Words for Wednesday

Thanks

BY W. S. MERWIN

Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you

we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings

we are running out of the glass rooms

with our mouths full of food to look at the sky

and say thank you

we are standing by the water thanking it

standing by the windows looking out

in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging

after funerals we are saying thank you

after the news of the dead

whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you

in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators

remembering wars and the police at the door

and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you

in the banks we are saying thank you

in the faces of the officials and the rich

and of all who will never change

we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us

taking our feelings we are saying thank you

with the forests falling faster than the minutes

of our lives we are saying thank you

with the words going out like cells of a brain

with the cities growing over us

we are saying thank you faster and faster

with nobody listening we are saying thank you

thank you we are saying and waving

dark though it is.

***********

Picture found here.

You’ve Got the Power!

America tipped back from the brink last Tuesday and it’s due to young people, particularly young women, voting. In Dobbs, Alito chuckled that “Women are not without electoral or political power.” Damn straight, you asshole.

He just didn’t think we’d use it. And he had some reason to think so. Young people, particularly young women, are inconsistent voters, at best. Sometimes, they get enthusiastic about a politician — think Barack Obama — and show up, but too often they don’t. That’s been especially true for midterm elections, which tend to get less hoopla than presidential elections. It’s been especially, especially true for what are known as “down ballot” races — county commissioner, school board, secretary of state. But not this time. This time, you showed up. (One example, women under 25 voted in the Kansas referendum in August in higher numbers than ALL MEN in the state of Kansas.)

Now, here’s the challenge. Do it again. And again. And again. Do it every time, for every race. If it comes down to a choice between two candidates who seem equally matched, pick the woman, the LGBTQ person, the minority candidate, the candidate with a disability. Look at the current board and decide which voice is missing. But vote every time. Because when you do, you’ve got the power.

As Shelley wrote:

"Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number—
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you—
Ye are many—they are few."

Monday at the Movies

I may have blogged this one before, but it’s good, escapist fun.

The G.O.A.T.

I have written about Madam Speaker many many many times on this site. Many. MANY. MAAAAAANY.

I’m not sure what more there is to say (and if I missed anything, I think the Washington Post probably got it today).

She earned power and wielded it masterfully, delivering HUGE, double-black-diamond difficulty level legislative wins for both President Obama and President Biden.

She raised VAST sums of money for the Democratic party and for individual candidates, particularly in the House.

She may have been the ONLY person who could’ve kept the Democratic House caucus together in lockstep in the TrumPutin years. She was the ONLY person who could’ve gotten the Affordable Care Act passed. She took a razor-thin majority in the past two years and worked absolute magic with it. She is a master negotiator with an uncanny ability to know just when to use the carrot, and, well, as her daughter Alexandra put it:

“She’ll cut your head off and you won’t even know you’re bleeding…No one ever won betting against Nancy Pelosi.”

And she did it all while elegantly attired in Hermès, Armani, and Manolos, and while keeping a freezer full of ice cream at the ready for her nine grandchildren.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for your dedicated service to our country. You are one of a kind, and we’ve been incredibly fortunate to have you working for us every day in Congress these past 35 years.

Like what you read? Follow me on Twitter @MrsWhatsit1.

Words for Wednesday

An Old Woman of the Roads.

~ Padraic Colum

Artist Maartje van Dokkum

O, to have a little house!

To own the hearth and stool and all!

The heaped up sods against the fire,

The pile of turf against the wall!

To have a clock with weights and chains

And pendulum swinging up and down!

A dresser filled with shining delph,

Speckled and white and blue and brown!

I could be busy all the day

Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,

And fixing on their shelf again

My white and blue and speckled store!

I could be quiet there at night

Beside the fire and by myself,

Sure of a bed and loth to leave

The ticking clock and the shining delph!

Och! but I’m weary of mist and dark,

And roads where there’s never a house nor bush,

And tired I am of bog and road,

And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!

And I am praying to God on high,

And I am praying Him night and day,

For a little house – a house of my own

Out of the wind’s and the rain’s way.

(Belated) Monday at the Movies

I finally got around to watching this, now that it’s on Netflix. I loved the main character’s relationship with her landbase.

It Was a Cold and Windy Night

Republicans In Disarray!

I’m claiming it: The Dems are going to hold the Senate, and even effect a one-seat net pickup.

(There’s also still an outside chance they hold the House. Not giving up hope!)

So much for the “red wave” the media breathlessly hyped, which was built on a mirage of obviously biased pre-election polls.

Now I’m waiting for an endless parade of articles scolding Republicans for their poor messaging and for their deeply unpopular policies, like a federal abortion ban, requiring the re-authorization of Social Security and Medicare every five years, terminating ALL federal benefits at the age of 90, blocking student loan forgiveness, and defunding the brave Ukrainian freedom fighters. Oh, and of course, cutting taxes for rich people as the solution to everything from climate change to some jerk taking the parking space you were CLEARLY waiting for.

I’m waiting for a flood of interviews with Catholic pro-choice Mexican-Americans who voted for Mark Kelly, white suburban women who voted against the Kentucky ballot measure that would’ve enshrined forced-birth into the state constitution, Black men in Atlanta who enthusiastically supported Stacey Abrams (even though she fell a little short), white union members who turned out for John Fetterman and Josh Shapiro, Alaska natives who are sending Mary Peltola to her first FULL term in the House, innately contrarian New Hampshirites who are nonetheless sending Maggie Hassan back to the Senate, the voters in Michigan who re-elected Big Gretch and gave her unified Dem control of the state legislature, the voters in Massachusetts who elected their first woman AND first out lesbian governor in Maura Healey, the voters in Maryland who elected their first Black governor in Wes Moore, the young voters (who still turned out in fairly dismal numbers) who voted OVERWHELMINGLY for Dems. Etc.

Y’all forced eleventy-billion interviews with ignorant white mouth breather diner patrons in one-stoplight towns on us for the past nearly six years. We’re owed.

Also, if you’ve got a minute, there are ballots that need curing in Nevada, and you don’t have to be in-state to help! Learn more at https://www.mobilize.us/demvictorynv/event/542812/.

Image credit: DonkeyHotey on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons

Like what you read? Follow me on Twitter @MrsWhatsit1.

What I’m Here For

Monday at the Movies

Tuesday is Election Day. You know what to do.