The skies are clear over New York, the smoke from Canadian forest fires has dissipated, so the End of the World has been postponed, and the 50,000 fans who packed the Great Lawn of Central Park to watch the World Cup final have left, and the mourning doves on our balcony are taking turns sitting on the nest where the eggs have opened, leaving the tiny fledglings blind, helpless, covered with light down, and needing to be sat on otherwise they will die.
My beloved and I are sitting on the loveseat, her beautiful feet on my lap, and we can see the leaves of the hedge move where the mama is perched on the nest; the papa is off in search of seeds. The mockingbirds who nested in our pine tree have left, their kids grown and flown, so we can use our own balcony again. The male mockingbird took a Pete Hegseth view of the balcony and if we ventured out there, flew maneuvers overhead, shrieking, cursing us, carrying fatherhood a little far, I thought, becoming a terrorist, but I’m an old liberal and I backed down.
He had a sharp beak and the sides of my head have soft tissue and I could imagine him diving at me full force and the beak penetrating to the language center of my brain, turning me into a raving lunatic. An elderly white male author attacked by a bird so that the author could only make shrieks and groans would be a story that even the New York Times in all its high-minded majesty would find hard to resist. Times readers follow news of world events, economic trends, falling literacy rates, the deaths of dolphins due to microplastics, but they need a little delight now and then and an EWMA rendered speechless by an angry bird would be too good for the Times to pass up.
Literary reputations are fragile. I am one of the country’s finest living writers of limericks. I’ve written hundreds of them, including:
There was an old singer of Syracuse Who was startled to hear his old dear accuse Him of rushing and slurring And thereby obscuring The words that the writers of a lyric use.
Being brained by a bird would change that, so we surrendered the balcony to the Mockingbird of War who took us for communist scum though we are only registered Democrats, but now he’s flown away and I get to sit and hold my wife’s feet in my hands as she reads Ann Patchett’s latest for her book club. The members are all women and do they ever read fiction by men? Is the pope Presbyterian? I think not.
I admire the women for their loyalty to women authors. I live in New York but I am still a loyal Minnesotan, as you can tell by the fact that I don’t complain. Ever. I apologize.
John Cornyn is a loyal Texan so he’ll probably vote for Blanche to be Attorney General though he knows it’s wrong, wrong, wrong, because voting No would make him popular in New York but he wants to go back to Texas.
I admire Lindsey Graham who made miserable choices and played golf with people he despised but he stayed loyal to Ukraine and flew there to support those heroic people just before he died.
And now the sky is darkening and raindrops fall and we go indoors as the Weather Service issues a flash flood warning and indeed we have a downpour but the mother hunkers down to protect her babies and I think of the old hymn, “I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free. For His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me.” This is unbelievable and yet I believe it, that the Creator of the Universe, billions of light years infinite, is aware of me and my love and the mother bird, and cares for us, and now my Read-o-meter shows that fourteen readers just left, all of them from predominantly Unitarian ZIP codes — Listen up, Units. Your own guy, Ralph Waldo, said,
“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen. Life is a series of surprises. Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air. Give thanks continuously. Be silent, that we may hear the whisper of God.” Shave and a haircut, two bits.
Make your plans for late summer and fall by snagging a ticket or five for an upcoming show with Garrison Keillor. Many events coming your way!
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RE Lindsey Graham: for years he professed his love and affection for his great friend John McCain. Thump said the ugliest, most hateful things about John McCain. When McCain died, Thump even refused to order American flags be flown at half-staff, until under pressure from Republicans for several days, he did so - but you could see his nasty bitterness even in the way the flags flew because he defiles everything. Thump revealed his most deeply nurtured loathsome hatred with his obscene words about John McCain, Lindsey Graham's claimed best, most beloved friend.
The McCain family did not invite, nor did they want - per news reports of the time - Thump at McCain's funeral. Best friend Lindsey knew that; he invited Ivanka and Jared Thump-Kushner.
And thus began the fast turnaround of Lindsey Graham at which time he detached his lips from McCain's side and attached them to Thump's backside. His adoration of his new best and most beloved friend, Thump - who he described as "the greatest President in American history" - was boundless, and he did Thump's bidding on every count. There is nothing to admire about Lindsey Graham. It is decent to honor the "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" upon the death of someone, but Mr. Thump was never taught that and only honors anyone other than himself if they pay him in some way or other. Thump didn't call Graham a "loser" or any of the other insults and epithets he spews at others, including John McCain but most often at women, when Graham died, but Lindsey had paid Thump handsomely - with praise, loyalty, attention, support.
And Ukraine? Where was he when Thump forced Volodomyr Zelensky to sit in one of those gold throne chairs in that ungodly "gold" encrusted room surrounded by all of the Thump toadies and lackeys and be insulted repeatedly by Thump, Vance, and Marjorie Taylor Green's middle-aged "boyfriend" posing as a reporter, asking Zelensky why he wasn't wearing a suit! Where was Lindsey Graham when the small Ukrainian leader who is 100 times the man that the bovine oaf Thump or gelatinous Graham are sat there in that big chair and took it - for his country. trying to save his country from Thump's best friend's invading army.
As a Quaker/Christian Universalist, I stayed tuned-in all the way through that wonderful Emerson quotation. Thank you for sharing it and reminding us that one does not have to be an evangelical born-again Christian to be faith-full...