 years. Usually it gets frozen out before it fully blooms. It fairly glows in the midday sun. It's one big bush, no? I suppose there are bigger ones out there, but I haven't seen one yet.

Woohoo!

TLS

Just Not Feeling Good

It is, I suppose, not surprising that one's perspective regarding day to day life changes after discovering that you have a serious health problem. As I've related in earlier posts, I was told after testing that I have a blockage in one of my cardiac arteries. I am "managing" it with a beta blocker.

Up until this diagnosis I had always been more or less healthy. Not fit mind you, but healthy. That is, I had never been found to have anything life threatening or debilitating (except for my arthritic knees.) To date, I have never spent a night in a hospital except presumably at birth.

I had a number of the usual childhood illnesses - measles, mumps, various flus, colds and so on. I did my share of heaving chunks during my youth. But otherwise, I've lead a fairly charmed existence healthwise. Until now.

The doctor assured me that my situation was far from dire, that while significant, it could be much worse.

Still, one's perspective changes. Now I am hyper-sensitive to every little twitch, every little ache or pain, every flutter of my now suspect heart. While I am told that it is likely a side effect of the medicine, I now find that I tire easily. I oft times hit a wall of utter exhaustion at least once and sometimes twice almost every day. I can't wait to lie down, to zone out. For years I have taken short naps, usually sometime in the mid-afternoon - a benefit of working from a home office (kinda hard to do that in a cubicle.) But often I did so as much out of habit as out of a real need to rest. I have just thought of them as my daily meditations.

Now, the naps are generally longer and seem at least, more necessary. What I don't know at this juncture is just how much of my reaction is physical and how much mental or emotional. More often now I find myself thinking about things that I will likely never do. The future seems less definitive. I know that I could still rival my mother in longevity. She passed at 92. But I am also mindful that my eldest brother died at my age, 60; of a heart attack. That pretty much sucks. ( I wonder, if I wind up in a grave, or in an urn, if I could have something to that effect chiseled or etched on the surface. "This pretty much sucks." That might be good.)

I know in my initial post about this turn of events, I was all blustery. I was shook up, but the reality of it hadn't begun to sink in. I said then that I didn't feel any different, and I didn't. But now, I do. I presume that at least some depression is a natural response to one's initial tete-a-tete with mortality. I'm probably guilty of indulging myself too much. I've tried to avoid sitting on the pity pot. Perhaps that's what I'm doing here.

By current standards, sixty years is not a long life. Hell, the average life span in the US is something like 75 years. I recall some years ago it was announced that the average life span of an American male was around 72 years, while that of the average American female was 78 years. Some comedian taking note of that distinction announced his intention upon hitting 71 was to get a sex change operation. Good thinking.

I'm certainly not ready to cash in. I hope to see both of my sons get themselves established in life and take some pleasure in their accomplishments. I hope to get to a point wherein I will be able to hang up my clip board and tape measure and just live day to day without the concern for making a livelihood, and to be able to do that in relatively good health. But who knows? While I give no credence to any god, there are still things we just can't control. They ain't none of us gonna live forever, at least not yet.

TLS

You Can't Go Back. You Just Can't Go Back.

The old saying, "You can't go home again" was brought to bear for me earlier this evening. The results of browsing can rise up and bite you in the butt, if you're not careful.

I went on-line searching for an old acquaintance. Actually, I had searched for him a couple of times over the past few years to no avail, but this time I hit pay dirt.

Back in the late 1960s I worked for (the now defunct) Trans World Airlines at the Indianapolis Airport. A fellow TWAer suggested I go with him to see a vocal trio that was playing the lounge at a nearby hotel. A nite or two later we did.

The trio consisted of one guy I'll call Dain and two girls I'll refer to as Jane and let's say Carmen, yeah, Carmen is good. (Obviously, those aren't their real names. I'd rather not go plowing willy-nilly into their lives.) Jane and Dain were married, uh, to each other. The trio was good. They sang covers of current popular songs - old standards, a little jazz, a little rock & roll. Jane played piano and Carmen sometimes played guitar. They all three sang well individually and had a good harmonic blend when singing together. I believe Jane, who was classically trained, created most of their arrangements.

Over the course of the next several weeks I went to the hotel lounge several times and began hanging out with them after their final sets. Dain and I became friends. To understand our relationship, suffice it to say that Dain was very much an "A" type personality while I was then and remain a "B" kind of guy. Dain was dynamic, pretty much always the mover and shaker of whatever was going on. He ran the show. We followed and fed off of him. Was I a sycophant? I prefer to think not, but I was certainly caught up in his aura.

Dain, Jane and Carmen had been students at a fundamentalist college out here in the midwest where I believe they met. Not surprisingly, Dain had been well on his way to becoming an evangelist minister. But somewhere along the line Dain, and I would assume with Jane and Carmen following his lead, became disillusioned by their studies and religion in general, and together they left school and their religious lives behind them. All claimed to no longer believe in god. In so doing, Dain related that his father had essentially disowned him. Jane's parents though less harsh, still were mightily troubled by their daughter's rejection of the church. I don't recall hearing how Carmen's parents weighed in on all this.

Shortly thereafter the three of them pooled their musical talents, formed their little trio and began playing clubs in the midwest. Somewhere along the line Dain determined that his new found goal was to become an actor, and the only place to do that was New York City. After several months the three of them pulled up stakes and moved to the Big Apple. I followed along a few weeks later.

I was a pretty malleable pudgy hunk of clay back then. I quit my job at TWA, drove east dragging a U-Haul trailer loaded with my junk and moved in with the three of them at the Seville Hotel at 29th and Madison where we lived for several months. To be kind, the Seville had seen better days but was relatively cheap, at least by New York standards. Dain enrolled in acting classes at HB Studios, a professional theatrical school run by Herbert Berghoff and his wife, Uta Hagan, both well established broadway actors. Subsequently I too enrolled at HB and quickly became hooked. The atmosphere at HB was intoxicating, especially to a midwestern hick like myself. Suffice it to say that I proved to be no threat to anyone's theatrical career. But Dain seemed to be on the fast track. He managed to get into Berghoff's class from the get go.

I won't go into all the gory details, but as time went on things deteriorated between all of us and ultimately we drifted apart. Dain had a brief affair with Carmen. Jane discovered it. Dain and Jane split only to later reconcile. Carmen began seeing a fellow who was a heroin addict and soon, may have become one herself, although I am not certain of that. She and I shared an apartment for several months and she was at times chatty about this and that. She did tell me she had done some heroin but was not addicted. I'm not sure if you can "sample" that stuff and just walk away.

Just to do the confessional thingy, I smoked some grass, dropped some acid and mescaline a few times over the course of my stay in New York, but I never got involved with anything heavier. As I noted in an earlier post, I haven't imbibed anything of a dubious legal nature over the last 30 years or so, other than repeated heavy doses of trans fats. The LDL swat team is surrounding the house even as I type.

Carmen decided that it was up to her to intervene on behalf of her boyfriend by moving both of them back to her family home in Illinois in the notion that she would be able to get the two of them "straight." In what was perhaps the most surreal scene I have ever witnessed Carmen's middle aged, midwestern, fundamentalist parents came to New York to assist with the move. Mom and Dad rented a truck and began loading Carmen's worldly goods onto it. Carmen and a girl friend of hers decided the best way to handle all of this was to drop acid making pretty much the whole job of loading a truck the most hilarious and alternately the saddest thing they'd ever done. Of course, her parents were clueless. During all of this Carmen's boyfriend was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps being a lifelong New Yorker, he was contemplating life in the heartland with some trepidation. I guess he showed up sometime or other, I don't remember.

Meanwhile I was trying to find a place or places to take my meager belongings. I was forced to give up the apartment as the rent was too high for me alone. So I moved back into the glorious Seville; just me and my little Dachshund, Doodle. Yeah, Doodle. Want to make something of it?!!

By late the following summer Carmen was long gone. Dain was doing summer stock in Massachusetts, if memory serves. I don't recall what Jane was doing at that point working somewhere, I presume, paying rent. In the meantime I had fallen rather too hard for a girl from Massapequa Park, but my ardor was unrequited. I was pretty much alone, and I must admit, rather a pathetic mess. It was time for me to get out of Dodge, or, er New York.

A couple of years later, shortly after Jo and I were married, we drove to New York as a kind of belated honeymoon and stayed with Dain and Jane at their apartment in Purchase, NY in tony Westchester County. Frankly, I can't remember specifically what Dain was doing at that juncture, but I'm pretty sure he was still clambering up Thespis' ladder. Jane had taken an accompanist job at a community college in Purchase. Jo and I stayed for a few days. As I recall the infamous Boris Spasky/Bobby Fisher chess match was ongoing.

That was the last time I saw Dain or Jane. We exchanged a few cards and letters over the next year or so, perhaps a phone call or two, but as so often happens, communications between us dwindled and ultimately ceased. I haven't seen or heard from any of them since. Until today I didn't know if any of them were still drawing breath.

I found Dain online today.

During our early days, first in Indy, then in New York, through any number of all night, sometimes drug enhanced gab fests with Dain, Jane, Carmen and others who occasionally came and went, my atheism took form. I remember one evening just as I was leaving their apartment, which overlooked Abbington Square in the West Village, I turned back and asked Jane if she believed in god. She thought for a minute, smiled, and quietly said no. I left, going back across town to my tiny rent controlled hovel in the East Village with the aforementioned and mighty Doodle in tow thinking about just where I stood godwise. I decided during that walk that I too, no longer believed. I felt as if a great weight had lifted off my shoulders.

Well, that was then. This is now. Dain, as it happens, is now a christian minister in Hollywood. In Hollywood for crap sake! He is a member of the "Pastoral Posse" (???) at his church. Talk about a slap upside the head?

How do I feel about this? Betrayed? Mmmm, that might be a bit strong. Sorely dissappointed? Yeah, I'd say so. I guess I always assumed Dain was my secret partner in crime.

Of course, Dain made his own choices as he had a perfect right to do. It was and is his life, after all. But as memory serves, he was so adamant, so sure of his sight back then. During that time in New York he reiterated time and again that to believe in god was ludicrous. Given what I've come to understand about people in the intervening years, while I am certainly chagrinned, I am not altogether surprised by Dain's reversion to religion. I think Dain always believed he was destined, if you will to be great at something. Perhaps things didn't go as he anticipated. Or, actually, maybe they did. I don't know.

Nor do I know if he now gets up and preaches the gospel. If he does, I'm sure he's very good. He has great stage presence. His voice, a mellifluous baritone, commands attention. His position with the church is noted as being related to spiritually inspired theatrical and film production. In a short bio on the church web site Dain states that his "occupation" is "actor, director, playwright," so he has apparently remained active in that world.

I'm still sorting this out. Dain certainly had no responsibility to me. He believed then, what he believed. Things change. Dain was (is) an intelligent guy; on the whole, much moreso than I. But he somehow thought his way back to the church. I can't account for that.

My atheism has remained steadfast and developed on its own over the last several years. The Dain/Jane/ Carmen trifecta started the ball rolling for me. But now I don't require them or anyone to validate what I believe today. Still, this revelation has shaken me to a degree. It is rather comically ironic, I guess. My wife thinks its hysterical.

I sent an email to Dain. I am curious to see if he remembers me, and if he will choose to respond. Perhaps he won't care to take a stroll down his long past secular byways.

I can take comfort in one thing, though. Dain's bio includes a photo. Dain is bald. I am not. Ha, ha. (Say it like the tough kids do who always beat up Bart on The Simpsons, you know, kinda nasally, but triumphant.)

TLS

Just thought I'd add a little postscript here. Dain does indeed preach the gospel. I found a podcast of a few of his recent sermons. He is indeed quite good. He uses his natural flare for the dramatic and his prodigious theatrical training coupled with his disarming charm to great effect in delivering his message.

Note that while I admire the delivery, I don't embrace the message. I suppose all this does reveal something about me, though. While I have actively sought him (among others) out from my deep dark past, I think it probable that I haven't so much as crossed his mind since Jo and I pulled out of his driveway in Purchase in the summer of 1972.

Another Mish Mash

A lot has been going on in the world over the last several days, and I have managed to pretty much ignore all of it. I've just let most of it go in one ear and out the other.

What did I take notice of?

People in positions of power keep saying stupid things. General Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs put his boot in his mouth with his immoral gay comments. Now he regrets making the comments, but does not apologize for them.

We had a guy here in Indiana fly a single engine plane into his mother in-law's house killing himself and his young daughter who he took in the plane with him. No one on the ground was hurt, but apparently he did this deliberately as revenge against his ex-wife. Guess he showed her. These kind of events are so maddening. There is no way to gain retribution or justice against these assholes. How is it that anyone thinks that their lives, their agendas are of such great importance that the lives of others, often their own children or other supposed loved ones are of lesser value, that they are no more than pawns to be used for agendas not their own.

Just as I sit here, a local news item on the tube involved a man who stabbed his 11 month old infant, after an altercation with the child's mother.

Why are some men such assholes? Self important bastards. You only occasionally find women of this ilk. Susan Smith comes to mind. Andrea Yates. Amanda Hamm. Probably some others.

A girl my son went to high school with died in an auto wreck a few years ago. She was survived by her 2 year old daughter. Her live-in boy friend, who may or may not have been the biological father of the girl, fought for her custody against the deceased girl's parents. When it appeared that the court intended to award custody to the 2 year old's grandparents, the boy friend decided not to let that happen. He took his own life and that of the girl. Again, he showed them, by god! No justice is possible.

America's fatal flaw: The assumption that we are operating from a position of moral superiority in the world, and are, therefore, justified in waging pre-emptive war against those whom we determine to be morally inferior.

You know, Osama believes that his cause is right and just. He sees himself as a righteous muslim waging war against the infidel for the glory of allah. The young people who are lured into the war against the west, who become suicide bombers believe they are on the fast road to paradise.

Religious fundamentalists maintain total certainty that their particular god, their particular belief system is the one and only true faith. All others are, therefore, false. All followers of other belief systems are doomed to eternity in hell.

I know I have covered this ground before as have many others. But the situation remains more or less static. I recently watched the Jesus Camp movie. An entire generation of young people is being brain washed into becoming god's warriors. Those kids need an intervention. They need to be forced to look out of the tiny little god-shells the church has encapsulated them in, and be made aware of the world around them, warts and all.


This qualifies as one of my venting posts. Not particularly earth shaking, or even informative. Just venting.

TLS

Another Colts Note

It's interesting how during any sports' season and the lead up to the respective championship games or series that the fervor builds to a kind of fever pitch which, in the sports world at least, is all consuming. Who will make it to the playoffs? Who will win their conference championships? Who will advance to the finals? Then, and especially in the case of the Super Bowl, the hype and hoopla grow to huge proportions. A lot of money is being spent. A lot of money is being made. All the talking heads on the tube wile away hours analyzing each remaining team, breaking down the match ups, discussing who's healthy and who's not, attempting to determine how coaches are preparing their charges, making their predictions, etc.

Finally, the game is played. The gun sounds. It's over. Woohoo! So and so won! So and so are world champions! The winners walk around with helmets held high with huge smiles across their sweaty faces. The losers, with downcast miens, shake a few hands and melt away quietly to their locker rooms and off in their buses.

Afterwards there are game analyses, some interviews, a couple of appearances on Leno and Letterman, and then it's over. Aside from those connected to the winning team - as players, coaches, family, media and fans - nobody else much gives a crap.

The folks in Indy are patting each other on the back, basking in the glow of the Colts' Super Bowl win. It's all great fun. The folks in Chicago are licking their wounds, generally dissing the Colts - "Manning ain't all that good. We shoulda whupped 'em," and bitching about Rex Grossman and why Lovey Smith didn't pull him or call different plays or whatever.

The rest of the country could care less. As I said in the previous post, most people outside the Chicago and Indy regions by now may not even remember who played or who won. While Indy is pleased with itself, it should be understood that generally people don't care to watch someone else celebrate.

As this is the first major sports championship Indianapolis has ever won, I suppose we don't quite know how to conduct ourselves. Places like New York, Chicago or Boston, among others have "been there, done that" many times with many different championships. Not to say they don't celebrate. They have their parades and their speeches and their drunken parties just as we have. But, they probably aren't quite as giddy as we mid-western hicks have been about it. Their celebrations are seasoned with experience.

Nevertheless. I am happy that we won. While it's a source of boredom for some, it has put a bit of a spring in the step of a lot of people in and around Indy. If it never happens again, I guess that will be all right. We can in our boredom look askance upon those in future championship cities in the throes of their celebrations. We will no longer be suffering from trophy envy. We can say, perhaps with a knowing sigh: "Been there, done that."

TLS

Colts - Super Bowl Winners - Anybody Really Care?

If you look closely to the left of the guy in the "Addai" jersey you will see the "Lombardi Trophy." No, really. That's it. That is the symbol of what nearly 1700 burly guys knock heads (often literally) to achieve starting every year in mid-July at summer training camp and running through the end of January the following year culminating with the Super Bowl.

The Indianapolis Colts managed to acquire this little trifle this time around. Big wup, huh?

Well, yeah. I know it is all kind of silly. If you're not into sports, or specifically professional American football, it all seems superbly ridiculous.

In the particular instance recorded above a local Indianapolis Meijer store provided the venue for Colt fans' first opportunity to see up close and even touch the Super Bowl trophy. Something like four to five thousand people waited on line for up to five hours to take advantage of this. The trophy is still being toured in similar fashion over the next several weeks all over the state of Indiana, and even one stop in Danville, Illinois, probably just to piss off "da Bears."

I admit to making the trip to the Meijer store. However, upon seeing the crowd winding its way around aisle after aisle, my wife and I quickly determined that there was no way we would get in that line. The photo above is as close as I got to the trophy, perhaps 25 to 30 feet. I had to wait until people shifted around for a second or two revealing the trophy to my vantage point - then "click."

The NFL Super Bowl XLI DVD was released a few days ago and again thousands of people have lined up at area stores to buy it and get an autograph from one or more Colt players.

I imagine that, if you asked people at random (at least people not from Indianapolis or Chicago,) who played in the last Super Bowl and who won, you'd get a lot of blank stares. "Don't know, and don't give a shit." would be a likely response.

I will say though, that winning the Super Bowl is a good thing for Indianapolis. I heard someone on the tube just prior to the game claim that Chicago really needed a Super Bowl win to bolster the city's collective psyche. Well, I don't know about that. It seems that Chicago has had some fairly recent success in the realm of major league sports. If memory serves, the White Sox brought a World Series win to the Windy City in 2005. And the name Michael Jordan comes to mind. I think "da Bulls" managed a modicum of success in the NBA not so long ago. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Indy, on the other hand has had no claim to any kind of major league sports championship since the mid-1970s when the Pacers won a couple of playoff finals in the old ABA. Since the Detroit "brawl" the Pacers have become more of a punch line than a professional basketball team. Even the glory days of Bob Knight's IU basketball teams have become a rather dim and now bitter memory. Their last championship was 20 years ago.

Now Hoosiers can bask for a while. We can enjoy this at least until next December or January. Indianapolis is, vicariously at least, a winner. The Colts won the big one.

What does it all mean? In the end of course, not much. The supposed "glory" is over stated and ephemeral at best. In lite of what's going on around the world, competitive sports at any level pale in importance. Obviously, a lot of people could care less. I watch some football and basketball, but am far from being an avid fan. I wouldn't have waited on line for hours for much of anything short of free money.

A bit after 9/11 the Onion published a headline that read something like: "Americans need to get beyond 9/11 tragedy to return their attention to meaningless crap." It's true, of course. And by and large, we have. Sports are essentially meaningless. But compared to war, mass murder, genocide, pandemic disease and famine what isn't?

Regardless, now that I live in a winning Super Bowl city, I must admit, it's kinda neat. I'm not even that big a fan of Indianapolis. But perhaps people from elsewhere may be less apt to call it IndiaNoPlace. What the hell. I'll share in the fun, for a while at least.

TLS

Happy days are here again. The skies above are...

Just thought I'd post this great little poem as a pick-me-up for anyone going through difficult times.

HAPPINESS

by

Jane Kenyon

There's just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto a grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your dispair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.

It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

A note to Ms. Kenyon and her publishers: All proceeds from this posting will be donated to the "Hare" fund established on behalf of the emotionally traumatized bunny who unfairly lost the race of the century to that unscrupulous tortoise and his nefarious gang of shell bangers.

TLS