Monday Morning Musings:

A Week in May

“If war has an opposite, gardens might sometimes be it”
Rebecca Solnit, Orwell’s Roses

“Arise, women!” . . . “Say firmly: ‘We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country, to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.’”
–Julia Ward Howe (quoted in Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, May 7, 2022)

Extreme–
four seasons wander
through a week, and clocks strike
thirteen, people will die

death comes, we say of all
things bright and beautiful
yes, the daffodils gone—but reborn
again in the spring,
reawakened

to minority rule
we must rise, not as flowers, but trees
with ancient wisdom and roots that delve deep to
whisper underground in mycelium connections

to grow
with desire,
yes, like flowers, too, with perseverance,

in freedom and love

the birds sing and soar.
Resist the woman calls
with a strum on her guitar,

music the gift of moon and stars—
we echo, yet–

now, elaborate
on how peace reigns in the garden,
though they are always full of ghosts—
blooms arise from decay,
and time veers on hidden paths to circle back–

I see my mom backlit by flowers, sitting there
as she did once–and still does
in my dreams. She smiles.

We’ve had cool weather, warm weather, dry weather, and rainy weather this week. We went from walking in t-shirts to turning the heat back on and bundling up in fleece. Meanwhile, here in the US, the extremists are taking over. They are not conservatives; they are not the party of Lincoln; they are right-wing reactionaries and fanatics who want to set up an authoritarian state.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and I thought of how my mother helped the war effort during WWII, as the US fought (eventually) against the fascists. And then later, the progress that was made for human rights in her lifetime–that the fanatics who now control the Republican party are stripping away. Meanwhile, war continues in Ukraine . . .

Stepping down from the soapbox, I did have a lovely Mother’s Day with our daughter and her husband. She put together this beautiful brunch of nibbles and home-made bagels. Our older child and their wife sent a gift and called to say, “I love you.”

We saw Janis Ian in concert this week, her final North American Tour. It was a wonderful concert, and also a beautiful evening, so we took a walk in Collingswood, NJ before the concert. Here’s a link to “Resist.”

I’m hosting dVerse today, so I’ll be back later!