Monday, November 2, 2026
road trip thoughts
Driving a thousand miles and more
Following the highway south mile after mile
Reading place names on the signs
Seeing so many indigenous words anglicized
Whose land this was for many millennia
Before it was taken piece by piece
Before they were forced to leave
Before those who resisted were killed
So many atrocities left out of the history lessons
And now this interstate runs through it
With no apparent sign of the original inhabitants
Except for the place names on the signs
I grew up near Boston surrounded in history
Going to a drive-in movie in Natick
Swimming in Lake Cochituate
Places named by the indigenous people
But I didn’t question why as far as I knew
All that remained of them were words on signs
As a child taught in school the Thanksgiving myth
As if the colonists had any right to be there
But now I know the name for what was done
The word is genocide
The ongoing legacy of this European settler state
In the process of conquering a continent
And so it is entirely consistent
As the Palestinian genocide continues today
At the hands of a European settler state
That this government is behind it all the way
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
birds on the brain
Some people think it is an insult
To call someone a bird brain
Though we would take it as a compliment
Knowing the ways bird brains are superior
Even if we had wings with feathers
We could not make decisions on the fly
Even half as fast as they do
To be able to avoid tree branch collisions
They can see ultraviolet we can not
Locating the sun on a cloudy day
Seeing shimmering colors invisible to us
Thanks to their bird brain
Developed quite differently
Diverged from ours 195 million years ago
With something else than a frontal cortex
But certainly aware and intelligent
As we know from watching them
Sharing our appreciation of birds
And everything else in the natural world
Interested in understanding all of it
This never gets old observing species
Continuing to make new discoveries
Enthralled by the beauty of diverse life forms
Enjoying experiencing it together
We have birds on the brain
Migrating south along with them
Timed in sync with our anniversary
Happily paired up for many years
Our feelings for each other remain true
Loving each other day after day
Or like your Darwin greeting card put it
I choose you naturally
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