Sound of the Desert
January 26, 2009
When the wind fades
there’s still the sound of the sun.
When the sun goes down
there’s still the sound of the stars.
Close your eyes, please.
The sound of the desert
comes through your skin.
New Office
January 23, 2009
Beige walls and jewel-toned pictures
for right now.
A mythic bent, luminous goddess-type stuff,
that was the office’s previous holder.
I’m thinking more animal, less human,
still in the mythic –bears, ravens, wolves –
but I’m going to wait
for the room
if it wants to
to say.
Not Bad For A New Kid
January 19, 2009
Well, Empathy didn’t make it into the top ten Ideas for Obama at change.org (It ranked 12th, last I saw), but that’s not bad for a concept people confuse with sympathy, and even when they get it straight don’t know how to actually DO it.
Speaking from experience here. You’d think this natural human facility would take less than a ten-day training to reawaken, but that’s what it took for the Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) to gently vibrate cracks in my shell of well-meaning obtuseness and get me to get a little actually real.
So I think those of us who voted for Empathy In Government did a pretty good job, all things considered. At least it’s almost on the screen.
Barry Mimmon
January 15, 2009
Back in teacher’s college
his adviser once told him
If you save a single kid
you’ll have done a year’s work twice over.
Cool! thought Barry Mimmon.
The first two years were tough.
He almost got fired for
lackluster performance.
Then jackpot!
The class whore
became his fetch-and-carry,
a punked-out lawyer’s son
his advocate,
and a young mafioso
got him a spectacular deal
on a hotel for the prom.
Bare Minimum
the other teachers called him,
as he drifted along
with his easy schedule
and the Principal’s positive regard.
While Gerschtenschlager
drilled his classes
into lean, mean, logic machines,
and Riddle gentled hers
into waking up,
Barry built the school’s community support:
generous donors, loyal
parents, fiercely protective
alums among the doer class.
Sociopathic bigwigs
Gerschtenschlager snarled.
There came some years
when Barry saved no one.
His kids sat quietly
texting or reading the paper
while he chalked up the board.
Didn’t matter.
Gerschtenschlager left to teach college.
Riddle became a supervisor for the state.
When Barry retired
there were tears, banquets
and a brand-new luxury car.
A President Who Reads
January 14, 2009
Just heard on NPR this morning that the publishing industry is following Obama around to find out what he reads to they can increase their sales.
What a concept! A president who reads!
To be fair, according to informed sources, President Bush II read 40 books last year, but I don’t know of any real readers who actually keep a count, especially since they don’t read every book all the way through. Bad books get chucked after a few pages, wordy books get skimmed, textbooks get mined for relevant parts. Heck, some books you can read the Foreword and the Afterword and get the main points.
Mr. Obama, you go, Sir! And let us know what you’re reading. It’s what I ask all my reader friends.
Empathy in Government
January 10, 2009
What a concept, eh? To talk to someone behind a counter or a desk and actually know you’ve been listened to and understood? Someone who doesn’t quote chapter and verse of some rules, putting their “but” in your face? That’s what some people are trying to get to happen by registering their opinions at http://www.change.org/ideas/view/bridging_the_empathy_gap_-_yes_we_can
If enough people go there and vote for it, the Obama administration may actually adopt empathy as an official policy and strategy. Woudln’t it be cool?
Transplant
January 10, 2009
When she moved to town
the people were nice
so she thought they
wouldn’t mind
if she suggested a few
changes.
Song of the Dissipating Anxiety
January 5, 2009
Where the candle smoke goes
where the red of the leaf goes
and the color of dawn.
I have the choice
of a bowling shirt
or a waistcoat to wear
when I go dancing there.
The Really Good Kind of Stones
January 4, 2009
The really good kind of stones
the little boy told me
are the ones you look at
and think of all kinds of other stuff.
He was the only kid in town with an office.
In the middle drawer of his desk he kept
his pheasant feather, squirrel tail, horse shoe
and a couple of champion buckeyes.
In high school, he stopped by
to explain the seven kinds of mathematical infinity
and to introduce his First Law of Weirdodynamics:
He went to college and moved away,
became a geologist
and occasionally sends me
interesting rocks.
The Principal
January 2, 2009
“If you take care of the little things,”
he was fond of saying, “the big things
will take care of themselves.”
Thus his teachers all had shiny shoes
the day the school went broke.
