Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Flowers

I don't usually steal from my other blog, but since I'm into close-up flower photos and bees these days, here are a few images from Germany (more here and here).





Friday, July 26, 2013

Cat lessons

Blazing amber 
kitty eyes-- 
behind them, 
sentiments so wise: 
"The sun has set, 
the crickets chirp, 
now is the time 
to get to work! 
You humans need 
to learn a lesson 
beyond this
legislative session. 
There are still 
bigger fish to fry, 
more important 
things to try!" 
If Schroeder could 
but English speak, 
he'd say to us, 
"Let go your pique! 
Stop surfing 
NC politics! 
Forget th' impending 
'pocalypse! 
The situation 
may seem dire, 
but focus, focus: 
aspire higher!" 
He drops a fuzzwad 
at our feet, 
meows forcefully, 
"get off your seat! 
Now learn a skill 
with real merit
I'll teach you how 
to fetch a carrot!"


Thursday, July 25, 2013

Moving forward

A little more Johann Sebastian Bach, and some Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. Sweelinck was born 123 years before Bach and 405 years before me. That's a long time ago. What a legacy, centuries after your death, to have musicians around the planet not only play your compositions, but also digitally film the performances on pocket-sized devices and upload the data to this intangible thing called YouTube. What further excursions is this music destined for in the next few centuries?



Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Darkness descending

Man, a blogger leaves the country for a few weeks of family travel and comes home to discover her state has become an unabashed oligarchy. North Carolina is a scary place to live right now, but nothing that a little gerrymandering, voter suppression, and underfunded public education can't maintain for decades to come.

Today was my first day back on the organ-demo bench at Duke Chapel, so I dedicated part of my program to the self-serving Republicans in the state legislature. May we find our way out of their darkness.