Swallows skim the surface of the pond At Pintail Marsh, and dart away In all directions, A cloud of geese starts up From a neighboring field The din exhilarating, Sun finds a loophole in the overcast, Splashes of light illume the hills, Farms, and vineyards, A storm is caught in the Coastal Range, Flanks frosted white, Peaks obscured, A falcon preens in the stark branches Of a dead cottonwood by the water, And a soft rain Begins to fall, Oregon’s magnificence reveals itself in silence, Its secrets are not secret, more readily Available, and obvious, A hooded merganser displays to lure a mate, Really struts his stuff, an eagle circles Overhead, climbing.
1. Watch how the culture shifts, Next year, with the change of regime.
I don’t much like watching television, But we do- what the hell, we’re old- After dinner, when everything’s done, She likes true crime drama, I’m more an old movie guy, And we watch in the evening.
Lately I’ve noticed the ads, the inclusiveness; A South-Asian banker Explaining a product to a biracial couple, Or game shows featuring transexual contenders, Black guys doing laundry, Hispanic women shilling prescription drugs (the omnipresent pharma), The presentation of a prosperous, Blended, united Nation.
Watch how it changes come January Six, How tv will get so much whiter, Pretty hard to preach inclusion then, While deporting millions of minorities, vulnerable, needy, In this horrifying future we’re building.
2. What a tragic and stupid turn of events, That we would become a people inured to lies, Paranoid, delusional thinking, attracted to The basest of our makeup, No more the better Angels of our nature, But the devils of our worst selves, No thousand points of light, No shining city on a hill, No great society, this, Just fear itself, stoked and spread With a tsunami of lies Thick enough to bury a democracy.
America was a hero when I was a kid, Fresh out the gates of the second world war, Envy of all other nations, In our strength and creativity, We built this modern country, Reveling in freedom, Confident of the future.
We were the good guys, leaders of the free world, Defenders of liberty, and truth, and democracy, And our streets were lined with gold, And our doors were open to all. I took great pride in it, this majestic land. Throughout my life, Even with our troubles, our warring points of view, Even when I knew we didn’t get it right, I thought democracy would hold, That our common goals would move us forward, Like the promise of a moon shot in a decade, A thousand points of light, Like the great society it took generations of Americans to build.
No, there's no shining city of the top of the hill, not anymore, No beacon of light, You can put your white hats away, pardners, Won’t be wearin' em, We’re riding with Black Bart now, We’re switching teams. We’re on the dark side. If there’s a glow at the top of the hill It’s a bonfire. America burning its once-proud past, And all that’s left Is smoke, ash.
So, desolate, we determined, When the noon sun Burned away the morning fog, To pack a picnic lunch And seek solace in nature At a nearby refuge, Immersed in solitude In harsh autumn light, Glittering surface of pintail marsh, A thousand geese take flight as one A cacophonous honking roar, Dozens of swans and hundreds of ducks Unperturbed by the ruckus, Continue preening and dabbling, Harrier hawks prowling the fields, A half-dozen bald eagles Sullenly surveilling the ponds below, From barren cottonwoods And poles along the railroad tracks Stretched out across the lowland.
We ate our sandwiches peering through binoculars, Finding, in the natural world, things Greater than our own concerns, More timeless than ourselves, our malignant presence Amidst the wreckage we exact. Continuing, unabated.
A few of the now-scattered geese drift back To the marsh in ragged formation. A box turtle basks on a downed black branch Jutting from the surface. Ringnecks and pintails feeding, White swans preening on the shore Strike sculptural forms, bent necks and spread wings, And sun sinks down toward the coastal range, Mary’s Peak obscured in mountain mist behind us.
Basket Slough overlook east, toward the Cascades 11/23/24
When It’s Gone
My political life began early on, when Kennedy ran, Democratic Headquarters was just off Water Street, Now the Phillips Academy Bookstore, I festooned my red Schwinn with bumper stickers, (One-speed, chrome fenders, fat tires) Kennedy For President! Ask not what you can do for your country, A man on the moon in this decade, Youth, vibrancy, and hope, And America was challenged, and responded, And then Dallas.
My political life Was shot in a pantry At the Ambassador Hotel, head cradled in the arms of a busboy, And the future bled out on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, RIP sixty-eight, When history changed again. All the rest, ennui.
In the first election I voted, Nineteen, seventy-two, drove to the polls In my sixty-four Beetle, (British racing green, bad brakes, no heat) Cast my vote, drove home, and got high, Because I knew what was to come,
Watched the results on a plastic black and white portable tv, (Rabbit ears, bad reception, tiny screen) Channel 27, a tiny UHF station out of Worcester, Mass., Which carefully tallied the Bay State vote, The only state Nixon lost,
A landslide victory for another crook, and I learned, without doubt, That many Americans have different ideas About the direction to steer our country, Who will lead, what is right, What shade to color our history,
And I saw, brightly illuminated, How so many of us can be wrong.
See, I thought it was obvious, That Nixon was crooked. (Divisive, silent majority, nattering nabobs) Dragging Viet Nam through years of warfare To insure his chances for a second White House turn, (Dead soldiers, dead students, illegal bombings) Don’t change horses midstream, His evil cabinet… Won in a landslide.
A half-century has passed since that election, And presidents have come and gone, some good, some bad, And some of the candidates I supported won, and some lost, And I’m an old man now, watching our steep decline Into a corrupt, malignant, constricted country ready to elect A degenerate thug, pompous ass, pathological offal, Ignoring that his policies will not only doom the country, But the planet as well. Drill, baby, drill.
And I’m left with only the faintest hope That enough of my fellow citizens will find it possible To retract their craniums from their posterior and see This louse for what he is, degenerate clown, Preposterous liar, rich, lazy scum, breeder of lies and hate, Vile, vile, vile,
But it all comes now, so late that we’ve already lost, In a country where so many support this “populism” that is not populism at all, But denialism, So comforting to be told that climate Armageddon is a hoax, That we don’t have to give up V-8 engines, That feed the oil oligarchs and idiots still building Enormous gas-hog road-hog machines, still, As if the resource was infinite and not killing the planet, That we might still have our coal mines, and factory emissions, plastic, That we might still sequester safely in our houses, which are now arsenals, That we might still cradle our arms and stand our ground, That we might go back to the delusional whitebread country you always Wanted but never had, That we don’t have to learn Spanish, or pay attention to what’s happening To the rest of the world, So comforting to be assured of American exceptionalism, That the rules don’t apply, That you believe the big lie, The biggest liar.
Have we already lost? That there are so many Yearning for the lies, and the liar; that we’d disavow not only The threat of the future, but the promise of our history.
My father, my uncles, my grandfather went to war, volunteered To battle tyranny, the fascists, the nazis, And so many died, Returned damaged, wounded, proud, defending liberty, Freedom, even after years of deprivation, stood tall, What would they think of where we are now? Who we are now?
Sorry, dad, this feels like the end of the United States, We didn’t do a particularly good job of nurturing the experiment along, Patriotism redefined as neo-Nazis and skinheads with automatic weapons, Proud boys, oath keepers, kicking down the doors Of Congress, threatening to hang the Speaker, The vice president, urged on by a sleazy conman Who somebody elected president.
Imagine that clown sitting in Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s office? Abraham Lincoln’s?
Sorry, Dad. Mom. Uncle Bob. Mr. Walker. Sorry, Sorry we’ve done such a terrible job Watching the home front, disappearing freedoms, Disappearing future, and so deeply sorry too, For the future generations Who may, or may not, find a way To progress through the wreckage, That we leave behind as we Drift toward dissolution.
Ocean lost to morning fog Except along the shore, Whispering of swells Among rocky cliff and kelp, A dozen pelicans cruise past So low their wingtips seem To skim the water reflecting From the surface of the polished sea.
No breeze dispels the mist, Air redolent with the scent Of brine and slightly spoiled crab, The air cool, always chilly On this Pacific coast, A flock of gulls stands sullenly Silent on rocks at water’s edge, Staring out to sea.
Low tide, Yachats, the stillness Seems a gift, however temporary. I feel subterranean forces gathering Their strength, the dark rumbling Of an unquiet world, soon the storm And surging tide will send hurtling breakers Smashing against the coast, shaking the very Foundation of this house.
Morning lost to ocean fog, I pull my jacket a little tighter And take a sip of now-cold tea And watch the sea, there is no demarcation Of horizon, coastline becomes mist To the top of the skies, obscures And disorients the world while we wait on the deck For the tempest.
This soft, welcome night after a day like a furnace, Pacific breeze surges past peaks of the coast range, Washes across the valley, the fecund whiff of agriculture and earth, Fields of hay and forests of fir, so far removed From all we had known in New England,
Highway beacons glimmering, distant, but the neighborhood still, Dipper wheels round the north star, Gibbous moon rises through pines at the top of the hill, The dog wonders why we’re out so late, eleven or so, Content to lie on the mat by the railing, sniffing the world,
The winds have washed away the smoke and dust that stain these days With a pallid orange, sickly glow, the western fires, that create Armageddon sunsets, unbreathable air, the turgid haze That gathers trapped by mountain ranges, obscures the landscape, Fills lungs with foul poisons, dims the light, Illuminates our irrevocable future,
This future we’re all signed up for, the one we’ve created With hardly a whimper, save the mourners, save the refugees Already unable to live in their native lands and assembled at Our unfriendly borders where there’s no refuge, so little succor In a world in declination, our future ever looming, closer; today
Florida is sinking under floods left by Hurricane Idalia, Hawaii burned last week, Greece and Canada and Europe on fire, Record low ice at the poles, the planet begins to bake,
This declination moves along faster now, I can feel the decay, The rot from within and without, a lost step, a forgotten word, A diminished machine, generally wearing down, Battling to remain both vital and relevant, looking forward, Straddling hopelessness and determination, and resigned, and regretful
James Garland Poetry 