Blog Archives

Antiphon

7/27/2014

Newly enamored of light,
they rise;
powered by suddenly-sprouted

Feet! Taste! Sight!

Run, let us run.
Children fueled by the sun -- too many, too many.
They swarm
causing harm, they destroy -- too many, too many.
Without care
Unaware, they scream "More more more!".

Gang, would you please go elsewhere?
You there, leading the charge.
You are small, I am large.
But you're many; I'm only one
(with a pressurized spray gun!)
Before I deploy it
you have one more chance:
Go outside with your dance!

What's that you reply?

"I can't. I'm an ant."

Drawing of an ant taking a self=photo with a cell phone camera.

The Right to Walk, the Right to Talk

7/20/2014

"You got the right to walk and the right to talk.
The right to walk.
The right to talk.
The right to walk and the right to talk."
Street poet crossing Duke at Orange, Lancaster (PA) city, summer 2008

Copy of citation from Lancaster PA city police.

Words can be missiles fired at fragile crafts. Below is the Lancaster City Bureau of Police Civilian Complaint
I filed in response to the above charge (from March 2014):

Copy of Lancaster (PA) Bureau of Police Civilian Complaint form.

The day of the hearing the witnesses didn't show (no surprise). But neither did the arresting officer. Instead, an avatar told me the charge was withdrawn (letter below).

This is what justice looks like. The process can be painful but should never be deadly, and in this case it worked. In a free society words must be the first, best and only resort. Collateral damage is not acceptable, difficult as that may be. To keep one's shrapnel from harming others may be the best we can do. In so doing, we find we CAN all get along.

A Berry Good Holiday

7/7/2014

Blueberries and strawberries arranged to resemble a United States flag.

Looks good enough to eat! Strawberry season is past, but the beauties in the photo above are from Massachusetts, purchased at the Harvest Lane Farm Market on Oregon Road, and they are tasty. The blueberries are from New Jersey.

Closer to home, the Street Level garden is thriving. Neighbors are being inspired to plant their own Liberty Gardens: liberty over the ever-growing cost of food, while we pave more and more of the most fertile, rain-blessed farmland in the world.

Basil flowers in foreground, with Swiss chard, tomato and lettuce plants growing in background, and a blue rainbarrel in the distance.

Bamboo stakes and jute twine help support the sprawling tomato plants as they outgrow their metal cone cages.

Bamboo stakes and jute twine help support flowering tomato plant.

Yellow flowers blossom with lettuce, fennel and tomato plants in background.

Each year the garden is unique. Some years you wonder how it survives. Yet it does! This year it's especially beautiful and bountiful.

Blue and yellow flowers flourish in the foreground of a grden with fennel, brussel spouts, lettuce, Swiss chard and tomato plants.