Paul Christensen: The Reluctant Summer
I could feel the rage building as I saw the nation writhe, then uncoil its wrath and take to the streets. I was demoralized to realize that my whole life had been lived in the twisted emotions of a country poisoned to its soul with racist hatred.
Jane Goodall: Humanity is finished if it fails to adapt after Covid-19
The famous primatologist calls for an overhaul of food habits to prevent a future pandemic.
Sandra McPherson: Landscape Painter, Salmon Creek, July 1991
Doesn’t everyone
covet an easel? — its smart little body
named after onagers and donkeys, ancestor
of art kept trim.
Connie Post: Prime Meridian
look down
and watch the glaciers fall
the oceans rise
Noam Chomsky: Trump Has Adopted a “Viva Death!” Approach to the Presidency
In this interview, Chomsky provides insight on how we can best grapple with the current moment – and prepare for the sobering future.
Michael Simms: Nigel
I’ve been reading an obituary
About Nigel
The lonely gannet of Mana Island
Who fell in love
With a concrete statue
Gaby Garcia: Heat
When the world burns, we will be like the women
of Pompeii who left their bread loaves to bake—
our laundry mid-cycle, newspapers turned
to the op-eds, windows open to catch a breeze.
Barrett Swanson: The Soldier and the Soil
Their prose often stood head and shoulders above the standard freshman drivel, exhibiting a certain rigor of thought and depth of feeling that perhaps comes from having witnessed whole anthologies of trauma—entire villages razed by fire, wide-eyed children draped in gore, wives screaming beside mutilated husbands.
Judith A. Brice: Notes On A Postcard
The picture would portray a few
flowering apple trees profuse in bloom
their parchment petals set
to sail with the wind, take off
Stephanie Hiller: COVID-19 Sparks a Rebirth of the Local Farm Movement
Could this be the beginning of a new food economy?
Christine Skarbek: Musings with the Nightingale
A friend in Connecticut has lost
over 40 friends and relatives to covid-19.
Overwhelmed with grief,
he can no longer speak.
Luara Ferracioli: For a child, being carefree is intrinsic to a well-lived life
Is being carefree a special good of childhood? Is it something that confers meaning on the life of a child, without doing the same for adults? Or do adults need to be more carefree, and so be more like children, in order for their lives to go well?
Robert Wrigley: The Consciousness of Everything
That time’s lost now, when a stone could hurt,
when a feather missed its wing,
when sky kissed clouds and grass kissed dirt
and nothing thought itself just a thing.
Stephon Alexander: The Physics of Jazz
Physicist Stephon Alexander narrates how he came to understand the parallels between quantum particle theory and jazz composition.
