OK, I'm an English major so I know Jonathon Swift used that title first--a suggestion to eat Irish babies to solve the problems of the British Isles. But my 'modest proposal' will be seen as just as ludicrous by most people so I don't feel guilty about borrowing.
I have a proposal that would go a long way to deal with several pressing political problems in the United States, to whit (English major to the core, am I...): income inequality, the remarkable advantage held by incumbent members of the House and Senate (and anywhere else for that matter), and the horrible fact that money elects people, not ideas.
I haven't been left-wing nutty for a while, so it's time for my modest proposal.
Remove all limits to political candidates, parties or PAC's of any kind. Anyone, individuals, corporations or special interest groups can give unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns; however, those contributions would be taxed @ 100%.
So, you give 20 dollars to your local town council members campaign and you also give $20 to the Federal Government. You give $1000 to your member of the House of Delegates and the same amount to the Federal Government. You give $2500 to your member of Congress and....well, you see how it works.
The Koch brothers can give a billion dollars to whatever Right Wing Nonsense they want as long as they write an identical check to the US Treasury.
And those dollars would be earmarked in the following way: 99% to social programs to help the poor and 1% to give public financing to candidates without deep pocket supporters.
Here's how that would shake out, I think.
Political Action Money would dry up immediately since most people who give to PACs don't like the government and wouldn't want to support it.
Contributions from individuals would eventually dry up because the tax would discourage them.
Until those two things happen, more money would be available for social programs.
Eventually, people would have to run for office on the basis of their ideas rather than the size of their campaign fund and we would elect people with good ideas about income inequality instead of people who are well funded.
Public financing of elections would be true in a matter of a few years.
This idea came to me while smoking a cigarette on the back porch. I know smoking is a BAD, BAD THING....but I get good ideas while committing suicide by cigarette....
Friday, April 4, 2014
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Maundy Thursday
On Maundy Thursday of this year, I will turn 67 years old. Such an event has never occurred to me as a possibility.
*When I was in my teens I imagined dying in my 20's from an automobile crash or a criminal event.'
*When I was in my 20's, a horrible hypochondriac, I imagined dying in my 30's from some dread disease with inexorable suffering.
*When I was in my 30's, I imagined dying in my 50's from a heart attack.
*When I was in my 40's....well, since, in my opinion, that's the best decade of all, except for the ones to come, but you don't know that then, I didn't think about dying at all.
*When I was in my 50's, since men often die in their 50's, I was in denial about dying.
*Once I hit 60, I was in such alien territory, having never imagined reaching such an age, I sort of forgot about the dying part, as obvious as 'the dying part' is.
And in Holy Week I'll turn 67.
I've outlived my mother by 3 years now. But not my Dad. He lived to be 83 and his brothers all lived into the late 80's too. So, maybe I've another 15 or 16 years or so, long enough to go to my older granddaughters' college graduation, maybe. Or see my son hit 60. Or have the Yankees win another World Series. Some of that, at least.
What a trip to grow old. I read a novel yesterday called Dead Man's Time by Peter James and remember this line from it. A 95 year old man is thinking about life and thinks: "The older you get, the less you care."
I love that. And I'm discovering it is true. I don't 'care' anymore about what people think of me. I don't 'care' anymore about how I look. I don't 'care' anymore about what time I get up or go to bed. I don't 'care' anymore about fashion or political correctness or being 'liked'.
Like me or don't, I don't care anymore.
I just care about waking up (whenever I do) and getting out of bed and doing whatever the hell I decide to do that day and then going to bed. I'll eat. I'll ponder stuff. I'll walk around. I'll read and think. I'll imagine what comes next (like the next few minutes!) and I'll love every minute of being alive far beyond I ever imagined being alive.
What a gift being 66--almost 67 is--every day is a gift that for most of my life, I never imagined receiving.
*When I was in my teens I imagined dying in my 20's from an automobile crash or a criminal event.'
*When I was in my 20's, a horrible hypochondriac, I imagined dying in my 30's from some dread disease with inexorable suffering.
*When I was in my 30's, I imagined dying in my 50's from a heart attack.
*When I was in my 40's....well, since, in my opinion, that's the best decade of all, except for the ones to come, but you don't know that then, I didn't think about dying at all.
*When I was in my 50's, since men often die in their 50's, I was in denial about dying.
*Once I hit 60, I was in such alien territory, having never imagined reaching such an age, I sort of forgot about the dying part, as obvious as 'the dying part' is.
And in Holy Week I'll turn 67.
I've outlived my mother by 3 years now. But not my Dad. He lived to be 83 and his brothers all lived into the late 80's too. So, maybe I've another 15 or 16 years or so, long enough to go to my older granddaughters' college graduation, maybe. Or see my son hit 60. Or have the Yankees win another World Series. Some of that, at least.
What a trip to grow old. I read a novel yesterday called Dead Man's Time by Peter James and remember this line from it. A 95 year old man is thinking about life and thinks: "The older you get, the less you care."
I love that. And I'm discovering it is true. I don't 'care' anymore about what people think of me. I don't 'care' anymore about how I look. I don't 'care' anymore about what time I get up or go to bed. I don't 'care' anymore about fashion or political correctness or being 'liked'.
Like me or don't, I don't care anymore.
I just care about waking up (whenever I do) and getting out of bed and doing whatever the hell I decide to do that day and then going to bed. I'll eat. I'll ponder stuff. I'll walk around. I'll read and think. I'll imagine what comes next (like the next few minutes!) and I'll love every minute of being alive far beyond I ever imagined being alive.
What a gift being 66--almost 67 is--every day is a gift that for most of my life, I never imagined receiving.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Happy Spring!
Today is April Fool's Day, apparently, unless I'm mistaken, coming from the advent of the Gregorian calendar, which moved the beginning of the year from somewhere in late March or early April to January 1st. Those Christians who continued to celebrate the new year in April were labeled by the Church as "April Fools". Wouldn't it be just like the church to label 'fools' even though it makes much more sense to begin the year with Spring instead of in Winter. Goes to show, I guess.
I made it through the whole day without one April Fool's joke or prank. I gave them up long ago when, while I was Rector of St. Paul's in New Haven, there was a baptism in late March. The Bishop of Arkansas, of all places, flew out to do it because it was his grandchild.
The Bishop and a wonderful, extremely active member of the parish, who happened to be an African-American woman, and I were in the sacristy, getting vested and talking about March Madness of that year.
The finals were coming up and Georgetown University was one of the teams in the running. Carol said, when Georgetown came up, "I hate Georgetown's team."
At the time, Georgetown was an all black team with a black coach, John Thompson. I was astonished when Carol said that and quipped, much to my later regret, "Carol, you must be a racist...."
The bishop and Carol and I laughed.
We did the baptism and the Bishop's grandchild filled his diaper and soiled his satin baptismal suit just as his grandfather poured the water and made the child a Christian. Irony not lost on either the Bishop or me.
A few weeks later, the church secretary brought a letter into my office from Carol. Marge was visibly shaken when she handed it to me. "Remember what day it is," she told me.
"It's Tuesday," I said. "I know that."
The letter explained that Carol was leaving the parish and filing a discrimination law suit against me because I had called her a 'racist' about Georgetown's basketball team.
I went ballistic, leaped out of my chair and ran into Marge's office screaming, 'GET CAROL ON THE PHONE....MY LIFE AS I KNOW IT IS OVER....'
Marge looked at me, obviously concerned for my mental health, and said, calmly, 'remember what day it is...."
'IT'S TUESDAY, FOR GOD SAKE!', I said, 'CALL CAROL...."
"OK, enough," Marge told me. "I regret agreeing to this," she said, handing me another envelope.
I opened it and in Carol's handwriting, the page said only this:
April Fool, love Carol
It took me several hours to get over my anxiety and recover my equilibrium.
Since that day, 25 or more years ago, I've sworn off April Fool pranks.
Carol got me as good as a liberal can be got.....What an April Fool I was....
I made it through the whole day without one April Fool's joke or prank. I gave them up long ago when, while I was Rector of St. Paul's in New Haven, there was a baptism in late March. The Bishop of Arkansas, of all places, flew out to do it because it was his grandchild.
The Bishop and a wonderful, extremely active member of the parish, who happened to be an African-American woman, and I were in the sacristy, getting vested and talking about March Madness of that year.
The finals were coming up and Georgetown University was one of the teams in the running. Carol said, when Georgetown came up, "I hate Georgetown's team."
At the time, Georgetown was an all black team with a black coach, John Thompson. I was astonished when Carol said that and quipped, much to my later regret, "Carol, you must be a racist...."
The bishop and Carol and I laughed.
We did the baptism and the Bishop's grandchild filled his diaper and soiled his satin baptismal suit just as his grandfather poured the water and made the child a Christian. Irony not lost on either the Bishop or me.
A few weeks later, the church secretary brought a letter into my office from Carol. Marge was visibly shaken when she handed it to me. "Remember what day it is," she told me.
"It's Tuesday," I said. "I know that."
The letter explained that Carol was leaving the parish and filing a discrimination law suit against me because I had called her a 'racist' about Georgetown's basketball team.
I went ballistic, leaped out of my chair and ran into Marge's office screaming, 'GET CAROL ON THE PHONE....MY LIFE AS I KNOW IT IS OVER....'
Marge looked at me, obviously concerned for my mental health, and said, calmly, 'remember what day it is...."
'IT'S TUESDAY, FOR GOD SAKE!', I said, 'CALL CAROL...."
"OK, enough," Marge told me. "I regret agreeing to this," she said, handing me another envelope.
I opened it and in Carol's handwriting, the page said only this:
April Fool, love Carol
It took me several hours to get over my anxiety and recover my equilibrium.
Since that day, 25 or more years ago, I've sworn off April Fool pranks.
Carol got me as good as a liberal can be got.....What an April Fool I was....
Monday, March 31, 2014
Things you forget you love...
Yesterday I noticed that for the first time in a long time, there was no snow at all in our yards on on our house's roof or anywhere on our property. I breathed a sigh of relief...
Then, I woke up to snow everywhere and I remembered that I forgot that I love snow. I could love it again because I know it's not sticking around for months or weeks or even days. So much snow this winter made me forget that I love snow, the wonder of it, how it falls on your face, how our Puli, coming back from his morning walk, looks like a snowball until he shakes it all off on the front porch.
So I started thinking about things I forget I love. I've made a list.
1. Avocados--for some reason we don't eat them much, but I put some on our salad tonight and remembered I loved them.
2. Seagulls--there are seldom any in Cheshire, but one was in the Stop and Shop parking lot the other day, obviously deranged or lost to be so far from the sea, but there he was and I remembered I love sea gulls.
3. Sea-salt caramel gelato--actually, I never forget I love this--I simply try to curb my craving from time to time and then give in and....it's magic....
4. Rubber bands--you hardly see rubber bands any more and forget about them, but I opened a drawer on my desk I seldom open and found a bag of Smart Living high quality Rubber Bands, assorted sizes that weighed 1/4 pound. Heaven!
5. Sponge Bob Square Pants--Bern, through some odd and inexplicable moral stance--doesn't watch cartoons. But the other day, when she was out, I walked by the TV room and she'd left on the TV and there he was, that lovable little, undersea guy. I watched an episode and fell back in love.
6. My Dad. I just realized that tomorrow is his 107th birthday. April Fools' Day is when Virgil Hoyt Bradley was born. And I was born a couple of weeks later 40 years later. My mom and dad were much older than my friends parents since I was the only child of a 40 year old father and 38 year old mother. I had friends in southern West Virginia whose grandparents were my parents contemporaries! Sons and fathers have issues. And Dad and I had our share. I came home with Bern the Christmas after we had married with a beard and when Dad greeted us at the door and was appalled, he wandered off into the snow in his bedroom slippers while my mother assured us he'd come back before he froze to death. He was a right-wing Republican (for all the wrong reasons, not to admit there are any 'right' reasons) and I was a left-wing Democrat. (However, as right-wing as he was, he wouldn't recognize his party today...he'd have to be a moderate Democrat to be in the same place on issues he was back then as a Goldwater man....)
But tomorrow would be his birthday and I suddenly am aware of how profoundly he loved me and how he taught me to catch a baseball and bought me a dog that I loved for years, a beagle named Fatso, though he wasn't, and how he was so proud of me in college and seminary and how, even though he was a 'Hard Shell Baptist' (google it if you dare!) my being an Episcopal priest seemed to be something he approved of more than the college English teacher I intended to be. And I remember how, when he came to live with us in New Haven, he would wander away, and I remember how painful it was for both of us for him to go into a nursing home and how disconcerting it was for both of us as he slipped into dementia and how the last time he was at our home in New Haven, he soiled himself and as I was cleaning him in our downstairs bathroom he was weeping and telling me over and again how sorry he was that I had to do that though he had done it for me hundreds of time and I remember how I was with him in St. Raphael's hospital and told him, "I'm going home now, Dad," and he replied, "so am I", though he wasn't, I knew and if he'd been a parishioner I would have known what he meant and as a son I didn't and when I got home the phone rang and he was dead and Mimi hugged my legs and said, "you're an orphan, Daddy" and I was.
And tomorrow is his birthday, and like the late snow, I am so glad, so honored, so humbled to remember that I forgot how much I loved that man, my father, my Dad....Virgil....
Then, I woke up to snow everywhere and I remembered that I forgot that I love snow. I could love it again because I know it's not sticking around for months or weeks or even days. So much snow this winter made me forget that I love snow, the wonder of it, how it falls on your face, how our Puli, coming back from his morning walk, looks like a snowball until he shakes it all off on the front porch.
So I started thinking about things I forget I love. I've made a list.
1. Avocados--for some reason we don't eat them much, but I put some on our salad tonight and remembered I loved them.
2. Seagulls--there are seldom any in Cheshire, but one was in the Stop and Shop parking lot the other day, obviously deranged or lost to be so far from the sea, but there he was and I remembered I love sea gulls.
3. Sea-salt caramel gelato--actually, I never forget I love this--I simply try to curb my craving from time to time and then give in and....it's magic....
4. Rubber bands--you hardly see rubber bands any more and forget about them, but I opened a drawer on my desk I seldom open and found a bag of Smart Living high quality Rubber Bands, assorted sizes that weighed 1/4 pound. Heaven!
5. Sponge Bob Square Pants--Bern, through some odd and inexplicable moral stance--doesn't watch cartoons. But the other day, when she was out, I walked by the TV room and she'd left on the TV and there he was, that lovable little, undersea guy. I watched an episode and fell back in love.
6. My Dad. I just realized that tomorrow is his 107th birthday. April Fools' Day is when Virgil Hoyt Bradley was born. And I was born a couple of weeks later 40 years later. My mom and dad were much older than my friends parents since I was the only child of a 40 year old father and 38 year old mother. I had friends in southern West Virginia whose grandparents were my parents contemporaries! Sons and fathers have issues. And Dad and I had our share. I came home with Bern the Christmas after we had married with a beard and when Dad greeted us at the door and was appalled, he wandered off into the snow in his bedroom slippers while my mother assured us he'd come back before he froze to death. He was a right-wing Republican (for all the wrong reasons, not to admit there are any 'right' reasons) and I was a left-wing Democrat. (However, as right-wing as he was, he wouldn't recognize his party today...he'd have to be a moderate Democrat to be in the same place on issues he was back then as a Goldwater man....)
But tomorrow would be his birthday and I suddenly am aware of how profoundly he loved me and how he taught me to catch a baseball and bought me a dog that I loved for years, a beagle named Fatso, though he wasn't, and how he was so proud of me in college and seminary and how, even though he was a 'Hard Shell Baptist' (google it if you dare!) my being an Episcopal priest seemed to be something he approved of more than the college English teacher I intended to be. And I remember how, when he came to live with us in New Haven, he would wander away, and I remember how painful it was for both of us for him to go into a nursing home and how disconcerting it was for both of us as he slipped into dementia and how the last time he was at our home in New Haven, he soiled himself and as I was cleaning him in our downstairs bathroom he was weeping and telling me over and again how sorry he was that I had to do that though he had done it for me hundreds of time and I remember how I was with him in St. Raphael's hospital and told him, "I'm going home now, Dad," and he replied, "so am I", though he wasn't, I knew and if he'd been a parishioner I would have known what he meant and as a son I didn't and when I got home the phone rang and he was dead and Mimi hugged my legs and said, "you're an orphan, Daddy" and I was.
And tomorrow is his birthday, and like the late snow, I am so glad, so honored, so humbled to remember that I forgot how much I loved that man, my father, my Dad....Virgil....
Saturday, March 29, 2014
rain
I actually love rain. It comes from visiting Cleve Bradley, my step-grandmother, whose house had a tin roof. One night in the rain sleeping under a tin roof will make you love rain forever.
When I was 10 or 12, somewhere in there, I shot 100 foul shots at the basketball goal in our yard every day, no matter what the weather. And shooting foul shots in the rain was the best. I'd end up soaked and peeled off my clothes in the bathroom after such an outing and wrapped myself in towels dried by the air and sun and not a clothes dryer and would lay on my bed, covered with towels for a while and ponder how wondrous the wet basketball felt in my hands and how being wet was like being born, since we come from the sea. (I was a science geek at that age age and pondered how amazing it was that water gave life....)
I love rain so much that I thought at one time I should live in Seattle until I found out that the annual rainfall in Connecticut is just about the annual rainfall in Seattle.
I was just on the back porch smoking a cigarette (OK, I know it is socially unacceptable to smoke! I get it! Leave me out of your political correctness!) Looking toward the street light on the front edge of our property and I noticed droplets of rain falling from the lines, golden and wondrous. At first imagined there were fireflies dropping from the rain but then, after a moment or two of actual thought process, realized we won't have fireflies in Connecticut until July or so.
Anyhow, it was beautiful to see the rain falling, catching the golden light of the street lamp. Another reason to love rain.
I especially like rain in September on the beach on Oak Island, North Carolina, where we go every September. There is always lightening far out in the Atlantic, streaking down to touch the water there. Again, the beauty of a rainy night.
Our daughter Mimi is with us for a day or two. She has a job that takes her back and forth from NYC to the Berkshires--she's the new development officer for Jacob's Pillow, a dance place. Tim, her fiancee is going to be away for a week doing work stuff in Chicago (for Linked In, whatever that really is) so she came to see us for a couple of days rather than driving back to Brooklyn. The fact that Mimi is under our roof and it's raining is yet another reason I love the rain because my love for Mimi is boundless.
Our Puli dog doesn't like the rain, so taking him out for his 10 pm walk is going to be a pain. But he loves Mimi like I do and has been ecstatic since she arrived this afternoon, following her around, laying outside her bed room door, smitten, so maybe Mimi being here will make him not so upset about going out to pee in a half hour or so.
Rain, like Mimi being in our house, makes me feel safe, good, comfortable, assured, warm....
When I was 10 or 12, somewhere in there, I shot 100 foul shots at the basketball goal in our yard every day, no matter what the weather. And shooting foul shots in the rain was the best. I'd end up soaked and peeled off my clothes in the bathroom after such an outing and wrapped myself in towels dried by the air and sun and not a clothes dryer and would lay on my bed, covered with towels for a while and ponder how wondrous the wet basketball felt in my hands and how being wet was like being born, since we come from the sea. (I was a science geek at that age age and pondered how amazing it was that water gave life....)
I love rain so much that I thought at one time I should live in Seattle until I found out that the annual rainfall in Connecticut is just about the annual rainfall in Seattle.
I was just on the back porch smoking a cigarette (OK, I know it is socially unacceptable to smoke! I get it! Leave me out of your political correctness!) Looking toward the street light on the front edge of our property and I noticed droplets of rain falling from the lines, golden and wondrous. At first imagined there were fireflies dropping from the rain but then, after a moment or two of actual thought process, realized we won't have fireflies in Connecticut until July or so.
Anyhow, it was beautiful to see the rain falling, catching the golden light of the street lamp. Another reason to love rain.
I especially like rain in September on the beach on Oak Island, North Carolina, where we go every September. There is always lightening far out in the Atlantic, streaking down to touch the water there. Again, the beauty of a rainy night.
Our daughter Mimi is with us for a day or two. She has a job that takes her back and forth from NYC to the Berkshires--she's the new development officer for Jacob's Pillow, a dance place. Tim, her fiancee is going to be away for a week doing work stuff in Chicago (for Linked In, whatever that really is) so she came to see us for a couple of days rather than driving back to Brooklyn. The fact that Mimi is under our roof and it's raining is yet another reason I love the rain because my love for Mimi is boundless.
Our Puli dog doesn't like the rain, so taking him out for his 10 pm walk is going to be a pain. But he loves Mimi like I do and has been ecstatic since she arrived this afternoon, following her around, laying outside her bed room door, smitten, so maybe Mimi being here will make him not so upset about going out to pee in a half hour or so.
Rain, like Mimi being in our house, makes me feel safe, good, comfortable, assured, warm....
Friday, March 28, 2014
Ba-KET-ball
That's what Bern and I call it in our personal patois--Ba-KET-ball. Just like we call 'sleeping' "see-pin" and 'comfortable' "comproble". I suspect people who've known each other one year short of half-a-century and have been married 43 of those years develop a vocabulary all their own.
We still call motorcycles "mo-mo-cycles" which is what Josh called them as a toddler.
But I'm writing about ba-KET-ball right now. It's March Madness and Bern is almost certifiably 'mad' by the sweet sixteen.
As far as I know, she doesn't have an athletic bone in her body, but she loves sports--basketball and tennis most of all.
I tried to teach her tennis when we were dating, but when she figured out you had to chase your own balls--that there weren't ball-boys-and-girls, she lost interest in learning.
What is wonderful this year is that she was in West Virginia last week and didn't get around to filling out a bracket. So, it's much more calm watching with her because she isn't always worrying about who she picked to win. (Five or six years ago, she won two consecutive bracket pools with some friends of ours and people they worked with. After the second win, they banned her....)
I didn't fill out a bracket either, so it's lots more fun for me. Normally, when I do pick winners, I lose the sheet of paper and don't remember who I picked. And woe unto me if I keep up with my bracket and do better than Bern....Hell hath no fury like a woman bracket is out scored....
We have this running argument because I root for the same teams I've always rooted for and she roots for teams she's come to like lately. It's just a psychological difference. For example, if Satan played for the Yankees, they'd still be 'my team'. But she doesn't like the LA Lakers (my pro ba-KET-ball team) because she thinks Kobi is a jerk.
We do agree on one thing in college sports: our three favorite teams are West Virginia University and whoever is playing Virginia Tech and Notre Dame that day....
Our agreed upon mutual hatred of Virginia Tech and Notre Dame has contributed mightily to our 43 years of marriage....
We still call motorcycles "mo-mo-cycles" which is what Josh called them as a toddler.
But I'm writing about ba-KET-ball right now. It's March Madness and Bern is almost certifiably 'mad' by the sweet sixteen.
As far as I know, she doesn't have an athletic bone in her body, but she loves sports--basketball and tennis most of all.
I tried to teach her tennis when we were dating, but when she figured out you had to chase your own balls--that there weren't ball-boys-and-girls, she lost interest in learning.
What is wonderful this year is that she was in West Virginia last week and didn't get around to filling out a bracket. So, it's much more calm watching with her because she isn't always worrying about who she picked to win. (Five or six years ago, she won two consecutive bracket pools with some friends of ours and people they worked with. After the second win, they banned her....)
I didn't fill out a bracket either, so it's lots more fun for me. Normally, when I do pick winners, I lose the sheet of paper and don't remember who I picked. And woe unto me if I keep up with my bracket and do better than Bern....Hell hath no fury like a woman bracket is out scored....
We have this running argument because I root for the same teams I've always rooted for and she roots for teams she's come to like lately. It's just a psychological difference. For example, if Satan played for the Yankees, they'd still be 'my team'. But she doesn't like the LA Lakers (my pro ba-KET-ball team) because she thinks Kobi is a jerk.
We do agree on one thing in college sports: our three favorite teams are West Virginia University and whoever is playing Virginia Tech and Notre Dame that day....
Our agreed upon mutual hatred of Virginia Tech and Notre Dame has contributed mightily to our 43 years of marriage....
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
The only time I was ever in Germany
It was on the way to Israel in December of 1999. We landed in Frankfort in the wee hours of the morning. I had forgotten all about it (but at my age 'forgetting' is normal....) But I was reading from the notebook I took on that trip and found this poem.
Watching dawn come at Frankfort Airport
Staring out on a school of
planes
(neatly arranged like huge
patients in a ward
attached with feeding tubes
of walkways to the
terminal)
dawn creeps in.
It comes as a lightening
of the sky
from black
to indigo
to navy blue
to steely gray.
Somewhere on the flight
somewhere over the north Atlantic
somewhere at 37,000 feet
I lost six hours.
Dawn comes late in Frankfort
in December
but my watch is still at
10 'til 2 in the tiny
hours of Eastern Standard Time.
Who owes me these six hours?
How do I get them back?
All around me members of
my group are sprawled
on black, comfortable
seats,
dreaming that in sleeping they
can steal back the time.
But those six hours are
simply gone, I tell you!
Poof! Disappeared! Lost....
Now a monorail passes outside the window,
people lit up inside, heading for airplanes.
I can see planes dropping to earth
and leaping away on faraway
runways.
People are trapped inside
each of them, headed toward
Budapest, Singapore,
New York, Moscow,
New Dehlia. Losing
or finding hours as they
go.
I hope someone nice finds
the six hours I lost
and uses them well.
Watching dawn come at Frankfort Airport
Staring out on a school of
planes
(neatly arranged like huge
patients in a ward
attached with feeding tubes
of walkways to the
terminal)
dawn creeps in.
It comes as a lightening
of the sky
from black
to indigo
to navy blue
to steely gray.
Somewhere on the flight
somewhere over the north Atlantic
somewhere at 37,000 feet
I lost six hours.
Dawn comes late in Frankfort
in December
but my watch is still at
10 'til 2 in the tiny
hours of Eastern Standard Time.
Who owes me these six hours?
How do I get them back?
All around me members of
my group are sprawled
on black, comfortable
seats,
dreaming that in sleeping they
can steal back the time.
But those six hours are
simply gone, I tell you!
Poof! Disappeared! Lost....
Now a monorail passes outside the window,
people lit up inside, heading for airplanes.
I can see planes dropping to earth
and leaping away on faraway
runways.
People are trapped inside
each of them, headed toward
Budapest, Singapore,
New York, Moscow,
New Dehlia. Losing
or finding hours as they
go.
I hope someone nice finds
the six hours I lost
and uses them well.
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