snagle.net

From today’s reading of Kooser’s Winter Morning Walks:

December 3

Clear and cool.

I have been sitting here resting
after my morning stroll, and the sun
in its soft yellow work gloves
has come in through the window
and is feeling around on the opposite wall,
looking for me, having seen me
cheerfully walking along the road
just as it rose, having followed me home
to see what I have to be happy about.

On Dec. 4, AlterNet posted the text of Bill Moyers’ acceptance speech for the Global Environment Citizen Award presented by the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. Frightening and energizing. An excerpt:

One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality.

He refers to an article written by Glenn Scherer and published online in Grist entitled The Godly Must Be Crazy, which is also worth a read.

Just returned from a brief trip to visit Celia and Gary on the Saltmarsh. While waiting for Celia’s homemade bean soup to simmer, savoring Gary’s smoked salmon caught earlier this month just off their land in the Hood Canal, talk turned to Ted Kooser, this year’s Poet Laureate of the United States. Celia showed me a photocopy of a short interview from the New York Times Magazine.

Jean and I loved his book of essays Local Wonders, which we read over the months following our last visit with Gary and Celia, but I haven’t read any of his poetry. Celia loaned us two of his books of poetry. I started reading Winter Morning Walks out loud to Jean the night I returned. Already I love it. So quiet. So in-tune with the land, the seasons, and the humanity around him. Here’s the opening poem:

The quarry road tumbles toward me
out of the early morning darkness,
lustrous with frost, an unrolled bolt
of softly glowing fabric, interwoven
with tiny glass beads on silver thread,
the cloth spilled out and then lovingly
smoothed by my father’s hand
as he stands behind his wooden counter
(dark as these fields) at Tilden’s Store
so many years ago. “Here,” he says smiling,
“you can make somoething special with this.”

Apparently the Holiday Season^TM has arrived. With the return of rain here on the San Francisco peninsula, the holiday catalogues have started showering our mailbox. Today it was L.L. Bean…a split-rail fence bordering a snow-covered field…steaming tin mugs of hot chocolate….

I miss winters in Wisconsin and Minnesota, where the seasonal rhythms provide a steady cadence difficult to hear above the roar of American consumerism. Perpetual variations on eternal themes.