The Poet's Room

  At Camus's Bench! Sitting in Fall's quiet, Sun above trees, Highlights Hickory  Yellow leaves;                 The start of October, with my Achilles heal on the mend I start taking longer walks at the conservancy.   The narrow path through the prairie passes a variety of asters, beautiful late blooms. Blues and whites, the name Aster from the Greek meaning "Star". Seed heads of grasses grown heavy in ripening wave back and forth in a light breeze. I run my hand over a stem. Glean a hand full of seeds. Release them to the wind. Everything is as it should be.               I enter the pines find pine sap oozing from scars where limbs had been in the tree's youth. Deep shade and quiet permeate everything including my being.   I walk among friends who say everything by just growing into the light. At the bottom of the trail the bench with the Camus quote. I sit down observe  sunlight filtering through the canopy of trees. A breeze shakes loose wild cherries hangin

             Launching astronauts into space gave us a view of earth none of us had ever seen before. An incredible picture of our self sustaining home, our living breathing space ship, a blue-green organic jewel hanging in the black of space, illuminated by our sun. Somewhere on the picture each of us resides living out our lives. Now in my senior years, the following poem provides a perspective on our human journey. Today....Pray! Earth wobbles  Slightly, Twenty-four Hours a day,  Turning,  Three hundred  Sixty-five times; Each year Lived; As night fades,  Black sky  Softens To pale gray, Until brilliant  Lasers  Shoot through The horizon, Like petals opening On a new flower, A glowing red disk Rises, between  Earth and heaven,  Spreads light  As far as   Morning eyes,  Can see; The new day dawns Like a curtain drawn Reveals stage And setting For  The evolving Parade of life; At the Firefly  Coffee House, Enter stage left, A proud new mother, Places her three month Child on her lap,

Purple Prairie Clover           Near the end of June with little to no rain. Weather people on the T.V. call this a mild drought. Mild? Meaning corn ankle high, maybe by the 4th of July? Maybe? I go for a walk with Julie a friend over to the conservancy. We park on Big Bluestem Parkway cross a patch of blue grass now turned brown. The only color  in the mown area by wild Morning Glories and yellow Birds-foot Trefoil .  Morning Glories Dry Grass & Birds-foot Trefoil         Blue grass exists with very shallow roots.  We cross the brown blue grass and paved walking path to a narrow earth path that enters the prairie. Here a different story. Cup Plants and Grasses rise from the earth head high in a mosaic of green; a rich diversity of plants with deep roots, resistant to drought and fire. Here a different ecosystem in dramatic ways.  The blue grass appears dead or nearly so due to a lack of water. The prairie plants thick and thriving due to deep roots. Some in bloom. Trail into the P

            Leave the Hurly-Burly behind. Leave the television, the noise, the hustle and bustle of crowds. The drug commercials that promise you'll dance in the street or sunbath in the Caribbean. If only you buy our drug. The f ace cream that promise miracles; every wrinkle turned back thirty to fifty years. All the cons that offer a product that will make you the absolute sexiest man or woman in the world. Instead take a walk on the wild side.          Enter the deep quiet of a forest where life and death exist as an ongoing continuum.  A communion where each grows into the other.  Amazing how life breeds death, and death feeds life. Observe trees standing while slowly dying.  Dead limbs lifeless and hard. Sprouting from the trunk the fruiting body of the Pheasant Back Mushroom or Oyster Mushroom fungi that live by eating dead wood.           Some find the bosom of God in Nature. A place to lay a weary head. A deep quiet settles into my soul as I walk slowly trying to see and he

                           May 3, 2023   Dear Mr. Hendricks, Thank you for writing to me about Government spending.   Here’s the bottom line:  My plan to reduce the deficit while investing in America and our people is working.  Since taking office, I cut the deficit by $1.7 trillion, created 12 million new jobs and a manufacturing boom, and kept my commitment to build an economy that rewards work not wealth—an economy that leaves nobody behind.   Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act that I signed into law last year, we began cutting out hundreds of billions of dollars in wasteful spending on special interests—finally allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices.  This law will also lower the deficit by ensuring that corporations pay a 15 percent minimum in taxes and the IRS has more auditors to crack down on super-wealthy tax cheats.  But we have to do more to decrease the deficit.  My Budget will continue to cut out wasteful spending on special interests, will protect and strengt

  "Mug Shot of The Tennessee Three"          The Republican controlled majority in the Tennessee House voted on April 5, to expel all three of these desperados from the legislature. One vote failed to reach a two thirds majority.   Accused of the incredible heinous crime of shredding the States constitution by use of a baby bullhorn. An unbelievably creative crime that would be believable if they worked as a Nashville backup band with an electric guitar and humongous amp. Shredding would just come natural in that case.          Tennessee State Representative Justin Jones, Gloria Johnson and Justin Pearson led chants from the floor of the House, known as the well, calling on colleagues to pass gun control legislation while hundreds maybe thousands rallied outside for for that purpose. This violated one of the most sacrosanct unwritten laws written in invisible ink on the gold plated ass of a Republican Elephant. Or maybe its on the ass of a Republican sitting on a gold plated

             My friend Sandy points at the birth year of a daughter tree, cut down at the age of twenty-six. Pictured below the stump of the Mother tree and behind her the broken stump of her mother; the grandmother tree. Beyond these trees the apartment building where I live, looks out on this small copse of trees. Last year a Humming bird mom nested and raised two young to maturity in the Silver Maple closest to my window.           A  story of organic life and death to be told.  A floodplain tree Silver Maples can live for 130 years. Fast growing with shallow roots Silver Maples  tolerate wetter conditions than most. Frequently planted in yards and along streets they tolerate typical lawn watering. I grew up in southern Indiana on a short street lined by large Silver Maples. These large trees provided welcomed shade. On the hottest steamy day I could walk down the middle of the street and remain under their cooling shadows. Many changes have occurred since my boyhood years that now