Almost got in 10K steps today. Walked to two parks, around the Whitman College campus, across downtown, and back home. On the way:
Automobilia:
Dogs, Everywhere:
Coffee/Self-Portraits (for the Edward Hopper homage project):
Miscellany:
How do you tell someone you love them?
How do you express that ardor
Without taking the easy way out
And using those letters–L O V E.
It’s not a matter of finding a synonym
In a thesaurus, it’s a matter of finding
The color, the sound, the tactile quality,
The aroma, the sense of being lost
In a place where you and that person
Are the only residents, a place where
Silence is music and movement gives
Forth an unbearable heat. It will melt
You into a state where you can be
Poured into each other, hot potions
That will cure indifference and banish malaise,
And make the world, for just one moment,
The dazzling gift you have always believed
That you deserve.
© Dennis Hathaway
[return to POTD index]
Who are you? Why don’t you speak?
Didn’t you heard the whistle of bombs,
The staccato of bullets,
The cry of a mother whose child
Lies buried in smoking rubble.
Are you blind? Can’t you see the
Red stains in the dust of the road,
The ribbon of earth that must be owned,
Controlled, subjected, pacified.
Can’t you feel it shudder?
You say we are the lucky ones.
Where others die without warning,
We expire peacefully, the breath
Leaving us in frugal gasps,
When we are old and wise.
Where are you going? Do you know?
The road is smooth and wide,
The sky above is deep and placid,
But who are those people trudging
Along like domestic animals
Herded to an unremitting fate?
Are you one of them? Do you taste
The hollowness in the air,
The flutter of the leaves that
Drop, one by one, to the astringent,
Ravaged ground.
© Dennis Hathaway
[return to POTD index]
Early Saturday morning, headed to the downtown workspace. Come across activity at the old Walla Walla Candy Company Building. Turns out that its boarded-up windows are being replaced by vinyl mural art, part of an Artwalla public art project, with contributions from some Whitman College artists and students. Intended, I’m told, to express the history and nature of the Walla Walla Valley in visual terms.
Walking around downtown.
Some passing automotive trivia, including some captured as one-handed no-look action while driving in traffic.
An afternoon drive into the rolling farm country north of town.
I opened my presidential campaign
With a speech that I wrote with a quill pen
And ink I made from frozen blueberries
And vinegar and another ingredient I’m
Keeping secret for reasons that I’m not
Prepared to disclose. I chose this method
To evoke the Founding Fathers, those
Great men of the past who approved of slavery
And didn’t think women ought to vote and used
The words Thus and Heretofore and Whereas
And a few too many times.
I rehearsed the speech for my wife,
Who fell asleep after the first paragraph,
Which, admittedly, went on for half a page.
My audience was then the dog, who doesn’t
Bother to vote and would rather gnaw
On a stale bone than keep up with current events.
I aimed for an exalted tone, beginning with,
“Nothing I say here will be long remembered,”
And moving through some platitudes about
God and Homeland that I consider hogwash
Although I’m bright enough not to say that
Directly, but to imply it through subtle employment
Of metaphor.
The state of the union, I said, is so bad
That nothing can redeem it. In other words,
Nothing I can do as president will make
A fig’s worth of difference although I promise
To appoint a Supreme Court justice, if I have
The opportunity, who at some point in his or her
Life has watched Beavis and Butthead and laughed
Out loud. Or in the alternative, who has worn a
Shirt wrong side out for an entire day without noticing
That fact. Anyone who has gone to Yale will
Be automatically disqualified for the court
Or my cabinet or any other government position
Which I am entitled to fill. I have no personal
Animus toward that institution, but enough is enough.
I was ready to conclude on a soaring note,
Talking about the need to investigate everything
That hasn’t already been investigated, which,
I admit, may not amount to that much, but
At that point the dog sat up and began to bark.
Shut up, I said, and being a good dog she complied,
Which gave me an idea, an addendum to my speech,
A promise that when any cabinet member or
Senator or aide or constituent says anything about anything,
I’ll just tell them to shut up.
© Dennis Hathaway
[return to POTD index]
The parrots come screeching over the back yard,
A pair of them, mates perhaps, or siblings.
I looked in Wikipedia, they are monogomous,
But like us? Highly imperfect, veering after
Another of their kind, caught in the fantasy
Of a thrill that might soar but sooner or later
Will land with a thud. They live in the
Giant fan palm down the block; the man
In the nearest house brought out his gun
And tried to shoot them; he was driven mad
By their loud shrill colloqies but his
Neighbors failed to understand, they warned him,
The police would be called if he tried again.
The man moved and the parrots stayed,
Their green feathers glossy in the sunlight,
Their cries of ecstasy or anguish or maybe
Just rote noises like the dog’s bark that
Erupts for no reason in the middle of the night.
Or no apparent reason, I should say,
Because how can we know what enters
The canine brain, the skull of the parrot
With its prehistoric beak, useful for cracking
Nuts and seeds, I learned, a fact of no
Importance, no utility in a world we believe
To be of our own making when it fact it
Belongs to the parrots that screech from
The regal heights of their lofty tree.
© Dennis Hathaway
[return to POTD index]
Herman continues up the Mekong River. He may be in Cambodia by today.
