I was tickled when I turned to read a morning poem by Anthony Hecht and it was dedicated to Derek Walcott, both poets I am currently reading. It’s called “Terms.” The dedication does not appear in the linked poem. It’s a clever poem which exploits a pun-like device of using a word in more than one meaning (and sometimes pronunciation). Like “close” in the two phrases “Holidays, books, and lives draw to their close,” and “Close your eyes.”

After reading it, I had to pull out my Walcott and continue reading his works. “Homecoming” is a poem about Walcott’s split heritage and allegiance. It begins by evoking someone named Sesenne.

It turns out she is a real person or rather was a real person when she lived.

Today and tomorrow I want to knock off a few tasks for Mom. I am dreading contacting Social Security because I know they have rules about only speaking to the person concerned. They have hoops to jump through to obtain authorization. When I have investigated these previously they involved Mom, something that isn’t exactly possible at this point.

I think today Eileen is planning to tag whatever we want Two Men and Truck to bring Mom’s room at Maplewood to our home. We are just about done with going it. The next step is to bring in Two Men and a Truck for an estimate. I also want them to take away my broken treadmill sitting on my porch.

I am getting the usual Spring itch to clear clutter. Eileen and I discussed trying to develop a more gradual approach to this and try to a little bit at a time. It was in that spirit that I took a box of books to the library and a stack of stuff to Bibles for Mexico on Saturday.

I had the brilliant idea that I would type out a couple of the poems I liked by Lynne Handy from her book, Spy Car and other poems. I thought I would make a sub directory in my Google drive for poems. Then I discovered that I had already done this and that there were many poems sitting in docs.

There were several poems that were unattributed. That struck me as odd. Then while reading one of them, I realized that I had to have written them since they were so obviously personal about my life. That’s an odd sensation.

I guess I keep on making stuff up, poetry and music.

Anyway, I finished another book of poetry this morning, In The Language of My Captor  by Shane McCrae. McCrae has written a series of poems about Jefferson Davis and his adopted mulatto son, Jim Limber. There are about 38 pages of them in this book under the general title, “Purgatory: A Memoir / A Son and a Father of Sons.”

Jefferson Davis did have an adopted son with the name, Jim Limber. McCrae wrote a few more of these after the book was published. I found them on his Poetry Foundation page.

Here’s a poem, I wrote in March 2009, one of those I stumbled across this morning.

My father’s pale eyes
look out from the plastic chair
that he is trapped in
so he won’t fall.

“I thought you were dead.”
He says to me.

time has left him
but it takes me
to a memory
of a little girl grabbing
my Dad’s knees
with relief.

“I thought you were dead,”
she says to him.

NYTimes: Answering Society’s Thorniest Questions, With Performance Art

This guy sounds excellent. I have interlibrary loaned William Wells Brown’s “The Escape” mentioned in this article.

The Heartbeat of Racism Is Denial – The New York Times

An article from January by my new hero, Ibrim X. Kendi.

Quotes from this article:

“A new vocabulary emerged, allowing users to evade admissions of racism. It still holds fast after all these years. The vocabulary list includes these: law and order. War on drugs. Model minority. Reverse discrimination. Race-neutral. Welfare queen. Handout. Tough on crime. Personal responsibility. Black-on-black crime. Achievement gap. No excuses. Race card. Colorblind. Post-racial. Illegal immigrant. Obamacare. War on Cops. Blue Lives Matter. All Lives Matter. Entitlements. Voter fraud. Economic anxiety.”

“Only racists say they are not racist. Only the racist lives by the heartbeat of denial.”

Poetry Magazine – Shared Article ‘Letter to My Father’

This poem has some wonderful images of Trump and his appearance in Puerto Rico. The poet is speaking to the ashes of his dead father:

“I know you are not God. I have the proof: seven pounds of ashes in a box
on my bookshelf. Gods do not die, and yet I want you to be God again.
Stride from the crowd to seize the president’s arm before another roll
of paper towels sails away. Thunder Spanish obscenities in his face.
Banish him to a roofless rainstorm in Utuado, so he unravels, one soaked
sheet after another, till there is nothing left but his cardboard heart.”

Face the Racist Nation – On The Media | WNYC Studios

Important ideas from this podcast.

White supremacists are sophisticated users of the internet and all media. Later in the podcast we hear the history of the Klu Klux Klan’s use of public media.

Startling to hear that when a newspaper published applications for the Klan to demonstrate how horrible the Klan was that people ended up clipping the application from the paper to join the Klan. Horrified reporting helped grow the Klan then. This was in the 1920s.

My reading takes me back further to the 19th century.  Humans owning other humans made the prosperity of the 19th century possible.  The closing segment with historian Ibrim X. Keni makes it clear that the history of slavery is a history of policies that benefit the powerful lead to racist ideas, not ignorance.  Keni says to say that ignorance and hate lead to racism which leads to racist policies that benefit the hater is to put it backwards.

Instead policies that benefit the few (not the many) lead to racist policies that then lead to ignorance and hate in the population; the same population that doesn’t benefit from these policies, but instead is hurt by them.

Keni says further that the origin of this upside down approach can be traced to 19th century abolitionists. By emphasizing that it is ignorance that led to slavery, the well meaning motives of abolitionists disguised the fact that it was prosperity for the few that drove the need for slavery, not stupidity.

Basically Keni says that it’s not people that have led to and reinforced racist policies but the policies themselves are the problem.

It’s a subtle reframing of the ideas that I mean to understand better.

If all this is confusing I recommend listening to the podcast linked above.

I have listened to it once and am listening to it again.

Yesterday at my trio rehearsal, I strummed a chord or two on my harpsichord and decided it was no worse in tune than the piano. My fellow musicians were eager to try out a piece with it. We played Bach’s B minor violin sonata, all movements.

My harpsichord is practically a completely different instrument now. The touch is completely different. The sound more delicate. I was always satisfied with the sound of the old instrument. The refurbished instrument sounds beautiful as well.

I have been struggling with solo repertoire on it and probably zeroing in on a small percentage of notes that don’t return well or play quick ornaments easily.  I keep attempting to adjust it so that all the notes work well. But I was surprised that I felt better about using it in an ensemble.

The three of us were pretty ecstatic about doing this. Amy, my violinist,  pointed out how fortunate I was. A good room, a world class organ and a harpsichord at my disposal. No argument from me.  At the end of the rehearsal, Amy said that she, herself, had experience $900 worth of enjoyment from just that one session. That’s the amount it cost to get my plectrum voiced.

I love the music we played. Amy played the hell out of the first movement. It begins this long video.

Later when we were we chatting, Dawn, my cellist, bragged to Amy that I had recently performed the Widor Toccata on the new organ. This piece is a favorite of hers (and other parishioners as well).  She complimented my playing to Amy and remarked that each time I performed it, it was a little better.

High praise from a colleague.

After they left I practiced organ. It is such a pleasure to rehearse and perform on this instrument.

Eileen pointed out how decadent our life has become recently. While I was at trio rehearsal, she ordered groceries from Meijer to be delivered to our house. I add that my new speakers and use of Mom’s TV have made listening to music more enjoyable. This morning I listened to Ligeti instead of the news. This was the first piece. I’m going to have to check out his Ricercares.

I know that our life style is not that extravagant. But for us, it is definitely a time when we have much more than we need.

I finished this book of poetry this morning. Lynne Handy is definitely a skilled poet. There were two poems I especially liked. They don’t seem to be online anywhere. Here’s a link to her website.

And here’s a nice little bit from a poem in the March issue of Poetry I read this morning.

it was stupid. silly really. i knew nothing

that easy to get & good to feel
isn’t also trying to eat you.

from “sometimes i wish i felt the side effects” by Danez Smith, Poetry February 2018

Although Danez Smith is writing about a relationship between people, I couldn’t help but think of the internet maxim: “if the product is free, you are the product.”

When you dream, all the entities in the dream are you. At least that’s what I have heard and I think it’s probably true. So what does it mean, when you kill someone in a dream.

Last night, I almost killed someone in a dream. I was part of some sort of organization. It felt like a musician organization. But the time had come for someone in the organiation to commit ritual suicide. I’m not sure why, but we all understood this. I had the delivery method which was several pills tucked into a small bun like sandwich.

The person to die was a colleague of mine. He was late for the ritual. We were waiting. I took a bite of the sandwich myself thinking about the pills. Apparently only one of them killed you. The others mellowed you out. I remember looking at the bite and thinking that maybe I hadn’t eaten enough of the death pill to hurt me very much.

Finally, my colleague arrived. In the meantime, I had reconsidered. I decided I couldn’t do it. I told him that he had save his life by being late. I was ready to deliver the death method on time. But now I knew it was the wrong thing to do.

Eileen and I went to see Mom earlier in the day yesterday. I’m not sure if that’s a good idea or not. It is sad to see Mom as she is now. Of course, I wish she was more comfortable  even more herself. But the latter is probably not going to happen.

Rev Jen and I had our weekly meeting. It’s practically like chatting with my therapist. Both she and my therapist are easy to talk to. I usually feel a bit better after seeing either of them and yesterday was no exception.

I was excited when Rev Jen told me a parishioner had figured out how to submit info to the Sentinal online. Mary the administrator sent me links. Here they are, FWIW.

Holland.org online calendar (Holland visitors):

http://www.holland.org/events/submit-event/

Sentinel online calendar:

http://extra.hollandsentinel.com/calendar/

Church briefs at sentinel:

newsroom@hollandsentinel.com

On the home front, I’m feeling a little guilty about using Mom’s stuff. Mark helped us hook up her large TV screen to our computer and it works great! Not only that, but the sound is not too bad either. So I put my second pair of speakers in the bathroom. This morning I enjoyed listening to music and taking a shower. Man o man, am I spoiled!

We are planning on moving Mom’s chair to our home as well. We will have Two Men and Truck do that. Eileen wants to reupholster a couple of chairs (including the one I usually sit in). It looks like I will be using Mom’s fancy chair.

The rationalization is if Mom were to rally we would have her chair for her. Actually there is a similar chair in her room in the nursing home where she is now. Also, a TV is provided. She can barely sit herself up these days much less spend time in her chair and she hadn’t watched TV very much lately even when she felt better.

If you’re not worried enough with having Trump as president, here’s an interview with Daniel Ellsberg about the insanity of nuclear weapons in our world.

Why Katie Couric left Yahoo – Recode

I’ve had a tough time in my life thinking of TV people as journalists. Now, journalism in our moment is a complex thing to think about. I was intrigued by this podcast where Couric spends time talking to a younger journalist, Kara Swisher. This podcast was helpful to me, especially regarding platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Instagram, Snapchat).

I have to admit I was reassured when 61 year old Couric has a brain fart in the middle of the podcast and can’t think of the third of the three previous Olympics she has covered. Unfortunately, I can relate.