Not True

“Despair, it is not true that I know you.” “It happens that I am tired of being a man.” A couple of first lines that resonate with me today. They're not mine. I want to say the first one is from Antonio Machado, but I don't have access to my library and the internet is pretty dumb when it comes to poetry. I just blew 15 minutes searching and getting sidetracked when I found Carol Muske-Dukes, who wrote a very creepy poem that I have been hunting for for a while. Didn't find that one, didn't find that first line. The second line is Neruda. Further expressions of despair need only look at the headlines. Vicious ignorant barking about health care reform. Choose your side and lose your mind with anger, then crash about how really, nothing is going to change. It's all about the money and who gets to have second and third mansions at the expense of actually caring for each other. And speaking of caring for each other, it seems so difficult for people to recognize that their lives are just as important as the rest of the swarm of life that has no voice - the dogs and cats, the plants and trees, the rodents and insects. Just as important, certainly not more, and caring for all of life does not mean sacrificing your children or your grandma, it just means that you have to be creative when problems arise. This is harder than it sounds. Easier to think only that you are important and need to have your needs met, or your favorite cause such as your child. Brrr brr harumph, I hear the mutterings of disagreement. I know it is pervasive. People are killing each other and debasing each other all over the planet. People think they have to do it or it will be done to them. Make more jobs, not more wilderness, though a job only benefits a few lives while a wilderness is life. Short sighted, self-serving. Right now I'm listening to two people talking about where to get furniture. $400 - $800 for each kitchen chair and we're not even up to the table. I have this picture in my head of two detached heads with jaws unhinged. Despair, it is not true that I know you.