Guest Speaker

President Barack Obama:

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. "

Re-what-again?

I sniff a little at the implications:
Two days journey back
to those saturated hours of self
for a group photo?
Surely this is more of a looking glass affair
than a panoramic view.
Sure, the beauty of erosion,
the healing hot springs,
the masterful upheaval of tectonics,
but is that the reason I’ve gathered me here today?
I’m hunting jabberwocky.
Open your eyes a little wider,
I want to see how I look there.
Oh, I know all about me.
The selfish minutes of mourning weren’t wasted.
From the shit I grew flowers
and the dead fish, wheat.
But can you see that?
Can you see the iron core,
can you see the antenna straight to God,
can you see the army, thus far unimpressed by you?
Am I just half the vaudeville act, now,
or am I the woman’s arm you
are compelled to keep brushing?
I connect the dots,
often forgetting the re,
and am no less windswept for it,
no less featured in the picture,
no less serious, no less crazy,
no less, no more,
than I need to be.
No jabberwockies here,
just fish,
soon to be a bumper crop.