Calm and quiet... for this one night. Sleep well, everyone. I'll see you tomorrow. [Photo “Guardians” by Peter Ralston.] — You can find Peter and his wife Terri in Rockport, Maine, or here: https://www.ralstongallery.com/
Thanks to Peter and you for this peaceful picture. Told a good friend this weekend that, if I’d had such a great scholar to make American history come alive, my college major might well have been different. Your historical insights add such depth to our understanding of current and past events.
Dear Heather - I can't thank you enough for keeping me well informed, but more importantly "sane." Your email is the first email I read each day. I also frequently share. Thank You for what you do each day to defend democracy. M.
“I’ll rest when I’m dead” or at least “when I’ve turned in my petition signatures to get on the ballot for a grassroots run for NY CD 10” is what I take from this beautiful photo... the gallery lists other works by this artist and the next one is a higher view of what’s in the boat with the green tarp and it’s entitled “shroud.” Too many metaphors, perhaps....but the tranquility of a safe harbor is going to be a dream deferred for many if things keep on as they are, make no mistake.
“Safe” is an illusion, something we learn at different times. One of my seminal lessons was being crouched over my 12-day-old baby, with my 2- and 5-year olds on either side, in pitch blackness, listening to their voices grow fainter as I asked if they were ok on 9/11/2001.
We made it out if that debris cloud (collapse of the second World Trade Center tower to fall) with the help of heroic first responders, got stitched up and eyewashes at a hospital in Jersey City, then set about rebuilding a life.
It took politicians 10 years to pass the Zadroga Act covering health care for first responders, and longer still to pass health care provisions for civilian “victims” like my then-spouse, who became ill with lung damage, or me, who developed stage IIIa thyroid cancer. It’s taking them decades to even consider trying to regain modest ground like reinstating an assault weapon ban.
Enough! I’ll rest when I’m dead and wearing a shroud like that. Anyone have some time or some friends with time Monday and Tuesday in NYC’s newly-redrawn, no-incumbent CD 10? Need petition signatures and a small miracle. Safes are for cracking.
After waking early this past Thursday morning, the thirteen colonies along the Atlantic coast, the Founding Fathers papers, The Constitution, The Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights flashed quickly through my mind. These extraordinary feats accomplished in formation of the country's Democracy and we the people are under assault -- we are in the line of fire, My headlights would not have turned on this way but for Heather Cox Richardson's Letter each morning. Letters from an American is the book of citizenry that I open each morning. Thank you for lighting my mind Heather, and today I am also grateful to Peter Ralston for his eye-opening image.
When Puffy says, and we won’ t stop, 'cause we can’ t stop.
Rasheed Copeland
I think of a good night’s sleep
an exhale taking its precious time
to leave my lungs unworried
about the breathing to come If only
I did not hail from the sweet state
of panic the town’s river,
my adrenaline raging without cease
I’d love peace but the moon is pulling me by my water
I know this is no way to live but I was born here
a mobile of vultures orbiting above my crib
the noise you speak bragging
about the luxury of your stillness
reminds me that some children are told to pick flowers
“I wrote this poem to reflect on the foregone circumstances that many Black children are born into, how these circumstances animate themselves and are taught through their interactions with families and their neighborhoods. Many times, the aforementioned entities are often functioning from their own inheritance of gross mishandling. And without remedy, they are forced to normalize the dysfunction that has been visited upon them. This poem is an attempt to hold space for those who continue to navigate the culture of harm that has informed their entire existence despite how indelible its effects may seem.”
Boats offer many lessons, offering metaphors for any time. Safely at anchor during calm and storms. In or heading to their home port. Sailing, cruising and navigating treacherous and friendly coastlines. Relying on navigational aids and charts. Awareness, use or avoidance of certain weather, tides and currents. Those who deny or miscalculate all of these long known lessons put themselves, their passengers and cargo at sometimes great risk and loss. Heroes at sea are not those who survive foundering on the rocks, or die saving their passengers and cargo after a careless catastrophe, but those who plan their trip, course and conditions well, never losing their way in the fog or foundering on the rocks.
Heather's newsletters are one more navigational aid among our many seagoing tools and knowledge of the seas and coastlines.
Thank you, Professor Richardson, for your creative endeavor in teaching and learning through LFAA. It certainly has prepared me in a significant, proactive way for the coming weeks as we rise to defend and embrace democracy. It will feel good to clear the air.
Thanks to Peter and you for this peaceful picture. Told a good friend this weekend that, if I’d had such a great scholar to make American history come alive, my college major might well have been different. Your historical insights add such depth to our understanding of current and past events.
Dear Heather - I can't thank you enough for keeping me well informed, but more importantly "sane." Your email is the first email I read each day. I also frequently share. Thank You for what you do each day to defend democracy. M.
Beautiful…
The tides come in and go out, seasons change, flowers bloom, trees bud, animals mate… Why can’t we humans get with the program?
Rest up. We'll be looking for your reports this week. Gratefully.
Tranquility. We need more of it.
Requiem (ending)
When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor of the Grand Canyon,
"It is done.
People did not like it here.”
— Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country, 2005
Thank you for some welcome calm.
Heather, sleep well, too.
“I’ll rest when I’m dead” or at least “when I’ve turned in my petition signatures to get on the ballot for a grassroots run for NY CD 10” is what I take from this beautiful photo... the gallery lists other works by this artist and the next one is a higher view of what’s in the boat with the green tarp and it’s entitled “shroud.” Too many metaphors, perhaps....but the tranquility of a safe harbor is going to be a dream deferred for many if things keep on as they are, make no mistake.
“Safe” is an illusion, something we learn at different times. One of my seminal lessons was being crouched over my 12-day-old baby, with my 2- and 5-year olds on either side, in pitch blackness, listening to their voices grow fainter as I asked if they were ok on 9/11/2001.
We made it out if that debris cloud (collapse of the second World Trade Center tower to fall) with the help of heroic first responders, got stitched up and eyewashes at a hospital in Jersey City, then set about rebuilding a life.
It took politicians 10 years to pass the Zadroga Act covering health care for first responders, and longer still to pass health care provisions for civilian “victims” like my then-spouse, who became ill with lung damage, or me, who developed stage IIIa thyroid cancer. It’s taking them decades to even consider trying to regain modest ground like reinstating an assault weapon ban.
Enough! I’ll rest when I’m dead and wearing a shroud like that. Anyone have some time or some friends with time Monday and Tuesday in NYC’s newly-redrawn, no-incumbent CD 10? Need petition signatures and a small miracle. Safes are for cracking.
Great interview on NPR! Thanks for your insights!
I recommend Robert Reich's Substack post for today. He compares the upcoming televised hearings of the House Select Committee on the January 6 insurrection those for the Senate Watergate Committee. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-week-ahead-why-everything-depends
After waking early this past Thursday morning, the thirteen colonies along the Atlantic coast, the Founding Fathers papers, The Constitution, The Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights flashed quickly through my mind. These extraordinary feats accomplished in formation of the country's Democracy and we the people are under assault -- we are in the line of fire, My headlights would not have turned on this way but for Heather Cox Richardson's Letter each morning. Letters from an American is the book of citizenry that I open each morning. Thank you for lighting my mind Heather, and today I am also grateful to Peter Ralston for his eye-opening image.
When Puffy says, and we won’ t stop, 'cause we can’ t stop.
Rasheed Copeland
I think of a good night’s sleep
an exhale taking its precious time
to leave my lungs unworried
about the breathing to come If only
I did not hail from the sweet state
of panic the town’s river,
my adrenaline raging without cease
I’d love peace but the moon is pulling me by my water
I know this is no way to live but I was born here
a mobile of vultures orbiting above my crib
the noise you speak bragging
about the luxury of your stillness
reminds me that some children are told to pick flowers
while others are told to pick a tree switch
that’ll best write a lesson across their hide
and my skin is a master course written in welts
I touch myself and read about the years
I cannot escape I hold my kids
and pray our embrace is not a history
repeating itself
Copyright © 2020 by Rasheed Copeland. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 22, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.
About This Poem
“I wrote this poem to reflect on the foregone circumstances that many Black children are born into, how these circumstances animate themselves and are taught through their interactions with families and their neighborhoods. Many times, the aforementioned entities are often functioning from their own inheritance of gross mishandling. And without remedy, they are forced to normalize the dysfunction that has been visited upon them. This poem is an attempt to hold space for those who continue to navigate the culture of harm that has informed their entire existence despite how indelible its effects may seem.”
—Rasheed Copeland
The USA is unsafe. Canada is far safer.
Boats offer many lessons, offering metaphors for any time. Safely at anchor during calm and storms. In or heading to their home port. Sailing, cruising and navigating treacherous and friendly coastlines. Relying on navigational aids and charts. Awareness, use or avoidance of certain weather, tides and currents. Those who deny or miscalculate all of these long known lessons put themselves, their passengers and cargo at sometimes great risk and loss. Heroes at sea are not those who survive foundering on the rocks, or die saving their passengers and cargo after a careless catastrophe, but those who plan their trip, course and conditions well, never losing their way in the fog or foundering on the rocks.
Heather's newsletters are one more navigational aid among our many seagoing tools and knowledge of the seas and coastlines.
Thank you, Professor Richardson, for your creative endeavor in teaching and learning through LFAA. It certainly has prepared me in a significant, proactive way for the coming weeks as we rise to defend and embrace democracy. It will feel good to clear the air.
UNITA! 🙋🏻🙋🏼🙋🏽🙋🏾🙋🏿🗽
Sleep well. This picture added needed calm to my brain activity tonight.