Monday Morning Musings:

Hold These Truths

“Legacy, what is a legacy?
It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see”
From Lin-Manuel Miranda, “The World Was Wide Enough,” Hamilton

Hold these truths,
make a declaration
to secure light and rights—
for all

recall the whispers of freedom,
the shots—and the deaths–
repression, hope, freedom
cycle over and again—we’re here
on the precipice, the earth beneath crumbling. . .

listen to the crows,
ancient wisdom carried from shadowed time
to glowing dawns of robin song

^{Early Morning Light, Shadow, River, and Birds}

Now as berries ripen under a blue sky,
hold fast the simple joys, sunshine and love,
cake and cats,

drink some wine–
the storms will come—rain, snow, wind–
but so will spring, each one full of if,
a flower of possibility waiting to bloom.

Today is the Fourth of July, Independence Day, the day the Declaration of Independence was published. (It was actually signed on 2 July.) In this document, the thirteen colonies declared independence from Great Britain. Through the Revolution and post war period, America was a confederation of states. Our United States came with the Constitution, written in 1787. This is the document that set up our branches of government and lays out our rights and freedoms—some in the original document and Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments), and its subsequent amendments. A minority of reactionaries are trying to destroy our democracy, aided by a rogue and reactionary Supreme Court. The Fourth of July feels very different this year—like drinking a toast on the Titanic after it’s hit the iceberg. We need to rescue ourselves—every vote in November matters.

In need of escapism this week, we finished The Umbrella Academy and Stranger Things ( a title that sounds like a warning of what’s to come.). We also picked blueberries.