chelidon

Late October by Maya Angelo

Carefully
the leaves of autumn
sprinkle down the tinny
sound of little dyings
and skies sated
of ruddy sunsets
of roseate dawns
roil ceaselessly in
cobweb greys and turn
black for comfort.

Only lovers
see the fall
a signal end to endings
a gruffish gesture alerting
those who will not be alarmed
that we begin to stop
in order simply
to begin
again.

Old stories, in time

I went searching for a dear old friend,
a favorite book I had read long ago
I could remember exactly what it looked like,
the color and text on the spine, the marks of wear, dog ears,
where it sits on the shelf among its neighbors
But now I realize, that was another shelf,
in another house, in another time
A house I once knew as well as I know myself,
filled with life and laughter
I live in another house now,
and much time has passed.
But all that was, still is,
and in some way, somehow,
that dear book of mine
on its shelf of long ago
and all of the familiar stories it contains
is still sitting there, just as it was
waiting to be picked up and read.

II

The sharing of poetry is a most intimate act
lying close by on well-worn couches, feeding each other
with luscious, heady, sensual words, one at a time or all at once,
like newlyweds slyly offering delicate pieces of rich wedding cake
we gulp them down, licking each other's fingers clean
laughing, grapple and dive onto one another for the last precious morsels,
each one consumed wherever it falls and lies hidden,
we writhe in sacred play and pleasure
with the tempestuous passion of shared art --

each poem an all-consuming ecstasy,
each phrase a deepest secret whispered in the dark,
every word an ardent lover's kiss.

These poems,
we devour them together like starving gourmands, hungry to the bone,
balanced between craving and reverence, savoring every syllable, raw or cooked,
turning the metaphors over and over in our minds
twirling each one carefully on fork or spit,
acutely eager, considering still
each mouth-filling word with a moment of holy awe,
before consuming it whole,
all the exotic and earthy aromas filling our mouths
like wine of the gods, spilling down our chins and splattering across our cheeks and shoulders
licking the language clean from the hard white bones of grammar and form,
absorbing the heady flavors of place and pace
through our grateful eyes, ears and skin.


What a gift to find a compatible diner, who has
similar tastes and palate,
with whom to share a delicious meal.

My personal writerly work has been very sparse lately, being limited largely to emails and things for work. Friends and loved ones have inspired me to put my pen to page again, so here's the first in a while...

Lying in bed, looking out at the snow falling early this morning, these words came to mind.

Pilgrims of Winter

in the woods,
little delicate snowflakes
drifting down, kissing our foreheads,
cheeks, nose, and chin,
finding subtle, wicked ways down
to the bare skin of our ears and necks,
tickling like winsome feathers, making tiny spots of
sharp bright sensation on our sensitive skin as they
find tender unprotected places to alight, melt,
clever pilgrims of winter

Inside our bodies,
precious heat has risen to our skin
from those inner places of passion
and transforms the delicate earthbound flakes,
as they surrender their solidity
and return to liquid, droplets now,
heavier, more deliberate kisses,
sweet wet tongues of languid moisture,
joining and running in heedless rivulets,
as they mingle and consort with rough salty sweat,
trickling down our bodies, laughing

We melt as much as they,
these clever pilgrims of winter,
and enter each other, becoming.

So I got about the best (slightly early) present for Father's Day that I could get -- a new son! Mom and baby are fine, and we are tired, but very happy. More to come.

Quickie website is here: http://web.me.com/chelidon/Dylans_first_website/Welcome.html

I am proud of my state. And of northern New England in general, every single state of which has now passed a same-sex marriage law. "Live Free Or Die," indeed.


CONCORD, N.H. (AP) _ New Hampshire legislators approved a measure Wednesday that would make the state the sixth to allow gay marriage, and Gov. John Lynch said he would sign it later in the afternoon.

He had promised a veto if the law didn't clearly spell out that churches and religious groups would not be forced to officiate at gay marriages or provide other services.

The Senate passed the measure Wednesday, and the House _ where the outcome was more in doubt _ followed later in the day. The House gallery erupted in cheers after the 198-176 vote.

"If you have no choice as to your sex, male or female; if you have no choice as to your color; if you have no choice as to your sexual orientation; then you have to be protected and given the same opportunity for life, liberty and happiness," Rep. Anthony DiFruscia, R-Windham, said during the hourlong debate.

New Hampshire's law takes effect Jan. 1. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont and Iowa already allow gay marriage, though Maine opponents hope to overturn that state's law with a public vote.

California briefly allowed gay marriage before a public vote banned it; a court ruling grandfathered in couples who were already married.

New Hampshire opponents, mainly Republicans, objected on grounds including the fragmented process that required three bills.

"It is no surprise that the Legislature finally passed the last piece to the gay marriage bill today. After all, when you take 12 votes on five iterations of the same issue, you're bound to get it passed sooner or later," said Kevin Smith, executive director of gay marriage opponent Cornerstone Policy Research.

Lynch, a Democrat, personally opposes gay marriage but decided to view the issue "through a broader lens."

Lynch said he would veto gay marriage if the law didn't address churches and religious groups.

The revised bill added a sentence specifying that all religious organizations, associations or societies have exclusive control over their religious doctrines, policies, teachings and beliefs on marriage.

It also clarified that church-related organizations that serve charitable or educational purposes are exempt from having to provide insurance and other benefits to same sex spouses of employees. The earlier version said "charitable and educational" instead of "charitable or educational."

The House rejected the language Lynch suggested two weeks ago by two votes. Wednesday's vote was on a revised bill negotiated with the Senate.

The vote was supporters' last chance this year in New Hampshire.

Okay, who thought this was anything other than a bad, bad oh so bad plan...

Cat Twitter app for iPhone lets cats post thoughts

Yoikes.

I got a call from my father early this morning that my grandmother died about 3am last night. She was my father's mother, the Irish side of the family, in her 90s and in seriously declining health, recently moved from her apartment to assisted living and then to hospice care, but I think this caught us all by surprise just the same.

I can remember her even in her late 80s, thin and bird-like, smoking like a chimney, drinking like a fish, sharp as a whip and sitting at the dining room table whipping everyone's ass at poker. She is the one who after her husband came back from WWII and began to physically abuse her, put up with it for a time -- until the very first time he hit her son, then she picked up and moved out without a second thought, not common in the 1940s, especially for someone with few resources. She raised two sons as a single mom, and raised them well.

She's one of my heroes, and now one of my ancestors, and I am going to miss her presence. She was also my last living grandparent. I feel incredibly blessed to have had her so long, and now, as we all do sooner or later if we live long enough, I move up one notch in the cosmic family tree, with both parents thankfully reasonably healthy, but noting that the wheel of mortality turns on, inexorably, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.

New life, and death. Joyous beginnings, and the deep and painful mourning of what has passed. My life has been very full last year, and in this new one, of both sides of the great balance. Momentarily at the fulcrum of the leminscate, I am blessed by the past, I am blessed in the present, I am blessed by the future, and I bless, and give thanks, as I am blessed.

Thanks be to the ancestors, and to those yet to be born. And especially, especially, thanks to all those of you who are here and now. Each and every one of you is a blessing, and I am grateful.

On this auspicious day (ding, dong, the 8-year reign of idiocy is over), I am very pleased to report that the blood tests and ultrasounds came out perfectly normal, so much so that no amnio is needed after all (insert big sigh of relief), and...it's a boy! The pictures leave, er, no doubt. F will be thrilled, he really wanted a little brother (who will, no doubt, idolize him).

So now we need to start thinking of boy's names. Given the new puppy in the house, I can't help but think of Sean Connery in the third Indiana Jones movie: "We named the *dog* Griffin..." "The DOG?"

hee hee. C didn't think that was so funny.

Still.

This interesting article intrigued me because, while oriented towards farming and agribusiness, it points out how the current state of health insurance in the U.S. is highly biased towards big business, not just for farmers and farms, but for business across the board. In essence and fact, this heavily penalizes anyone who chooses a non-mainstream job by forcing them to spend a huge proportion of their income on health insurance, or alternately, bankrupting them if they do not pour their money into insurance, and then have the bad (inevitable, rather) fortune to ever get sick or injured.

Of course I knew this well, having made my living as a small business owner, writer, journalist and consultant for at least half of my career, and darn glad throughout for a partner who had a "mainstream" job with benefits that I could piggyback onto for most of that time. I know people who have gotten married for health insurance, I know people who retired with more than enough to live on, who nevertheless ended up having to work after retirement at a low-wage job specifically to get insurance coverage.

Full article below -- some good questions, and perhaps an eye-opener for anyone who's spent their life in a "mainstream" job or career -- that is, one with healthcare benefits included.

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WHY DON'T WE WANT PEOPLE TO FARM?
by Ezra Klein
link: http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=01&year=2009&base_name=why_dont_we_want_people_to_far

In a policy paper almost custom-designed to catch this blog's eye, the Access Project has released an issue brief on the intersection of farming and health care coverage. And the news isn't good. Health policy types tend to assume a household is experiencing financial hardship from medical costs if they spend more than 10 percent of their income on health care. That's true for 54 percent of folks who report their primary occupation as farming or ranching. Add in part-time farmers (which is common given that farming is often seasonal) and it's 44 percent. That's high. And high is bad.

Small farmers get their health insurance on the individual market. They are not protected by an employer's bargaining power. They do not get to deduct their insurance costs, as employers do. And the individual market is bad, pricey place to get your health insurance. The median amount that farmers on the individual market get paid out-of-pocket for health insurance was $11,200. Those who got their insurance from an employer paid $5,600 out of pocket (they of course paid more out of potential wages redirected to health care, but that's a different sort of burden).

So why does this matter? As Steph Larsen, a rural policy organizer for the Center for Rural Affairs observes, when you're talking about building a more environmentally sustainable, local food production system, you're talking about having a lot of farms. As Larsen puts it, that requires small-scale farming to be not only environmentally sustainable, but economically viable. Small-scale farming is hard to make a living at and harder to make a regular living at. Crop prices go up and down. Droughts descend. Tastes change. Subsidies shift. If you can't keep your health care amidst these fluctuations, you can't keep farming. It's irresponsible. And so many don't. As Larsen concludes, health reform is an important part of farm policy not only for the farmer who needs health care, but the office worker who'd like to farm. In this, it's much like the rest of health care policy.

The fact that our health system specifically advantages stable jobs at large employers reduces entrepreneurship in all forms. Fewer people can start small businesses, move home to take over their family farm, or spend a couple years trying to make it as a rock band. Economic creativity is reduced across the board. Scraping by on low wages for a few years is one thing. Going without health care, particularly if you're older or have a family, is rather another. It's as true for the young innovator who wants to leave Bell Labs* and start his own company as for the tired office worker who'd prefer to return to Nebraska and reinvigorate the farm he grew up on. We have decided to discourage them as a matter of national policy. We have decided to make it easier for ConAgra and harder for family farms. The question is why.