What's the Diehl?

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Waterwings

The mornings are his,
blue and white
like the tablecloth at breakfast.
He’s happy in the house,
a sweep of the spoon
brings the birds under his chair.
He sings and the dishes disappear.

Or holding a crayon like a candle,
he draws a circle.
It is his hundredth dragonfly.
Calling for more paper,
this one is red-winged
and like the others,
he wills it to fly, simply
by the unformed curve of his signature.

Waterwings he calls them,
the floats I strap to his arms.
I wear an apron of concern,
sweep the morning of birds.
To the water he returns,
plunging where it’s cold,
moving and squealing into sunlight.
The water from here seems flecked with gold.

I watch the circles
his small body makes
fan and ripple,
disperse like an echo
into the sum of water, light and air.
His imprint on the water
has but a brief lifespan,
the flicker of a dragonfly’s delicate wing.

This is sadness, I tell myself,
the morning he chooses to leave his wings behind,
because he will not remember
that he and beauty were aligned,
skimming across the water, nearly airborne,
on his first solo flight.
I’ll write "how he could not
contain his delight."
At the other end,
in another time frame,
he waits for me—
having already outdistanced this body,
the one that slipped from me like a fish,
floating, free of itself.

~ Cathy Song

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Looking Up

Nicki Minaj - Stupid Hoe (Explicit)

Seriously, voters?

Voters in my community defeated a proposal yesterday that would have added a measly $1.20 each month to our water bills to pay for a sludge dryer so we could sell four million gallons of crap each year to buyers who would use it to generate energy instead of dumping it on our farm fields as fertilizer. (See “Sludge and Stupidity in Delhi Township,” April 25, 2012.)

As the Associated Press reports, "the proposal would have created a system to dry sludge from the community's wastewater treatment system. Michigan State University said it was willing to buy a ton a day for its power plant."

If approved, the sludge dryer project would have turned a liability into an asset since we currently pay $38,000/year to give the crap away. But according to a Michigan Public Radio story I heard this morning, “Opponents questioned the need for the project.”

Opponents questioned the need to abolish slavery too.

Opponents questioned the need to send a rocket to the moon.

Opponents questioned the need to give women and people of color the right to vote.

Opponents questioned the need to create the national parks and highway systems.

Opponents questioned the need for public schools and transportation.

Opponents questioned the need for separation of church and state.

I would expect people on both sides of any issue to have questions. And I would expect everyone to listen to the answers and then come together to identify what’s in the community’s best interest, not for factions to advance personal agendas, mount attack campaigns and mischaracterize the facts and the motivation of those with whom they disagree.

Guess which scenario played out in Delhi Township.

I’ve also heard more than one politician pander to the electorate by claiming, “The voter is always right” in recent days. That, too, is a bunch of crap.

Were North Carolina voters right to amend their state constitution to discriminate against gay people? They overwhelmingly voted yesterday in favor of a constitutional amendment defining marriage between one man and one woman as the only legal union recognized by the state. (Same-sex marriages were already banned by law but proponents decided they need to disallow civil unions and other types of domestic partnerships just to be safe.) The vote makes North Carolina the 30th state to adopt a ban on gay marriage. (I’m ashamed to admit that Michigan is among them.)

Were voters right to mandate term limits for politicians instead of using the regular election process to get rid of those they didn’t like? Experts on both sides of the aisle insist that the lost institutional memory and inability to establish positive working relationships within the shortened time frame have led to increased partisanship and gridlock at the state and federal levels.

Were Michigan voters right in 2010 when they chose a spewer of clichés who refused to offer specifics to be governor instead of the guy who the media christened an “angry mayor” – only to find out after Election Day that the angry guy with the record would have been better than the evasive nerd who proceeded to trash the democratic process and rob from the poor to give to the rich?

Were voters right in 2004 when they re-elected Dubya, arguably the worst president in the history of the United States?

Are voters right to base their selections on mudslinging and misrepresentation, appearances and endorsements, slogans, sound bites and spin rather than careful research and a commitment to leaving a better world for our kids?

No, the voter is not always right. Sometimes the voter really screws up. Like yesterday. And sometimes I’m more disgusted by the ugliness of today’s politics and the ignorance of the electorate than I can express.