Prophetstown State Park

Where they're burning the prairie.

Woo-Hoo!

Talia has a poem up at Lines + Stars! Congrats!!

Lines

I derive an enormous amount of pleasure out of hanging things out to dry. I'm like an animal out there, listening, sniffing. The birds! The cars revving their engines at the race track on Sunday morning! The realization that one of my neighbors really needs to have their septic tank pumped, if that isn't happening at this very moment, although it smells like it is.

I'm hoping a few more things will be hung out to dry. AIG keeps surfacing here. No, Congress, President Obama, don't let them pay out their 100-some million in bonuses! You have a contract? Let them sue. Publish all the names of those people who are getting the bonuses. Come on, I'm trying to send two kids to college here and maybe fill my bird feeders.

Woo-Hoo!

Ryan has another poem up, this time at Mannequin Envy! Congrats!

Stashing

Although I generally deny it, I do occasionally watch TV, especially if I've been goaded into it. So, I watched the Jon Stewart takedown of Jim Cramer, albeit the rerun on Friday night at 8:00. I've never seen Jim Cramer before, but I get it. TV has its moments.

If you're lucky, all your money is in books. Or maybe a nice piece of land out in the middle of nowhere that you'd really like to live on someday. You might stop thinking about the resale value of your house and paint your walls any color you damn well please. Maybe America is going to start thinking differently about the whole money thing, but I kind of doubt it.

Gene and Tom put up a new clothes lines for me yesterday. I've been without for a while. I was bringing the blankets in at dusk while my neighbors across the way were having an animated argument about being pressured into signing contracts in their side yard. Other neighbors' bill collectors are starting to call me. "I'm trying to reach a party at ...." Sorry, I can't help you.

T-Bills crossed my mind, so Google helped me find this 2004 article from Slate. Then today's article from Slate is here. And Daniel Gross thinks we should take his advice why? It still seems like this game that Stewart was talking about.

If you're reading this from far away, you should know that Elkhart is five minutes from my house. Elkhart with 18.3% unemployment. But I'm wondering about all the different realities we're living in. And that's all I have to say.

Woo-Hoo!

Naoko's poem "Greenhouse" has been accepted by Pebble Lake Review! Congrats!!

And Wednesday in the mail I received a signed copy of Black Book Press #44 with poems by Chad & Neil. Thanks, guys!

The week is shaping up very fine.

FGWC

Seriously. I'm not kidding.

This Saturday, March 14th, 1:00 p.m., The Chicory Cafe.

The assignment: Write a letter using some historical figure as your persona. For an example, check out The Czar's Last Christmas Letter: A Barn in the Urals by Norman Dubie.

E-mails will be arriving shortly.

Meandering

The blog posts are coming few and far between, and not just for me. Maybe later we'll all look back at this and say, "Oh, remember when we all blogged?" I wonder if these posts will looks like hairdos from past decades. God. Then we'll all say, "At least back then Joe had hair." Or "Who the heck is Joe?"

Spring is bringing the traveling season back. Tom & I spent a couple of days hiking in southern Indiana during his spring break. Gene is packing his bags for a short trip to Chihuahua next week, just in time for the spring drug wars. (This is what comes from having a passport.) Jojo is hoping her schoolwork is caught up enough that she can go to St. Louis in April. I wake up in the middle of the night and remember she'll only be living at home for a few more months.

It's going to be a hectic few months, but I'll schedule a writers' workshop soon.

Just Saying

March 2007 advertisement on the back cover of National Geographic:

AIG - It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know we'll be there for future rocket scientists.

"When it comes to your money, nothing about the future is certain. But for over 85 years, people have secured their financial futures with the AIG companies. Whether planning for college, protecting your family or saving for retirement, our strength and experience mean we'll be there for you, for generations to come."

March 2009 Los Angeles Times headline:

Feds give AIG $30 billion more.

"The additional resources will help stabilize the company, and in doing so help to stabilize the financial system," the Treasury Department said in an early morning statement.

Spring Rilke

Poetry came my way rather later in life, middle-age, and it seems like I'll never catch up on my reading. That's not an entirely bad thing. I will not have idle eyes.

I finally bought some Rilke, Duino Elegies. It looks like he probably is all that.

Here are some excerpts from "Fourth Elegy", without the proper formatting. Blogger just isn't helpful in that way at all:

*

But we
when we're fully intent
on one thing

can already feel
the pull of another.
Hatred is always close by.

Aren't lovers always
coming to sheer drop-offs
inside each other
they who promised themselves
open spaces, good hunting
and a homeland?

*

you who loved me
for my little beginning
of love for you

I always lost track of
because of the distance
in your face

even as I loved it
turned into outer space
where you no longer existed . . .

*

Who shows a child
as he really is?

Who sets him among the stars
and puts the measure of distance
in his hand?

Who makes the child's death
out of a gray beard
that gets hard
who leaves it there
in his round mouth
like the core
of a lovely apple?
Murderers aren't hard to comprehend
But this:
to contain death
the whole of death
even before life has begun
to contain it so gently
and not be angry--
this is indescribable.

(Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, Translated by David Young, W.W. Norton & Company, 1978)