(two from Nancy Hanks)

The loss of Harry Grimes

The loss of my mama last year

the coming loss of my daddy

and my brother and me and you

Somehow I am grateful for this loss

without loss we don’t move forward

without loss we don’t gain

We’re building a new way of being

On a dark creepy dingy dirty path with lots of muck and mire

We’re pitching a new game

Pitching in a new game

Creating the game

Trying to make a way forward

Plowing new fields

New Fields

New Doctor Fields

 

We’ve built a crazy patchwork quilt

Hopefully

Others will keep patching and quilting

Quilting and patching

Hopefully

Thank you for all you have done and are doing and will do through others

(by my friend David Belmont)

Henry Grimes             

4.19.20

we lost another
sweet soul
this week

for the
second time

given up for dead
in the late 60s
henry was discovered
in 2002

for the
second time

ironically
his second career
was longer
than his first

i feel blessed
to have seen him
many times

once i saw him
play a duet
with himself

feathery
round bass notes
simultaneously
accompanied
by airy harmonics

i hope you
come around
again
henry

“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
Arundhati Roy

In this cold, virus spring
Is hand washing enough?
Have we humans more to give?
Is there a new song to sing.

Perhaps, but not in the way
we’ve been taught.
No matter what our shamans, the scientists, say,
They cannot explain, much less control
What nature has wrought.

Do we have the courage to
set aside the ways of old?
Take a deep breath;
And do something bold.
Together!

April 17, 2020

The river was 

A pallet of

Light and shadow.

Barges slow

Cliffs glow

Winds blow.

Bright light 

air tight.

Let’s go.

 

April 11, 2020

Yesterday we were “approaching the apex.”

When I walked Samantha this a.m.

The birds were singing, the

Sun was shining.

 

The beginning of the end

of the crisis?

Or even the end of the beginning?

Or just the beginning of an early spring day?

 

By afternoon

UK PM Boris Johnson in ICU;

Stay at home at least until April 30th

The promise of financial aid

Lost in a bureaucratic cloud.

 

We have more than fear to fear.

 

April 6, 2020