Ramapo Lake June 9, 2023

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the song of our selves

Playing a simple song with variations

Something I made up easy to play 

Alone by myself fingering the notes

Enjoying the sound of my clarinet

Reviving a kind of muscle memory 

An upbeat happy tune tinged with sadness

Missing my mother who encouraged me

Before death took her from that boy

She who transported me to and from

Those many weekly music lessons

And sometimes art classes for me to learn 

Drawing and painting with watercolors

Her leaving me with my homophobic father

Mouthing his slurs and disparaging remarks

Who never once came to hear me play

Yet I gained something more being on my own 

How he kept silent when I took him years later 

To see Breaking the Code performed on Broadway 

About the genius and persecution of Alan Turing 

Making a statement opposing my father's bigotry

As I string the clear note phrases together 

Into an elementary composition 

A lifetime later I can relate to Pride Month

Celebrating the song of our selves 

Laurelwood Arboretum June 7, 2023

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smoke signals

Tonight after dinner we put on our masks

To walk outside through the wildfire smoke

Though our masks don't block the harmful gases

At least they filter out the particulates

After years of needing masks indoors

Anywhere people congregate in numbers

This is a twist turning the pandemic inside out

Facing the climate change crisis wearing the same masks

As if what was an invisible virus denied by many

Somehow transmuted into toxic ash you can see and smell

Irritating everyone's eyes and throat sparing no one

A huge cloud of unhealthy air still getting worse

Of course it won't kill you immediately

Unless perhaps if you are very young or very old

Or have asthma lung heart or other conditions

Just like the COVID infection has mostly become

But these are early days not even summer heat yet

Not nearly the peak of global warming with no end in sight

Meaning it's quite obvious by now where this is going 

As long as nothing fundamentally changes

I'm with those who are organizing to make a complete overhaul 

To stop the madness operating on every level

To create a system that puts people and the planet first

Taking ownership control away from the billionaire class