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March 23, 2017

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Photography, Poetry

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Evade Capture

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As night flees down dark paths
from the early light,
dreams scatter into
deadening fog.
The breathing air carries stories
of foreign pain
and domestic infighting
that will scream from our
headlines by noon. Bar the door.

Notes: Can you see a shape in this poem?  I can’t be the only person experiencing Orange Fatigue. Sapped and enervated by the rapidity of bad to worse to unimaginable. Was there treason? I think of great E words to cope: escape, evade, elude, embark, excise enemy, evaporate enclosure, emolument eclipse.

Abandoning Orange Menace for fairy tale is even better: Maybe you can think of a few. Epic. Equal. Esprit. Elixir. Enchant.

Happy Poetry Friday and thanks to Catherine at Reading to the Core for hosting!

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The poem was inspired in part by this post-9/11 snippet:

“At night darkness knits
a giant cap to hold the dreams in….

Tonight the breathing air carries
headlines that will cross the ocean
by tomorrow. Bar the door.”

— by Naomi Shihab Nye, from the poem, Even at War, published in 19 Varieties of Gazelle, Poems of the Middle East, Greenwillow Books.

52 thoughts on “Evade Capture”

      • Your comment makes a lot of sense. I mean if we all cleaned the windshields of our cars with dirty, greasy cloths, there would be a lot more car accidents due to blurred vision. An honest look see and truthful reality get us places.
        Of course in Canada, we are somewhat out of control with our very many social programs. The answer always is to raise taxes. Governments have closed in, and there is no where to go but Mars.

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        • Yes, it isn’t an easy balance between fiscal responsibility (lowing the deficit for example) and not allowing our lowest earners to starve or have no access to health care. To provide health care and not overburden or cheapen the health industry is best, but how do we do that? Will insurers be able to make sufficient profit to say in business or will we have to create National Health as many countries have done? I’ve heard so many stories about long waits for appointments, delays on surgery and other down sides to National Health. Anyway, clarity is better than blurred vision any day of the week. XOXO

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  6. Thank you for your thought provoking poem. Yesterday an NPR news flash popped up on my phone. Usually, steel myself before I read the latest horror. But yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised by the ACA’s survival. Strange how our domestic infighting can result in a stay of execution.

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    • The people’s opinions do matter, I think, at least to the legislators, if not to Trump. That is one of the strengths of the three branch government. The Republican plan only had 17% approval. If it had 83% approval, things might have been very different. I’m glad you like my poem. It was an outpouring of sympathy for London and Brussels and for us, with the health care bill and tax plan blood-letting that we face.

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  15. Yes, please bar the door! Orange Fatigue and it’s TOXIC. Thank goodness for art, poetry, music, literature and brave journalists. I revel in your fairy tale enchantment. Thank you for this beautiful space.

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  17. Your evocative poem captures the mood of the country (or at least the sane half of it) so well. Most days I’m almost afraid to see the latest headlines as the news goes from bad to worse. Then I read the perspectives from the other side and wonder if we even live in the same reality. That sounds like the beginning of a grotesque fairy tale, doesn’t it?

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  18. I am loving all those E words… I have a particular fondness for words that start with a vowel anyway. Here is a quote on the bulletin board above my desk: Experience Extraordinary Every Day. We have the power to do this! Thanks for your poem.

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  19. each day i hear and read and see things going on in orange world and the larger world and feel a bit disheartened, but still i rise and know that better days are ahead. i love the picture in this post, because it is a shot of unspoiled beauty and how it continues to exist if we just look for it.

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  20. Waylaid by the news. Yes. I am exhausted by how much I care about all the wrongs that are being committed and contemplated. I cannot keep up. I like your E poem. And no, I did not immediately notice the shape. I was dancing with the words dreams scatter…..but it’s only 6:30 in the morning. My dreams are literally still scattering. Keep writing. Faeries are so important to help us escape these days! Have a great week. I always love my visits at your PF blog.

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    • I also care about the daily disappearance of sanity. What sense is there in the Orange Emperor and Paul-cifer Ryan trying to ram a horrible health care bill down all our throats so the Orange Menace can pass a huge billionaire bloat tax cut? I’m trying to focus, but failing. Eeeee! Excitement. Exultation! Epiphany. Eee will ease us into safety. 😉 I’m so glad you like my PF posts. Especially this one, written at the last minute last night in a state of disbelief at London, the attack by the child of a US President on the London mayor, the halting of the vote, the tantrums of the Orange Menace. Okay, I’m cutting myself off. A shower. Some tea. Equinimity.

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  21. “Bar the door” indeed! It’s so disheartening to read the news. Your poem captures the mood perfectly, and I love your idea of escaping through E words. Here’s hoping we don’t have to endure this too much longer!

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    • Another great one! How exciting! 🙂 And fingers crossed you’re right, but I worry that the emolument lawsuits and Russian investigation are all taking too long. The Russian investigation is not independent, and everything about it stinks as a result. Meanwhile, the headlines, ugh.

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