Trees

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Joyce Kilmer, 1886–1918

Something to contemplate.  Hopefully, more to come! 

Feathers Up & American in Paris

#1 Fauna and Humans

An MIT study found that two viruses--H5N1 and H7N9, resident in birds and pigs--are one amino acid away from causing a pandemic flu in humans, when spread thru touch or airborne contact.

Turns out, these flu viruses stem from the 1918 Spanish flu, which killed roughly 50 million people, and are considered descendant strains.

So, can viruses spread from humans back to animals? Think about that the next time you smother your cat.


#2 American in Paris
One year ago, tennis media reported there were few American women on the professional horizon after Serena and Venus Williams. This year, we saw four (4) American women in Round 4 at the French Open (Roland Garros, June 2013).

We also saw Serena Williams (now 31) come back and win the championship 11 years after
winning it for the first time (2002).

Interestingly, the commentator noted how appropriate it felt to hear the American national anthem played at the award ceremony. Probably thinking of that June 1945 award ceremony with General DeGaulle awarding General Eisenhower the Croix de la Liberation at the Arc de Triumph, at the end of the war.
 

Exercises in reality

4/12/13 (to edit)
I am writing this the afternoon after participating in an anthrax exercise at Bradley High School (Cleveland, Tennessee), in which ~1400 students bravely participated along with roughly 200 employees and volunteers from various TN-state agencies, but mostly medical allied fields (RNs, nurse practitioners, nurse assistants, a couple of physicians, a couple of lay people like myself). I am saying the students are brave because of what imploded in me after the experience.

Of course, the atmosphere of role play lightened the atmosphere for me upon arrival at the 7:30 a.m. morning sign-in. But as the experience intensified--the preparation of teams, the set-up of the cafeteria, dispensing the supplies to  exercise participants, the arrival of the students--so did the feeling of "this is for when it's real." Soon after, they dialed up the speed at which things were happening (closer to how it could be real time), that made the next one hour and twenty minutes go by with adrenaline.

It wasn't until well afterward, that I noticed and understood why they call the post-exercise a "hotwash." We were decompressing back in the auditorium, everyone seemed pleasant enough, hearing the team lead observations and praise. But it wasn't until my own drive home that my emotions began to "wash out." I realized, I too, needed to release heat. The memory of those young faces, some who were genuinely panicked at the point (probably because they are closer to that age that hasn't yet developed a psyche to handle "situations"), especially when we had to stick our hand up in the air and say "please wait a minute," while we called in a medical expert to sort out what medications we could give someone who is allergic to the medications (provide names later), was vivid.

Suddenly, the young 14-year-old girl who was representing 42-year-old Adam with a family of 4 and wants to be sure he's getting the right medications for all of them, but can't remember who's allergic and who isn't, became that person. And I began to panic for them, in my car, as it occurred to me what they were dealing with on the other side of the table. I tried to remember if  I looked assuredly back at them, or remained that heady individual on the other side of the table, trying to figure out what to stock the bag with and write on the paper.

###

UNTITLED

No even chain
but an association,

A growth,
creates culture.

 

The people bound
within bear the

Deepest inward destiny,
suffused mythology,

Religion and
artistic thought.

 

Essence and kernel
of all history,

The look and space of time.

--JE Carroll Thomsen

UNTITLED

And then I had again that room,
The sensation I had gone back
Fifteen years and was alone again.

That feeling I had had in childhood

Of being unique and strange
And alone came stark and sweet.

The honey mood of relaxation

And a strain of old music,
Familiar, limpid music.

JEC Thomsen (circa 1962)

Writing Powers Process, Not Just Product

Author George Saunders (Saun) described one of the lesser-known sides of the writing process in his interview with George Stephanopoulos (Step) on ABC’s Sunday talk show, This Week, in February 2013. Here are some excerpts from an incomplete transcript that capture the bits relevant to anyone interested in the writing process.

***********************************************************************************************
Step:…Funny, dark, realistic at the same time…You seem to tap into this economic anxiety that so many Americans are feeling right now.

Saun: It seems that’s the big American subject....

Step: One of thing you write about is the absence of wealth creates an erosion of grace.

Saun: …Fiction isn’t actually a great propaganda tool. Often the first impulse of a writer is to pull up the big manure truck of his ideas and his politics and “stand there reader and dump it,” but I find if you just concentrate on language and on making lively new situations [possibly incorrectly heard?], then ideas come out of the woods.

Step: …If you set out to write overtly political fiction, it won’t work.

Saun: That’s right. I’ve tried and it doesn’t work. There’s something about the intimacy of exchange demands openness on both sides. And on the writer's part it means, I don’t know. I might think I know, but I don’t. know. It’s weird because the way to get to those ideas is through the language, paying close attention to phrases and sentences, and if you do that in a kind of an open state, not only will the ideas show up, but they will be the highest form of your ideas. They won’t be propagandistic; they won’t be superficial. They’ll be sort of deep and ambiguous.

Step: It also seems that you’re trying to create space in those sentences for heart. That’s another way to reach across that divide.

Saun: That’s right. A Longfellow quote I’m probably mangling: If we could look into the secret history of our enemies, we’d find sufficient suffering and sorrow to disarm our hostility. I think fiction is almost a mechanical way to work through your own shallowness. You start out with a condescending relationship to your character, almost by definition, and as you work with the sentences, you find that the bad sentences are equal to over simplicity or condescension. And as you work with language, you move yourself toward complexity and often to a state of confusion, where you really don’t quite know what you think about the person.

Step: You may not, but when you send it out into the world, what do you hope to get back?

Saun: I think the highest version is you’re sending out a bundle of energy—concentrated energy that you’ve made with your own sweat and your heart—and it goes out and jangles somebody. That’s the highest form. Now, there’s another level where you do hope to make people more alive in the world, maybe more aware of the fact that we have more in common with others than we think we do, that’s kind of whole [?]; but even that gets a little bit intentional. So for me it’s just trying to deliver an energy charge in a certain way.

Step: You did it for me and you did it for so many more. Go to abcnew.com/thisweek for an excerpt.

******************************************************************************************
From George Saunders interview with George Stephanopoulos on This Week:, Sun 2/16/13, regarding Tenth of December (short-story fiction), new book

Have a look at the New York Times review Stephanopoulos refers to in the interview, George Saunders Has Written the Best Book You’ll Read This Year, by Joel Lovell, January 3, 2013 , which nominates Saunders as a “writer for our time.” This catch-phrase (or trope) seems to have irked other writers (just Google and see what I mean), mostly because Saunder’s achievements remain with the short-story form and not novels. But honestly, to go from being a technical writer to a great writer is clearly an achievement.

Poetry in Motion

Working on my mom's poetry & art manuscript lately seems to be rubbing off on me.
These simple, childish verses fell into place yesterday, while traipsing around the Cherokee Removal Park during the Sand Hill Crane Festival.

As I strive
to be alive,
so parts of me
live and die.
To be born anew
in days come true,
nearer to the heart
of my real parts.

And on a lighter note...

Glad to say
we walked today
&, oh,
by the way,
I love you,
yes, I do.
All things true,
Me and you,