Covid has been tasking the County, with our being on the raggedy edge or in the high incidence range of infection. Hospitals and ICUs are at occupancy levels that haven’t been seen since May. Between Covid and folks having issues with smoke from wildfires, it’s a breathtaking time in Larimer County.
The County currently sits at Safer at Home Level 1 of Colorado
Sitting here in the cold dark of the afternoon, ash and smoke from an over 500 thousand square miles of fires just west of us dimming the sky to an early dusk, I’m fully cognizant of the impact of climate change. What I don’t get is why all the politicians and all the climate deniers dodge and weave anytime this comes up and says it’s not their fault.
It’s like walking into a room with 2 children and a broken vase and asking who broke it.
Getting ready for my bookstore prep, thought I’d share this as my fiftieth eve approaches.
It goes back to my seventh grade English teacher at South Jr. High in Boise. She had the class write up letters to ourselves, seal them in an envelope with our names and year on it, and give to her for a safekeeping. All she asked was that we
In whatever else other nations may have been great or grand, our greatness and grandeur will be found in the faithful application of the principle of perfect civil equality to the people of all races and of all creeds, and to men of no creeds.
Frederick Douglass, 1869
Larimer County is on the raggedy edge of maintaining our state exemption allowing our current level (I know, not great, but more than we’d be allowed otherwise) of business, bar, and restaurant openings as it is with campus opening back up.
If this allegation is proven, it
What could more profoundly vindicate the idea of America than plain and humble people
We all stare at our Reflections in bright shiny bubbles, rarely looking outside the walls that reflect our cravings for information that we feel support our truths, our beliefs.
Right off the bat with poetry,
if you’re reading this,
you’re doing it wrong.
Poetry is meant to be heard.
It’s the way that it’s always been.
So use your diaphragm,
your voice to read it out loud
It doesn’t matter if you’re in a coffee shop ,
have the guy typing on his laptop give you a glare
while you howl about your Ginsburg
But yet you look at the poem,
lying there on it’s page etherized
like a cat in the fog
and you think about how gto read it.
You see the odd line feeds
breaking up the words the sentences
and you think to yourself
how should I read this? You read it.
The line feeds Maybe pauses
or maybe breaks
or they may be just flourishes
affectations
put on the Page by the poet
because he thought it looked pretty.
Unless of course you’re
Mr
E
E
Cummings
and you
spread
the words
about the page
(randomly)
like traffic on a Wyoming freeway
to try to give it that look you call Jazz.
But I never really liked jazz.
The poem is the words coming home
is the metaphors,
the poem is the similes,
the order is important
but the words
and the sounds they convey
of what the poet it’s trying to say
Yet, here we are,
lines later,
still looking at the page
as I baited you
with blank space
With the thought
you should read
What your need to
Hear
A quiet call from a dim room
Catches my ear
I call for nurse and go in
A frail arm waves to me
and takes my hand
Trembling like a wounded bird
I hold lightly, a grip of gossamer
Not wanting to crush
with my wheelchair grip
As I wait for the nurse
The breaths become shallower
Until they stop
The grip loosens
I feel a wisp brush my cheek
And I’m alone in the room
Until the nurse comes in
While christmas blinks in the window