Monday, May 19, 2025

5/19/2025

 Monday, May 19, 2025

D+173/118

1961 Soviet dancer Rudolf Nureyev makes his Paris stage debut with the Kirov Ballet

1962 "John Birch Society" single by Chad Mitchell Trio hit the pop charts

1983 36th Cannes Film Festival: "Narayama Bushiko" (The Ballad of Narayama ) directed by Japanese director Shohei Imamura, won the Palme d'Or

1992  Dan Quayle attacked Murphy Brown for being a single mother, a poor example of family values

In bed at 1:30, awake around 4:30, and up at 4:45. 42°, wind chill 31°, high of 50°   

Prednisone, day 369; 1 mg., day 11/21; Kevzara, day 7/14; CGM, day 2/15; Trulicity, day 3.7.  Prednisone at 4:50 a.m.  Other meds at  6 a.m.  Eye drops at 5 a.m.,  p.m., and   p.m.   



Those Winter Sundays

  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Tumblr
  • View print mode

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made 
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. 

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. 
When the rooms were warm, he’d call, 
and slowly I would rise and dress, 
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him, 
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know 

of love’s austere and lonely offices?     

I first encountered this poem in Garrison Keillor's anthology Good Poems.  I suppose eead person has his own definition of what makes a poem good or not.  Most of the poetry that I have read means nothing to me, or worse than nothing because it's an irritant, inpenetrable, unintelligible, dense as a brick.  But some poems kick me in the stomach.  Whitman's Come Up From the Fields, Father, Yeats's Vacillation, and this one by Robert Hayden  This poem came to mind this morning because I thought of Geri's being so concerned that she leave me properly provisioned when she leaves Thursdy for her four day visit with her friends Kate Donovan and Tuzz, who will be flying in from Dublin.  Her conscience won't be at ease unless she leaves me with the fixings for a proper evening meal for each day she is gone.  She sees no humor in my joke that I can get along just fine on Graham crackers and peanut butter.  I can be trusted to deal with my own breakfasts and lunches, but dinners are her bailiwick, and she needs to be sure that I am properly equipped, provisioned, and instructed before she leaves.

Mostly, however, this poem reminds me of my own father. this poem and another, When My Dead Father Called, by Robert Bly.  Both poems trigger emotions in me that are too deep and tangled to express 

When My Dead Father Called

Last night I dreamt my father called to us.
He was stuck somewhere. It took us 
A long time to dress, I don't know why.
The night was snowy; there were long black roads.

Finally we reached the little town, Bellingham.
There he stood, by a streetlamp in cold wind,
Snow blowing along the sidewalk. I noticed 
The uneven sort of shoes that men wore

In the early Forties. And overalls. He was smoking. 
Why did it take us so long to get going? Perhaps
He left us somewhere once, or did I simply \
Forget he was alone in winter in some town?

 Who  is the most hated man in America?   Can there be be any doubte that it is Donald J. Trump?  For a while, it may have been a toss-up between him and Elon Musk, but with his Tesla fortune crashing, Elon is fading from notoriety and Donald once again reigns supreme: the most hated man in America.  I thought of this as I read Jeffrey Toobin's op-ed in this morning's NY Times, "Trump Has His Law Firms Right Where He Wants Them."  Trump has brought to thier knees nine of he country's largest, wealthiest, and most powerful Big Law firms.  We can't expect anyone to shed a tear for these elite lawyers who, for the most part, represent the monied interests of the world, but Toobin points out the very pernicious effects Trump's power plays on the firms have on the rest of the country.  Trump has also threatened the existence of the nation's major research institutions, notably, the best and most productive reseach universities.    He has threatened the military establishment through the depradations of his acolyte Pete Hegseth, and done the same to the federal law enforcement establishment through Pam Bondi and Kash Patel.  He has damaged not only the high and mighty but also the low and needy by threatening Medicaid, food stamps, and all sorts of federally funded safety net programs including FEMA, and by destroying USAID, which saved millions from lige-threatening illnesses and starvation.  There are so many way by which Donald Trump  works against the common good, the general welfare, the well-being of the nation and the world, it is impossible to list them.  I compare him to other national leaders who have worked against the interests of their people and think of the WWII Axis leaders, Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo, and Stalin, and Chairman Mao.  Unlike them, Trump has not directly caused the deaths of millions of his own citizens, but very much like them, he has no concern for his own people, only for himself and his cronies.  I draw a blank when I try to think of the second most hated man in America, except perhaps for Musk.  I dispair when the consider that probably the most admired man in American is also Donald J. Trump.  Formatting glitch.😡






No comments: