Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Deerkill

This week I participated in a local public dialogue on guns. It was a civil conversation. Because  it continues, talk of guns, I am sharing again.

Deerkill
traffic inching, mind rushing
anxious tempos that traffic does not halt
then doe in a heap -- as carcass comes into view.
already, traffic news warns
deerkill is slowing traffic to a standstill on a daily commute paved through wild life, far to the south,
same route
others are slowed by 12 hundred pound alligator
sunbathing
slowed by innocent
crashing
over white line
into white tail
waking stomach, mind, recall --
the men in Vermont had a deer camp
and bright orange vests that kept them
from shooting each other.  This I remember
as the topic turned
to guns
words
declared over beer
Using guns
against deer is shamefully unfair.  A deer
will feed my family for a winter, maybe more
It is a sport.  It is an industry.  It is food.  It is
an excuse to own a gun.
Opinions emerge.  Positions unify.  Energy clarifies.  Stark disconnects
speak through a congested atmosphere.  The private
school down the road has a rifle range - good
marksmen get credit toward graduation.  A boy
I knew got credit, he said he would never
kill deer
It does not take expertise to kill.
Passion, fear, retaliation are killers.
When paths cross, bullets, roads, knives,arrows
cut to the quick .  The archer
had killed deer many times
with a bow and arrow.  Said this was more fair for the doe
then guns...he trained his aim for hours, days, weeks, seasons
of deerkilling,
this hunter without a gun.  He could not buy a
gun, he knew accidents happen.
He knew.
I saw a deer by the highway shoulder
out of range of guns, arrows, and for the moment
cars
I looked back as traffic slowed over concrete, the super trail filled with rushing hearts
stopped
by one dead doe.  Accidents
happen. Can't buy a gun. Can't practice for credit.
Fear stops me. Like the alligator, my blood runs to warm
in the sun.
 
Originally posted in a thread 12.24.12 because of Newtown Shootings. ` -- claiming innocence and rattling our sense of humanity.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Glitter, Gluttony and Gut




Glitter, a chaotic bedazzling metaphor, invokes for me this sentiment:  In order to make life nice, one merely has to brighten it up with sparkle.  Bursts of color in fireworks or a glitter splash, do dazzle; but what can be said of a preoccupation with glitter which is often affiliated with showy superficial attractiveness. This particle often reflective material infers glamour and disengagement with reality and its complexity. Used for absence of restraint in the moment, if habitual can become gluttonous. So what is the role of our gut (habitat of courage, slang for an audacious fortitudein response to bedazzle. Enchantment can become blinding?   

My mind is thinking of next year's Red Ribbon Week based on this year's Reflections & Connections. 
Since Drugs do what they are intended to do --- maybe the posters showing 93 neighbors lost to drugs need to be covered next year in Glitter. The focus could be on what we need to understand about the bedazzle. I know a Glitter supplier.  

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Unable to respond due to long running script....

The title of this blog was the LinkedIn error message I got this morning. The script revealed itself as the media mavens trying to backdoor connect my social media together. This connecting of connections is something I am not sure I want.  But if you are interested here is the message it pre-made for FB and Twitter.

Check out my professional profile and connect with me on LinkedIn. http://lnkd.in/PaaKBX

My FB participation is actually a necessity of work.  It was also a sanity valve as I had access to my spouse's to carry on the functions of my sabbatical project (which may become encore work if nothing pops soon.) Anyway, his constant contact with a part of what was to be our lives - depressed me.  Truth is: I felt much more sane and civil after a few weeks of disconnection from the narcissism and shallows.  But I found it in the balance of FB where it is less personal and mostly makes me (censored by self).

My social media: LinkedIn is truly a professional network.  Here I am connected with people that I have had solid work relations or with whom my seredipitious connections may be of value.  Some family is connected here too,  but not all; just those whose work I respect and value.

Twitter has been a means for me to keep abreast of media & news commentary.  My connections here initially started as about the work as I did not intend to ever join FB; and G+ is just not getting any real traction. I do not accept all invitations on any of the media.  For example I will not allow my FB to be infiltrated by those whose presense was removed by the spousal disconnect. 

Ironic words ... because so far that too has been far too real.

It is going to rain today.  Will I have the courage to breathe the cleansed air?