Graupelling with the end of Poetry Month

April 26-30 Graupelling with the end of Poetry Month This is going to be a combination blog for the end of Poetry Month. I have had a very full and fun past few days, but the writing went on the back burner. People come first, and being with friends and family had to take precedence. We also went from nice and warm (70) to freezing with snow, back to mid-warm 60 and then today we have graupel (Montana-speak for little hail mixed with snow). So think of my blog as a journal for the past four days, with short entries. I open with a poem, written on April 26: //Progress /I saw the future to come is here, /Wandering through empty libraries, /Staring at keyboards in the land fill, /Comprised of soldiers on their smart phones /Selling health insurance; /Anti-social media /Giving anarchy its backhand due, /Power to the individual /But only in isolation. /Socrates has slipped away, /Along with Johannes Brahms, /Humming to archaic songs /Playing on a phonograph. /The Brave New World has come, /Where paintings hang on virtual walls, /Texture, size and meaning misunderstood; /Where poets tweet in character, /Their global shorthand on shallow fields; /Where the Renaissance Man warms himself /By the trashcan among the homeless. /The Brave New World has come, /And I feel less than welcome here /Seeing in this future past /A slaver trade expanding. /A desert storm /On an ether sea. April 27: Hot. Whoa. It’s hot! Of course, that’s a relative term, but yesterday the thermometer registered a high to 71 degrees (21.5 C), topping 70 for the first time this year. For us, that’s a heat wave, not quite warm enough to take a dip in the lake, but time to dust off the shorts and tees. April 30: It went from 49 to 35 in half an hour yesterday as the snow fell, stuck for an hour, then melted. This morning it hit 29 and we had graupel up to about ten minutes before two. Snow fell as I drove to get Xander, then stopped, then snowed again when we got home. At 5:30 the snow is melting again. Just what you need – a play by play on the weather! But they say next weekend, 70 returns. Don’t like the weather????? Wait ten minutes. Now for something completely different: a few thoughts on serious issues. One: “You can no more win a war than win an earthquake.” – Jeannette Rankin Two: Not one dead soldier ever brokered a peace nor won a war. Not one. Three: War is not diplomacy, it is failed diplomacy. Four: As to Syria, we must remember that it is a UN problem, not a US problem. Five: “There never was a good war, or a bad peace.” – Benjamin Franklin And, finally: //Farewell to Poetry Month /Poetry month is ending. /Today is the very last day, /Although this does not mean /We poets will go away. /So as we depart from April /We still have so much to say /That collectively we ask you /To watch and read, okay? / /And thank you one and all /For the time and thought you give. /It is for your eyes we write, /For your hearts and hopes we live.