The Weeping Gardener

I wanted to give a voice to grief this night and found it in a poem by Miguel Hernández, a Spanish writer who served with the Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930’s. One of Miguel’s closest friends was murdered in an act of revenge like many during the war. Miguel Hernández wrote a eulogy to his friend and poured into it his grief and his rage.

I still can’t read it without being moved to tears. In Spanish the poem is simply called Elegía. I call it ‘The Weeping Gardener’ to distinguish it from the many other eulogies Hernández wrote. This is my translation:

The Weeping Gardener
By Miguel Hernández


I want to be
the weeping gardener
of the ground you occupy,
and compost so early,
my soul mate.

To feed the garden snails in the rain,
organ of my voiceless pain,
surrendering your heart as food,
to the disheartened roses.
Such pain clumps in my chest,
that breath is agony.

A hard fist, an icy blow,
an axe strike, homicidal and unseen,
a brutal push tumbled you.

There is no wider chasm than my wound,
I cry to misfortune and her companions,
I feel your death, more than my life.

Unkempt and unshaved,
without warmth or consolation,
I tend to my affairs soullessly.

Death took flight early,
and early came the dawn of morn,
and early it spills upon the ground.

I do not forgive death for loving you,
or forgive life for its distraction,
or forgive the ground,
or forgive oblivion.

With bare hands I raise a storm,
of stones, bolts and strident axes,
thirsting and hungering for catastrophe.

With bare teeth I want to dig the ground,
and move the dirt part by part,
in dry and furious bites.

I want to mine the earth until I find you,
to kiss your noble skull,
unbind your body and return you,
to my garden and my fig tree.

Your soul that was,
so effortlessly gentle,
will flutter lie a bird,
among the flowered trellises,
and will return at the murmur
of the iron gates,
where lovers meet.

You will lighten the shadow of my brow,
and your blood will flow through my garden.
Competing for the bees and for your girl,
your velvet heart will summon forth,
a crop of snowy almond blossoms.
But my jealous voice will call you
away from the almond trees,
to the winged souls of the roses.
For we have much to talk about,
my soul mate,
my companion.

The Clash - Should I Stay or Should I Go Dedicated to John Kelly

Rachel Maddow Tonight - Holy Fucking Mess

The last day of the Obama Administration, Susan Rice memo to Files, How to deal with the incoming corrupt administration compromised by the Russians.

What a cluster fuck.

Help! Where's that cartoon of Trump's hair opening like a bat's wing?

I should've page marked it, but I didn't.

It's classic.

Help me find it again!

Another arrest made in Starr County (Texas) voter fraud case

Belinda Garcia, 45, turned herself in to the Starr County Special Crimes Unit Tuesday afternoon, confirmed 229th District Attorney Omar Escobar.

Garcia was charged with one count of election fraud and one count of fraudulent application for ballot by mail.

Escobar said this was another case of an application for a mail-in ballot indicating the voter is disabled. However in Garcia’s case, the district attorney said more than one voter was identified so more charges could be forthcoming.

“We’ve tried to educate people and warn people about these new laws as of December of last year,” Escobar said Tuesday night, referring to changes to the state’s election code which went into effect Dec. 1, 2017. “But apparently some people just refuse to follow these new laws.”

http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/article_ef4ef0e0-0c31-11e8-a06d-339a369a118b.html


Another victim of Texas ridiculous voting laws.

If you've never been to a Laredo Taco Company

You poor, poor child.

https://stripesstores.com/laredo-taco-company/breakfast-menu.cms

Last thing you expect to find at a gas station is the best tacos evah.

Surprise as I took my wife to work as a sub teacher in rural South Texas

In Donna, Texas, deep, deep, in the southern tip o' Texas, to substitute in a special-ed class.

On the last quarter mile before reaching the school, passing by the most majestic paddle cactus trees I have ever seen in my life (I'm not kidding, these cacti were easily 30 feet tall), I went by a modest subdivision right before reaching the school, and noticed the names of the streets:

Lunar, Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins, Apollo...

I got a lump in my throat just reading the street signs.

The first rule about a secret society

Do not refer to it as "A Secret Society".

You can call it "The group" or "The Guild" or "The Book Club" or "The Breakfast Club"

But YOU DO NOT REFER TO IT AS A SECRET SOCIETY.

Unless you are obviously making a joke about a non existent secret society.

Fire and Fury should be retitled: Dunces with Wolff nt

Have you ever seen a great picture of you?

Have you ever thought of who took it?

And the fact that the photographer never appears in the picture?

Look back though your photographic memories and thank the person who thought YOU were important enough to immortalize in a picture.

Here's toast, to the quiet immortalizers of the greatest events of our lives.