For Friday: A poem and a picture of Gus sitting on a plaster camel against a desert photography backdrop (two things not related)

The following is a poem dear to me that I have been reminded of twice from two different places in the last two days, so this must mean I should share. I think it's particularly apt to our world's times right now--the heartbreak and violence in Iran, our own battered economy and its victims, and recent iconic deaths. So go out there this weekend and lose your mind.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
A Poem By Wendell Berry


Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.


Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" from The Country of Marriage, copyright © 1973 by Wendell Berry

Best Tressed

Forgive the trivial nature of this post--a post where I should write about what a loving little guy Gus is, or how funny he is, or how good he's getting at throwing frisbees, or that he counted to eleven yesterday. Instead, this is a post about his hair and his sudden having of it. So long he grew with only a flaming red fuzz while all his peers got multiple haircuts, barrettes, and even ponytails. Then suddenly, it seems, his system has allocated some energy expenditure up top, and I swear, he wakes up in the morning with a new lock sprouting somewhere. His red hair was a surprise to Matt and I, and it has become, with this new growth, a now daily topic of conversation with folks, even strangers, as we explain mutated alleles on the MC1R gene and how genetics work. But to the question, "so when are you getting that first haircut?" I have to say, with my mama heart who watched his sweet scalp for so long "never!"

Artistic Endeavors

Gus does love to paint and draw, and we do a lot of that around here. He also is big into what I think preschool-type teachers would call "sensory experiences" and mothers call "incredibly huge messes," but luckily for Gus, his mother is a casual housekeeper, at best, and a few sensory experiences around the house merely blend in (he also hates wearing shoes and is constantly removing them, but adorably calls bare feet "plain feet." As in "mama's wearing socks and Gus has plain feet"). In these couple of photos, Gus started painting, but then began to investigate other expressions of the medium by painting all over himself. Perhaps I should have intervened at the first few brushstrokes to the head, but it was way more fun to see how far he would go. The "after" photo is after the resulting and necessary bath (the water changed a very pretty shade of lavender) and also after his request that I use the blowdrier on his hair.

May visitors--Allen and Jenny

We had the best weekend with Uncle Allen and Aunt Jenny; Gus is still talking about it--especially his Aunt Jenny who he was quite taken with. He liked doing whatever his Uncle Allen was doing, and was pretty excited about having such enthusiastic playmates for the weekend, in general. As you can see in the last photo, Gus also did a fairly good job of completely wearing these lovely folks out.