lenten journal: savings sonnet

9
1841

After staring at the screen for some time tonight, and with more important things to talk about, I’m sure, even as I grieve the loss of an hour’s sleep tonight, here is what I found:

princess bride

savings sonnet

 

the earth had a way of tilting it’s head

to set up the space for each season

a delicate dance a wonderful thread

from sunny to snowy to freezin’

 

the days first grew short and then they grew long

as the winter conceded to spring

but we have decided nature was wrong

a new seasonal schedule to bring

 

spring forward we said — move time up an hour

the change will make march days seem longer

there isn’t more sun — we don’t have that pow’r

we’ve just shown that our hubris is stronger

 

than our logical thought or common sense

as kids wait in the dark for their bus

why can we not live in this present tense

and stop winding ourselves in a fuss

 

this silly rhyme has one conclusion

we’re quite content with our delusion

 

Peace,

Milton

9 COMMENTS

  1. According to people on the screen today, we have “More Daylight”, Milton. Do they think, truly, that we have changed the earth’s tilt? Or is it just “spin”? Thank you for a delightful read.

  2. To answer your “So What” , have a Hot Cross bun. Twenty some years after Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited Gracie Stewart died. She was a gentle black woman who worked as a nurse’s aide. She raised three children on her own, one with cerebral palsy. She was as strong in her commitments as she was gentle. Her commitments were to her children, her patients, and all those around her. She never missed a day of work in all her 30 plus years of employment. Gracie was like a mother to me. I could confide anything with her. She offered no judgments, just good counsel. She died one night, suddenly, hopefully peacefully. My husband and I were the only two white people at her funeral. I was devastated. Her burial plot? A section in the cemetery reserved for blacks. Her family consoled me; they consoled me? The one who could not understand how she was expected to “rest at peace” segregated in this day and age even in death. Yeah, So What! She is at peace, the gift she gave of herself helped thousands over the years. They know exactly what.
    As for time change, it really changes nothing. This day and age. They nailed a man to a cross over 2000 years ago and we have learned nothing since. Our weapons of mass destruction get larger and more tormenting. Again, so what? One person can change things for many. I believe He did. But, whether you believe in the cross, or Buddha, or a door knob, humanity means nothing if not for kindness, if not for passing it on, if not for believing in goodness. Lent is a perfect time to begin again. Pax vobiscum.

  3. I am reminded of the old Native American message: “Only the white man could cut a foot off the bottom of his blanket, sew it to the top of the blanket, and claim that he now has a longer blanket.”

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