Michigan Confession

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The day is fierce

The work, a pain

 

Easier

To slip into

That cool blue;

To steer away

From that plain

Baked in red

 

But water and fire are necessary both

In all the land

For fruit and growth

Quatre-quarts de seigle

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Tout commence avec l’éclat de Ô ! radieux,

Immaculé blanc : œufs!

À fouetter de suite. Pas fort mais juste

Pour faire moins lourd et visqueux.

    

Bien qu’essentiel, cela n’était qu’un préliminaire.

Passons à l’étape calorique :

Que douce soit l’œuvre de ta confection !

Que plaise le sherry que tu trouves pour goutter !

 

L'huile de coude s’épuise, pour donner

Une pâte riche en sage graisse.

Alors se révélera le secret de Mamie :

Son Bon Levain, et le repos.

 

Le poussiéreux pour finir, ingrédients à sec!

Voilà un pain complet, aigre-doux.

Versé dans le moule, on étale à la carre extrême…

Et hop ! au four, pour que tout soit bien cuit. 

 

 

Gloire à ce gâteau levé

Au seigle des seigles !

Pour le partage,

Amène aux amis.

​

​

Pour M. Blé,

à l'occasion de son 25ème anniversaire

Shall we stroll?

​

To strut and strafe may not be safe,

To struggle and to straggle is no fun snaggle,

But to stride alongside!

That way is none a stray.

Forked

 

Came to a fork one day

(Trees around and all),

Got stuck on it

Like too big a meatball.

Not goin' this way or that,

Sat, down right in the dirt

Drawin' circles with a rock

With a dumb look.

 

Long time, no mind sight

So came Night:

The moon shone in the fields against a starry sky

And still I sat, forked.

 

Finally,

With the scenery wholly bored of me

I got up, and said

“Alright.”­

Only to turn 'round and head home

To find where I come from

And who came before:

That fork can wait some more.

Water

​

I am stopped

By the sound of babbling brook

As bright and clear

As the giggle of a yesteryear.

 

I cannot see before me

Yet its ancient presence I feel,

Swim in its silver shimmer

Dream-like in the dusk light.

 

I pass on.

While it continues singing

I turn to wringing —

I see naught ahead.

 

Through sleepless night I sweat

But work alone will not work:

Will we who drew all from you

Find courage to change currents,

And draw you into the morrow?

Looking at an electric Christmas tree

​

I can see the roboticness

Of the flashing lights

I can recognize what I distaste.

 

But what will happen when I can't?

What will happen when we perfectly emulate my sappy Christmas tree

Amess with downy flake and prickly limb

 

And what was so wrong with this pine of mine?

 

I have friends making holograms to train dancers on.

I've seen helmets and wands that instruct conductors.

 

Were we so incapable before, for so many millennia?

Were we so handicapped?

Or are we handicapping ourselves?

Are we crusting over, fossilizing?

 

And after we've been dazzled by well-meaning technologists,

Who will suffer the disruptions their artifice brings?

How much damage will we do before we've safely installed it into the oikos?

(If we ever do)

 

How will we justify it to our children, to ourselves?

Because it was “cool”?

 

How long before we can get back to the Art of Living?

The techne of flourishing?

 

Not before the next distraction I fear.

My Tent

​

My independent tent

Here is pitched

Alongside fellow foragers,

Feeling not ditched

But nervous excitement

And passions to be itched.

 

Like all, we are voyagers:

Nothing to do

But don luckiest of shoe

And step to

Always making do.

This Too Much Talk

​

There we lay in the dark

Enfolded in on ourselves

In so many words

 

When we should be tilling our plot

And plotting our untils

We talk around a spot

 

Where we should be spreading wide

Sowing our seed 'neath the sky

We dig ourselves in, on all sides

 

Deep, too deep

The air becomes thick

We cling tight, too tight

A still heat stifles

We joke but we choke

Don't mind the headache

We talk but it's chalk

Just one more word, or two -

 

But it is too late.

It is just a matter of how long

We wait

Before we

cave.

 

That is, unless…

Unless we help each other up

And out

And away

With a wave and happy sad "okay".