New London

I guess I would have to walk it again to really remember. Time and memory are such tyrants, they conspire to only let you down corridors that lead nowhere and reveal nothing. On a day like this I would have been going down the hill, possibly begging a ride but more likely walking, even then a walker.

I would have taken Williams Street, and it's odd that I should have forgotten the name of it when I was so well acquainted with it. Past the stores and under the highway, also past the old mill, closer to  the river and the commercial center of town. Bank Street. But I wouldn't have gotten there, not today. It would have been windy and cold, I suppose; I wonder what I smelled. Exhaust, mostly, it would have been too far from the beach to get those smells, the briny ones and the aroma of decay. How long a walk was it, I wonder? Less than an hour, even weighed down with a little luggage and some records.

And then the train station. Richardsonian Romanesque, I learned, and apparently a pretty good example. Inside, though, it was nondescript, and I would have gotten my ticket and sat down to wait.

In a way, I'm still waiting.

Mickewa

Mickewa is ready.

Mickewa is ready for industry. With over twenty miles of paved roads, passable waterways, the potential for air, train, foot and time travel, and neighboring states within hundreds of miles. With population centers fully populated with people. With raw materials more raw than material. With attitude, gumption, and clotted blood: Mickewa is ready!

Mickewa is ready for commerce. With several bank branches. With lax regulation and "friendly" officials. With the nation's largest natural source of debt: Mickewa is ready!

Mickewa is ready for agriculture. From the verdant swamplands of Dismal County to the heartbreaking stone hills of half the state, all of our outdoors is admittedly natural. And most, or some, is theoretically fertile. Again: Mickewa is ready!

Mickewa has long provoked appalled shudders across the nation. Today it is no different, for Mickewa is ready. Are you?

Loveladies

Not one of the footprints is quite like any of the others. The first are vague depressions, shallow simple in the loose sand. Gradually they become more and more distinct, until, in the damp, firm sand, they are images of feet, intaglio. Then they become indistinct again, filling with water from below and fading away. On the rocks they are monochrome prints, no detail, only broad shapes and spatter. And less and less, until no trace is left.

And there are the waves, and three is the sky, and the is the sea. And three is not a footprint to be seen in all of it.

Kabul

It's been the year of sudden death, and it makes me sad. I heard of another one yesterday, a death leaving in its wake not only unfinished business but unstarted. And there's nothing to say, nothing but cliches, platitudes and falsehoods.

And the year started on a similar note, as word came from a friend that her dear friend had been killed in a bomb blast in Kabul. Someone I had never met and now never would, someone responding to the best impulses in human nature and falling victim to the worst, someone irreplaceable and leaving behind not one vacancy but a hundred or a thousand. Potentialities never to be made concrete.

And more sudden deaths, over the year, public ones, private ones, all different, all the same, and finally the year is coming to a close. And there's nothing to say, and I insist on saying it, when I should just respect the skene and shut the hell up.

Jenny Jump

I don't believe the sorry for a minute, how in colonial times an Indian brave crept out of the woods and scared the child Jenny, and she jumped to her death. Like a lot of stories, it lacks originality, though heaven knows real life contains is share of clichéd and hackneyed narratives, more often it is characterized by the unexpected, the bizarre detail, the anticlimax, the loose end. But Jenny Jump it is, and the traditional explanation of the name will have to do. It's not that far from here and I have never been. I suspect it's quite lovely and serene, the empty peace after the leap and before the crash. I think it would be nice to take her there some day, as long as she doesn't jump. Of course I also want to take her to the marble museum in Nebraska, and there is no explaining that.

Ilion

Yet aged Priam, rich in courage, mounted up
The battlements of Troy, his daughter,
Cursed Cassandra, at his side.
And there before him spread the wreckage of his land,
Set ablaze and crumbling in the dark.
The scurrying Myrmidons, like ants, ventured to and fro,
Raising their war cries as they plagued
The outskirts of the city, famed Troy.
The last Trojans were taken to the sword
And spewed black blood as they gave up the ghost
And descended in a troop to twilit Hades;
And Priam hid his face, and wept.

Honolulu

I am an alien and an invader; and I am legion. I am furtive and I lurk in the shadows, but I am ravenous and aggressive. I am indifferent to everything that I cannot exploit.

I came here and saw a peaceful, temperate landscape, azure skies, azure seas, islands of milk and honey. And, more to the point, I saw waste, debris, detritus, sewage, garbage and shit. I made myself at home.

You can pursue me, but you will never eradicate me.