May 29, 2022

Reading over Red Shouldered Hawk, found an error (a doubled word) in the first poem.

Robed up and waiting for service to begin, I watched the ground in front of All Souls heave (a little of it, anyway) and out crawl a grub the size and color of my thumb, with a single horn and ludicrously tiny feet. When it got to the sidewalk, I was afraid for it, and lifted it to the other side and set in back down on grass, into which it immediately burrowed. This probably explains heavings I saw in my own garden, when I stood staring, expecting the arising of a mole, but no mole came. I was looking for the wrong thing. 

 

May 28, 2022

Perfect summer. Some gardening. Some reading in the shade of the maple, the wind chime humming at my ear. 

I have no recollection of either of my parents hugging me or lifting me up or kissing me. You’d think a person would remember that. 

 

May 27, 2022

Began the day in the garden, dead-heading roses, chopping bamboo, weeding, weeding, weeding. It was a good time.

More information comes from Uvalde. The worst (worse beyond all worst) is that many armed policeman stood in the hall outside the tragic classroom biding their time while still-living children called 911 from inside, desperately begging for help. Cowards. Cowards. Cowards. A teacher threw herself at the gunman to protect her children while heavily armed cowards waited outside for enough more heavily armed cowards to make any action safe. I choked on my own bile after January 16; I am doing so again tonight. In any case, so much for the theory that armed “good guys” are any defense against armed “bad guys.” I wish I had the power to strike across the face anyone uttering those words. 

C responded to yesterday’s outline for gun control : “As a gun owning woman who has feared for her life, as every woman does at some point , I wholeheartedly agree with you David, but I'd simplify... I'd take guns away from men. All of them. That could work, too. For now I'll keep mine because: men.” I opened my mouth but nothing came out. I could not fault her. It is horrifying. 

 

May 26, 2022

Worked this out on behalf of the world. I’m sure it will fall over itself in its haste to implement my suggestions:

No Open Carry anywhere in the United States

No Concealed Carry anywhere in the United States (exceptions can be worked out, say if you’re carrying diamonds to the bank in the Diamond District in NYC, or something like) 

No assault or military style firearms in private hands anywhere, ever, for any reason (Hobbyist  collectors could keep & collect if the firing pins were removed and stored at the police station.)

Background checks on all gun and ammunition purchases.

No one under the age of 21 can buy a firearm. 

People with hunting licenses may purchase, keep, and use firearms appropriate to that activity. Hobbyist target shooters may buy special firearms for that purpose, which hold a limited number of rounds (3?) and posses only the range sufficient to get a bullet to a target some reasonable distance away. 

Firearms restrictions apply to the police. No military style weapons in the hands of civilian peacekeepers. Weapons must be drawn or used only after an officer is fired upon, or when the presence of something that is actually (not possibly) a firearm is confirmed in the hands of a suspect. Officers who draw their weapons at traffic stops, sidewalk interrogations, or other low-intensity events, or in the absence of any mortal threat,  are to be summarily dismissed. The death of an unarmed civilian at the hands of the police is to be considered murder unless some overwhelming circumstance determines otherwise. Weapons are to be left in the vehicle and not instantly available to a nervous cop, unless the mortal nature of the situation has already been established. 

*

AVLGMC rehearsal sparse. Does COVID reassert itself, or is everyone bailing out? L in the row behind fell asleep twice, snoring away. He sang exactly three notes of “My Bonnie Lass” and nothing else. When DB is accompanying, I am the only bass. I’m told I’m “carrying it.” 

Desperate cold rains. 

Hemp

 

May 25, 2022

Twenty more children massacred in Uvalde, Texas. Oh, we wring our hands. . . we say our prayers. . . we refuse to pass gun control legislation. The NRA has done far more violence in America than the Mafia. Why aren’t we seeing TV programs where brave Federal agents thwart and incarcerate NRA goons? A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.

Chopping the vast bamboo stand that sprang up in the days I was away or prevented by rain, I realized why my spade shoulder is in pain. I came in and smeared hemp ointment on it, and the pain receded instantly. I’m the sort of person that does not automatically believe that such a thing has happened. 

Mr Jacobs from Ellet has died. 

Odd observation: I slept under a single sheet last night, in a room at least ten degrees cooler than the thermostat setting I kept through winter, perfectly comfortable. And yet on some winter nights, under a thick comforter, I would wake with violent convulsions of chills. 

Uninvited Guests

 

May 24, 2022

Day indecisive between rain and clear. Yesterday clearly voted with the storm.

Zoom meeting last night with a play reading group in Chicago to critique the current draft of C’s adaptation of The Third Policeman. Two of the participants live in Milwaukee and, after announcing their chosen pronouns, introduced themselves as “Uninvited Guests of the Potawatomi Nation.” I suppose I’d find such virtue-signaling less cringe-inducing if there were any possibility of an actual Potawatomi’s being present to be gratified by it. 

Ellijay

 May 22, 2022

If a thunderstorm can be called gentle, a gentle bursts over the house just now.

Returned a few hours ago from Elijay, Georgia, in a part of the world which, from the Earth’s perspective, is pretty much identical to this. Their mountains are lower and greener, ours higher and bluer. David and Laura’s wedding went off beautifully. My sister’s labors in planning the rehearsal dinner and arranging accommodations (I don’t know what else) were gigantic, but assured that everyone had fun. I read my poem “Song for a Wedding” and then conducted the service, and it seems to have gone well. I was credited with setting an enchanted tone. The PA went out, so my howitzer stage voice came in handy. The land is quite perfect, and 76 though North Georgia would make a good route for exploration. Maud was angry with me at my return, and grumbled at me through our homecoming embrace. All the brothers’ friends are big and handsome, in a quasi-military way, high and tight. They do not visibly sweat even under the blazing Southern sun. Their wives and girlfriends are the female equivalents: girls you would cast as officers’ or astronauts’ wives in a movie. Never was there a better example of like unto like. I had more anxiety about this event than I understood, and napped ferociously almost as soon as the car was unpacked. 

D gets into the car for me to drive us to the rehearsal, and says, “Are you an atheist?” I said that I was not, and we spend the rest of the time talking about spiritual things. At one point I heard myself explaining Apostolic Succession.