Mary Oliver and Barbara Kingsolver

Many years ago I first encountered Mary Oliver through an essay of hers — it was in something like a book-of-the-month club newsletter. I was stunned, as I often have been since, by her ability to speak, not just to me, but for me, to say things that are in my heart but may never come out of me so brilliantly. She’s a gem.

A friend once said she’d like to be listening to classical music as she lay dying. I had never considered the matter but immediately realized it is rain I want to hear last. mjh

Poem: “Marengo,” by Mary Oliver, from New and Selected Poems (Beacon Press).

Marengo

Out of the sump rise the marigolds.
From the rim of the marsh, muslin with mosquitoes,
rises the egret, in his cloud-cloth.
Through the soft rain, like mist, and mica,
the withered acres of moss begin again.

When I have to die, I would like to die
on a day of rain–
long rain, slow rain, the kind you think will never end.

And I would like to
have whatever little ceremony there might be
take place while the rain is shoveled and shoveled out of the sky,

and anyone who comes
must travel, slowly and with thought,
as around the edges of the great swamp.
—–
MPR’s The Writer’s Almanac

The Writer’s Almanac®, a daily program of poetry and history hosted by Garrison Keillor, can be heard each day on public radio stations throughout the country. Each day’s program is about five minutes long
—–

I might say many of the same things about Barbara Kingsolver, another brilliant writer. mjh

1044,
by Barbara Kingsolver

This is all that happened.
In the pollen heat of August,
one of those days when the

sun
fills your skin like a leaf,
I was in my yard,
visiting the trees.
A man in a clean blue shirt
stood waiting, suddenly,
for me

to notice,
waiting as if forever.
Polite enough, in trouble,
said his car broke down.
His mouth was a pale cave.
He needed to get in

out of the sun.
He asked if he could
ask me for a favor.
In those days it was my habit
to say I would,
even before I asked
what do

you want?
He followed me in.
I poured water in a china cup,
china, a wreath of antique roses,
and then he asked
if I would do just

one more thing.
I felt, before I saw
the stainless point between my ribs
dead center on the heartbeat,
a treasure in a cage
so

easily opened.
Nothing at all to the lock.
I said, “Yes I will.”
I didn’t ask, “What is it
that you want?”
It was the last time.

That knife was mine, I’d used it
on a hundred days to peel
my vegetables, and with that exact
regard for me he used it, peeled off

what there was
of faith.

The officers came promptly
as if they had been waiting.
Fingerprinted everything including me
and stated

endlessly into their open radios
that there had be a ten forty-four on 8th street.
That’s what they called it.
These men who carry

guns
couldn’t bring themselves to call by name
what had been done to me. Instead
they gathered traces
from my body,
from the broken

cup, things
that could not have been more empty.
A trace of hair or blood or sperm
to bring him down.
A scent
for the hunt.

They

didn’t
ever find him. And
I don’t expect him back,
he’s finished here. No silver
under the bed,
no trust.
I keep it in a locked

drawer with my kitchen knives
and other things of mine that have used against me.
—–
[thanks to NewMexiKen for returning me to this path.]

Share this…

PDB in MAY 2001: ‘Bin Laden threats are real’

Panel Says Bush Saw Repeated Warnings
Reports Preceded August 2001 Memo
By Dana Priest, Washington Post Staff Writer

By the time a CIA briefer gave President Bush the Aug. 6, 2001, President’s Daily Brief headlined ”Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US,” the president had seen a stream of alarming reports on al Qaeda’s intentions. So had Vice President Cheney and Bush’s top national security team, according to newly declassified information released yesterday by the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In April and May 2001, for example, the intelligence community headlined some of those reports ”Bin Laden planning multiple operations,” ”Bin Laden network’s plans advancing” and ”Bin Laden threats are real.”

Without knowing when, where or how the terrorists would strike, the CIA ”consistently described the upcoming attacks as occurring on a catastrophic level, indicating that they would cause the world to be in turmoil,” according to one of two staff reports released by the panel yesterday.

”Reports similar to these were made available to President Bush in the morning meetings with [Director of Central Intelligence George J.] Tenet,” the commission staff said.

”The system was blinking red,” Tenet told the commission in private testimony, the panel’s report noted.

Share this…

Impeach Ashcroft

Ashcroft’s Efforts on Terrorism CriticizedBy Dan Eggen and Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writers

The former acting director of the FBI testified yesterday that Attorney General John D. Ashcroft rejected any further briefings on terrorist threats in the weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and did not view combating al Qaeda as ”a top item on his agenda.”

Thomas J. Pickard, who ran the FBI for several months before the attacks, also told the commission investigating the terrorist strikes that Ashcroft rejected a plea that summer for an extra $58 million to combat al Qaeda. Pickard testified that he received the formal denial on Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the attacks. …

The allegations came during another day of dramatic and often tense testimony before the panel. They prompted an aggressive defense from Ashcroft, who denied barring Pickard from offering him threat reports and said he was highly focused on the dangers posed by terrorists that summer.

Ashcroft sought to blame the Clinton administration for many of the shortcomings in counterterrorism strategies before the attacks….

One day after telling the Senate that combating terrorist attacks was his highest priority, Ashcroft issued a memo on May 10, 2001, outlining the Justice Department’s strategic goals that contained no mention of counterterrorism. Dale Watson, the FBI’s terrorism chief at the time, told the commission staff that he “almost fell out of his chair” when he read it.

mjh’s Dump Bush weBlog: The 9-11 Commission Staff statements from the hearing are available online in PDF format.

Share this…

Chief Justice Scalia

Media access limited during Scalia’s speeches By Antoinette Konz

Is that Scalia's middle finger?While U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spoke to high school students on Wednesday about the importance of protecting the rights provided by the Constitution, the recording devices of two reporters were confiscated by a federal marshal.

”You may wonder what makes our Constitution so special. I am here to persuade you that our Constitution is something extraordinary, something to revere,” Scalia told students at Presbyterian Christian High School in Hattiesburg.

During Scalia’s speech at the high school, U.S. Marshal Melanie Rube demanded that a reporter with The Associated Press erase a tape recording of the justice’s remarks. Rube also took a tape recording made by a reporter with the Hattiesburg American.

Rube said Scalia had asked that his appearance not be recorded. But there was no prior announcement that electronic recordings of Scalia’s speech were prohibited.

At an earlier appearance at William Carey College, Scalia talked about the religion clauses contained in the Constitution. At a reception honoring the Supreme Court justice, television reporters with WDAM-Channel 7 were told by Scalia to leave and newspaper photographers were initially not allowed to take photographs. …

Scalia, named to the high court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, has long barred television cameras from his speeches, but does not always forbid newspaper photographers and tape recorders. …

Last year, Scalia was criticized for refusing to allow television and radio coverage of an event in Ohio in which he received an award for supporting free speech.

[Originally published Thursday, April 8, 2004]

Scalia continues to show his hypocrisy and contempt for real freedom. If Bush is elected in November, Scalia will become the Chief Justice of the United States and will poison the land for a generation. Impeach Scalia! mjh

Search this blog for Scalia
Google Search: Scalia high school (get the latest on this news)

Share this…

Scalia’s Prejudices

Scalia’s Lawrence dissent followed speech before anti-gay group By ADRIAN BRUNE, Friday, March 19, 2004

scaliaCongressman Barney Frank accuses Supreme Court justice of ”very vigorous prejudices”

One month before writing a stinging dissent in the Lawrence vs. Texas Supreme Court decision, which overturned state sodomy laws, Justice Antonin Scalia delivered a keynote address to an anti-gay advocacy group in Philadelphia.

While going largely unnoticed last May, the appearance now has some experts questioning Scalia’s objectivity in the Lawrence case as well as in future gay civil rights lawsuits brought before the Supreme Court.

Scalia spoke at a $150 per plate dinner given by the Urban Family Council, a social conservative group that has filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of Philadelphia’s domestic partner benefits for city employees. The case is now pending in front of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and could appear on the U.S. Supreme Court’s docket in the future, sources said. …

Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) took issue with Scalia’s objectivity during a recent speech on the House floor, saying the justice’s actions only supported the biased views already written in most of his decisions.

”Questioning Justice Scalia’s impartiality is like questioning Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction,” he said in the speech. ”You cannot call into question that which does not exist. In fact, if you read Justice Scalia’s opinions, they are singularly devoid of impartiality.

”Here is a man of very vigorous prejudices, and he does not see any reason why he should not write them into various opinions.”

Share this…

I pray every day there’s less casualty

Remarks by the President to the Travel Pool

Obviously, I pray every day there’s less casualty. But I know what we’re doing in Iraq is right. It’s right for long-term peace. It’s right for the security of our country. And it’s hard work. And today, on bended knee, I thank the good Lord for protecting those of our troops overseas, and our coalition troops and innocent Iraqis who suffer at the hands of some of these senseless killings by people who are trying to shake our will. …

This inarticulate fool thinks it’s in god’s hands, not his. He thinks this is a contest of wills and ”hard work.” mjh

[In response to a question about the now-famous Presidential Daily Briefing…]

PRESIDENT: Right, and had they found something, they would have reported it to me. That’s — we were doing precisely what the American people expects us to do: run down every lead, look at every scintilla of intelligence, and follow up on it. But there was — again, I can’t say it as plainly as this: Had I known, we would have acted. …

I am satisfied that I never saw any intelligence that indicated there was going to be an attack on America — at a time and a place, an attack. Of course we knew that America was hated by Osama bin Laden. That was obvious. The question was, who was going to attack us, when and where, and with what. And you might recall the hijacking that was referred to in the PDB. It was not a hijacking of an airplane to fly into a building, it was hijacking of airplanes in order to free somebody that was being held as a prisoner in the United States.

Share this…

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams