Hello Read—
I know, yes, I was supposed to post today’s piece last week, when instead I did a piece on bullying, but the cost of bullying was too much to ignore. Not for certain “others,” obviously, but for me. Here’s a news quote about a parent who would not keep quiet like “the others”: (from the BBC May 10)
QUOTE
Months before a fatal school shooting this week in Colorado, a parent warned that student violence and bullying could cause "a repeat of Columbine".
The parent also alleged "an extremely high drug culture" on the campus in suburban Denver, warning it was "the perfect storm".
The call was made five months before the attack.
One student died and eight others were injured on Tuesday in the gunfire at STEM School Highlands Ranch.
The unnamed parent called a school district official, who detailed the claims in a letter to the school's director.
UNQUOTE
So, dear reader, what do you think happened next?
QUOTE
STEM school officials filed a lawsuit in January against the anonymous parent for spreading "defamatory statements" about the school, reports CBS News.
The BBC contacted the school for comment, but did not receive an immediate reply.
UNQUOTE
I wonder if the teachers at STEM were as much in denial as the teachers the students reported about in Ontario. (February 2019 essay) It’s hard to grasp evil, I know. It’s reasonable that journalist Edward Murrow, back during my father’s war, was surprised to come across death camps. But today? There’s no excuse to be surprised by death from bullying.
Those teachers at STEM remind me of what someone told Murrow, and I paraphrase: All that is necessary for denial to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
So I’m not apologizing for inserting a piece on bullying.
… “We now return to our regularly scheduled blog.” …
Hello Reader,
Got warmth in your life?
While last week’s post was about being isolated mentally, I wonder: What about those hermits who are isolated not just physically, but, even if among others, emotionally? I’m no expert, but it seems to me warmth is a human need, and would remain so even unto an apocalypse.
Gordon R. Dickson, a humane writer, had a short story where a man, in a post-apocalypse devastation, is losing his meaning to live, even though he does have a brother, vaguely somewhere far away, to maybe, hypothetically, perhaps try to meet up with. Then he meets a big dog. Friends! The story ends with him having a restored will to survive, and setting off with the dog to find his brother.
Amongst the horror of The War of the Worlds, in my poetry, I wanted to suggest human warmth.
Seeking My Sisters
The sun was Mars red,
the sky was ocean grey.
Particles in the air grabbed droplets.
Somewhere fires were raging.
On a moist silent morning
crows hopped in a calm back alley.
I counted four of them.
Out on the ocean particles of water
don’t travel.
Each molecule bobs up,
and down,
staying in place,
as a wave front,
uncaring,
moves on past.
I didn’t know if a wave of plague
was passing through us.
In the empty back lanes how could I know?
People stayed indoors
to live
or die.
I avoided the motorways
and the Martians
by moving across the backways.
I left the crows tugging at some crust of bread,
lugging my own loaf and tins and a bottle of water,
impelled to find my sisters,
hoping we three might become a molecule,
H2O, but knowing the cold mathematical odds
of them being alive were very slim.
In my dreams my sisters were not there.
I must remain a particle.
At best I would give the girls a proper burial.
If they survived,
they too would have walked the byways,
moving ever towards the old farmhouse.
At Cartford I crossed an empty motorway.
I had been thinking I was hearing dim engines,
but no.
Maybe there were still crowds
out of sight, down the road, blocked by the Martians.
Towards evening,
as my heart sank with the falling temperature,
under a red sun,
I approached the old family home.
Silence.
Leaves had blown in the window, no sign of Janet or Susan.
I would have to see them in the next world.
I felt as dry as the seas of the moon,
no tears. Then—
voices from around the back.
I ran.
There they were,
hobbling to see me.
How strange that after all this time I could still cry.
And strangest of all was to hug them so warmly
after I had counted them,
and they had counted me,
among the dead.
If you have read the book, you may recognize a line I cribbed from H.G. Wells.
This piece below is from the section in my poetry manuscript for after the martians have passed on, but the survivors must tarry.
Changes
Once I wanted my home to have the latest features,
and my shoes to have cool fashionable long toes.
My car had to be shiny-new and loud.
Nobody that I knew,
traveled simply to “Mexico.”
They all named a fine resort on a good coast.
And now I wear galoshes around a cold farmhouse.
My travels are walks along rutted roads for supplies.
Janet and Susan smile at my salvaged flannel shirt.
“You look so healthy.”
Sean Crawford
Calgary, May, 2019
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