RELUCTANT SPRING SONNET

A low is parked over the Bay of Funday, wobbling away over Nova Scotia, bringing us day after day of dry, north winds. The air was dry even up over Canada, and when it is warmed thirty degrees by the high late-April sun it becomes parched. There is no shade in the woods and the duff swiftly dries in the bright sun, and the fire danger is high. The dead leaves are crisp and no longer oppressed by snow, and they swirl up and swoop down to places I already raked last fall. I clean the garden and the whipping wind messes it all up again.

I’ve tried to have a sense of humor about the wind. I bent my old back to carefully collect all the plastic tabs from last year’s plants into a plastic flowerpot, and then the pot caught the mischievous wind’s attention. The wind picked up the pot and flung it fifty feet away, scattering the plastic tabs all over the garden again. I was not amused.

I was thinking I’d skip the garden and focus on writing this year, but there’s enough worrisome news about food shortages to get me creaking about as an antiquated survivalist. I have peas planted, and enough onions, garlic and potatoes to last a winter, but the dry wind keeps causing me trouble. I laid down gardener’s fabric to repress weeds, and buried the edges with wet dirt, and then cut holes to plant the onions, but the wind dried the dirt, blew it off the fabric’s edges, and rolled up the fabric. This is not a good start. The weeds are winning even before they start growing.

Ha ha ha. That was a joke, delivered in a very grumpy tone of voice.

It’s so dry that even when below freezing at dawn there’s no frost on the car’s windshield. The wind has an annoying static and is so cold my fingers swiftly turn purple. Besides dust there is pollen in the air, and my eyes itch, and my nose is runny and chapped. So I decide I’ll let it warm up a bit more outside before gardening, and nip inside for a second coffee and a sonnet.

Reluctant spring remains frugal with joy.
Refrigerated daffodils quiver
In the keen, north wind; lilacs don't deploy
Their blooms from sullen buds; sunbeams shiver
Through bare-bone branches which are refusing 
To bust out. Despite sun high as August's
I don't wear my straw hat, instead choosing
My woolen one; my nose is nipped and my trust's
As guarded as a poker player's cards.
I sneer at songbirds; they've lost their minds
And belt out hymns although the chill retards.
The spinach is smarter. The sunshine blinds
Those birds, and the buoyant bluebird's back
Reflects a blue sky full of hope that I lack.

In my grumpy mood I concluded I am short on spirituality. Bluebirds have more faith than I do. Likely it is because they don’t read the papers. I should know better, but I can never resist taking a quick peek at the news. It makes it all the harder to have faith.

Sometimes it seems I worship my worry.
My coins say, "In God We Trust", but I don't.
God, forgive me. Life flashes by; all hurry
As if our stuff will last when it won't.
God always was, is, and always will be,
But the problem is: God's not gripped by a fist.
Endlessness is too vast for eyes to see
So, in blindness, we say God can't exist
Because we can't pinch God like a penny.
Can we only worship things we can touch?
But can I touch worry? I've got many
But all in my head. Worry is a crutch
We lean upon when we're not even lame.
It's a very odd way to be playing God's game.

My thoughts are getting too heavy, so I flee back out to the simplicity of my garden.

AWAKING THE WOKE (Or, The Polka-dotted Tie)

The so-called “woke” are in fact asleep.

They slumber in the false security of thinking they are in a “safe space.” Coddled by money, stroked by luxuries, flattered by self-proclaimed popularity, they snuggle into a web of deceit, thinking they are reclining in a magical hammock, a sort of cocoon which will make worms into butterflies. In fact they are entangled, increasingly wrapped and entrapped by a spider of lies who wants nothing more than to suck the very blood from their veins. How more unawoke can you get?

All my life I have watched people who, regardless of truth and fact, have rushed about seeking acceptance. They have rushed to buy the silliest clothing, not just women but men. To be accepted they would wear the most garish, polka-dotted tie. It was ridiculous to witness, but the pathos behind the nonsense was that the poor people just wanted acceptance.

Well, this silliness is out of hand. At some point you have to draw the line. You have to stand up bravely, and rebel, and announce, “I will not wear a polka-dotted tie!”

And at that point the “woke” stir from slumber. They understand to be called “woke” is as meaningless as a polka-dotted tie.

They begin to understand Truth is more meaningful, and that the acceptance that matters is the acceptance of Truth.

ELON’S PRANK

I really have my doubts Elon Musk ever really intended to take over Twitter. Being the richest man in the world, he has fatter fish to fry, but also enjoys raising a ruckus when it tickles his sense of mischief.

In a sense he is like a person who intentionally rubs his cat’s hair the wrong way. He knows the cat will be indignant, but the cat hasn’t been providing much entertainment lately, and needs to get back on the job.

It was not so much Elon’s suggesting he would take over Twitter that alarmed many, but that he said he would bring back Freedom of Speech to the site. That rubbed the fur of repressors the wrong way. But, in their squalling outrage, the oppressors revealed what we already know: That they are oppressors who believe their oppression is a good thing. Concurrently, they believe Freedom is a bad thing.

Freedom of Speech is the very first amendment because it is crucial and foundational to our very humanity. Our ability to honesty speak-our-minds is as crucial to life as the freedom to breathe.

At this point the Oppressors always like to rebut, “But what about shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre?” Then they outlaw shouting “Fire!” in theatres, which puts one in a heck of a bind if there actually is a fire.

There is actually a fire in the theatre of our government and media. Honest debates of real issues have eroded into the false promises of fraudsters, and the media has withered into paid-for previvors of propaganda, carriers of cancers they spread unknowingly even to their own children. The smoke of this fire has darkened the skies of clear-minded debate, gagging the honest and outspoken. We are not free to speak, in the eyes of many. Yet Freedom of Speech is God-given and penetrates all darkness with the sunbeam of Liberty.

Liberty is not a god we worship, but a gift God gives to us all. And the greatest Liberty we are gifted with is to speak the Truth. Even a little baby speaks with Liberty. When they are hungry, they are at Liberty to let you know it, even if you are the King of Siam. Liberty allows us to be honest, and honesty allows us to confess mistakes have been made, not in a shaming manner, or a damning manner, but rather in the manner that seeks to amend the mistake with a correction, which leads to improvement and betterment (until the next mistake becomes apparent.)

This natural process is part of God’s plan for our perpetual betterment. Life is intended to get better and better. However, throwing a wrench in this process by censoring and repressing Freedom of Speech derails progress. Rather than better and better thing rapidly get worse. Which is exactly what we are seeing.

As things rapidly get worse the Oppressors become increasingly concerned about people speaking about what is obvious. Such speaking-out does not jive with the Fake News they want their puppets in the media to make part of so-called reporter’s (who should be called “disinformers”) daily pablum of false narratives. So, they increasingly censor.

But then this Libertarian richest-man-in-the-world, named Elon Musk, pulls a prank, where he pretends he can single-handedly save humanity by allowing Free Speech to again rule the Land of Liberty, (at least in the microcosm of Twitter).

The simple fact so many immediately spoke against Elon’s idea made what was already obvious all the more blatant: Many among us no longer believe in the idea of a Land of Liberty. They are in fact traitors to the very idea Freedom is good.

This indeed may have been the point of Elon’s prank. He wanted to make it obvious to the rest of us how committed some are to silencing us. And indeed, it now is obvious, for it is clear how they want to silence Elon himself.

Instantly the media was smearing him. They hauled out the over-used mud of “racism”, stating he was from South Africa and suggested we all “know” that automatically makes him a product of apartheid. (Such inuendo is a racism all its own.)

There were also immediate “investigations” launched against Elon by the government, involving the “justice department”, (as if that collection of political hacks has a shred of credibility left). Why did they launch such an attack on the world’s richest man immediately after he said he would restore Freedom of Speech? (Answer: Because Freedom of Speech would reveal they lack credibility.) They needed to protect their own asses.

The only good, (if it can be called “good”), I can see occurring in our government as a result of Ebon’s prank is that it stimulated a gross reflex which all hacks seemingly have. They leap to the defense, to protect their own asses. What this results in is some becoming so desperately defensive they stab other hacks in the back, which stimulates revenge, and further stabbing. If we really get lucky, they will all kill each other.

The great thing is that Elon did this not by reestablishing Free Speech, but merely by suggesting it be reestablished. He didn’t do, he merely suggested. Yet even that much Free Speech shook the foundations of the mighty.

Can you imagine what Truth actually speaking will do?

SUNRISE SERVICE SONNET

The cold moon slumps to hopeless horizons.
All seems lost, but the scorched tomb yawns empty.
The guards have run away. And now the sun's
First cool glow throws a starry confetti
Of bright planets into the cat-stretching east.
People can't believe what's ordinary.
They're stunned that most is defeated by least.
They slap their own faces, yet still they see
Loss beat a win. They thought that they could mow 
Truth like grass, and own grim lawns of tamed brown
But Spring came skipping. The grasses did grow.
Then terrible tyrants tantrumed. Each frown
Was a proof this old saying has meaning:
You can ignore spring, but you can't stop its greening.

SONNETS FROM SILENCE

Those who insist upon censoring all but fake-news miss the Truth, and Truth is Beauty. Therefore that which is beautiful is forced to go underground, where it whispers secrets in young lover’s ears, or from old men’s sonnets. Not that Truth ever ceases to exist. It is Real while fake-news is not, but ignorance is bliss for those pretentious people who prance and prattle in the limelight of a Titanic they deem unsinkable.

I am continuing to write in a sort of self-imposed silence. Not that I can ever stop the noise of my scribbling while I breathe, but I refrain from posting. My writing cannot be silenced when it is kept safely beyond reproach in a diary. However here are a couple sonnets that have escaped those hidden pages, while I was distracted by the drudgery of doing my taxes.

Enough with the taxes. I'm in the mood
To let my mind drift where it will; be led
By whim. Maybe predawn stars think I am rude
To stray from the course, but man is not fed
By being rigidly predictable
Like beautiful angels; they do God's will
Where men can't see It; whereas we are full
Of grand intents to serve sweet tea, but spill
Boiling brews in our customer's shocked laps.
That's just how we're made. And if God made us
That way, I'll be that way. Before dawn wraps
The east in roses, before yellow bus
Yanks tired kids from dreams to sit in rows,
I'll rope a dream and ride where it goes.

A mutter of thunder has meaning to me
As I wake in the misty, moist morning.
From illogical dreaming hearing can see
More that is joyous than warning.
It was only one grumble, and yet it spoke
Like a cleared throat before a pronouncement.
Like an eyebrow gone impish before a good joke
It foretold a happy announcement.
It hinted that warming awaits in the wings;
The cold will back down, and must bow.
Such thunder holds music which surely is Spring's
And a palm touches calm to my brow.
Like a child left too long all on his own
I hear front doors open. I am not alone.