Tagged: poetry

Seeing A Bald Eagle From Above

After hurriedly grilling hamburgers for the fam and eating, I loaded them up in our Expedition, which sports a bald eagle license plate. My stepson, A-, had a “spring sing”, or some such nonsense, and as these events are rare, he wanted me to wear the t-shirt he had given me a few years back. The image on the shirt is George Washington flying on the back of a bald eagle.

Get the picture?

No, no you don’t. Because I haven’t told you the best part.

Earlier in the day—same day!—I had flown a training flight where we soared at higher altitudes than typical for a helicopter, I’m talking two and three thousand feet above the ground.

“Whoa!” I thought to myself as we maneuvered to miss a large feathered friend.

Then I saw white. Not at the front, but the tail feathers. Or I thought I did. It was turning away and down. So I kept looking.

Sure enough, white tail feathers. Then finally I saw the unmistakable white head with the yellow beak.

A bald eagle from above.

Have words been invented to describe the feeling?

“Unnatural” comes to mind. But that carries too much negativity.

There is nothing negative about soaring with bald eagles. I’ll keep thinking about it. We need a word to describe it.

And on the positive side, I finally heard one speak.

“Pete? I thought that was you.”

I guess for a pilot, the feeling is “natural.” It’s why pilots fly.

Two More Bald Eagle Encounters

The first one was nearly one month ago, but I haven’t found time to record it.

Here’s what I know. Of late I have been struggling with consistency. I know giving 100% really sets me apart, but I also have come to believe it is exhausting. So I don’t. I turn on and turn off at my choosing. I don’t know why I do this. It has been a long time since I have given 100% all day long and I think I have built up an unnatural fear that I will tire out. And I don’t like being tired.

But the bald eagle has got me rethinking my stance.

I saw this particular creature soaring over the roadway on a drive back from Wisconsin to Minnesota, as usual. But the singular thing I noticed this time was how, while riding the wind in what first appeared as a leisurely, effortless manner, the eagle’s neck was in fact strained forward and down as it hunted.

As a fellow rider of the wind, I have special insight into the three dimensional abilities of flight. The eagle and I can just descend a few inches and get a closer look, no neck strain. No effort. (If we wanted to.)

But no. This raptor isn’t looking for leisure. He was looking for food. And all creation knew it. Think of it. Neck strain instead of descending. Wow. What a lesson.

The second encounter was just last night. It had similar traits to one a few months back. Remember the headless eagle? Yep, that’s what happened again to me. I saw what looked like a brown box in the middle of the divided highway. With the new Metallica album blasting from the car speakers, I was already in a good mood.

\m/ Smile as it burnz to the grounnn-dah/The perfeck don’ wann chuu arounnn-dah! \m/

And then it happened. Surely before I would’ve suspected the blessed bird could’ve heard and singled out the music coming from my car stereo as I approached speedily, this apparent brown box’s head(!) popped up and look towards me. I say “looked towards me”, not “looked at me”. No, he wasn’t offering interest to me. He just recognized good music. The look in his eye as I passed was, “Rock on, Good Citizen.”

Biblically Informed School Shooting Reaction

Apparently one mom who spoke to the news has said, “We praise God in all situations, good and bad.”

I get it. Believe me, I get it. Many evangelicals are told to use these moments to point people to God, to tell people about Jesus.

And then there is the whole worry, “I said something publicly—will I have sounded churchy enough??” that many Christians live with.

We also can’t deny the idea that many folks are genuinely dumbstruck when evil hits close to home—especially when all along they thought they were supernaturally protected, either.

And let us not forget that communication is hard. Some big hearts and repentant worms are genuinely befuddled when the microphone comes their way. So this mother of apparently healthy kids (just talking to investigators still) rattles off something as stupid and trite sounding as, “We praise God in all situations, good and bad.”

Finally, this is a news story, a story meant to provoke and add hype—no matter the situation. It has obviously worked on me because here I am typing away. So I concede it is possible this mom is a terrible sample of modern Christian reaction to school shootings.

However, she is actually right in line with what I have all be hearing and reading after mass shootings for the last several years even from folks I know. So I think we can count her reaction as typical.

Here’s the thing. It isn’t honest.

Pop! Pop! Pop pop pop!! Blood. Screams.

“We praise God in all situations, good and bad.”

Speak from the heart, people! Pray!!

David, in recorded scripture that you all cherish soooo much, said, “Look and answer me, O Yahweh my God; Give light to my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death…”

Now we can debate whether suicide is the threat (“Answer or I do it!”), or just plainly stating that the enemy is about to kill him (You gonna do something here?), but the point remains, David had no issue speaking from the heart.

That was Psalm 13. Psalm 94 has, “O Yahweh, God of vengeance, God of vengeance, shine forth!”

Or “Kill ‘em all!” as Metallica might phrase it.

I don’t mind sharing here that my “prayer” since Sandy Hook got my attention has pretty much been—with surprising consistency—“My god! Where is it safe for my kids?”

In 2012, I didn’t know “my god” by name. After conversion to Christianity, I now specifically call to mind the god of the Bible, whether Yahweh/Jesus as the antecedent to “my god”. But in every case, the sequence is 1. School shooting. 2. “My god! Where is it safe for my kids?”

And that’s enough. Enough for me. And enough for Him.

Praising God for a school shooting? Gimme a break. No one believes that shit.

I Hate That

Click bait, surely. But I don’t know how else to describe what happened.

I have two babies right now. A- is 2.5 and J- is 11 months. When A- was younger, I wanted to get her the classic shape sorter game/activity.

If you don’t know, they have many versions these days. The old red and blue one with yellow pieces is retro.

The one I decided upon is a blue dome with a knob or button thing on top that rotates the top half. So the shapes change each time the knob is depressed. A square/cube area becomes a top half triangle, bottom half cube. And the oval piece changes to top half concave thing, bottom half oval. You get the picture.

Anyhow, my wife and I have been embattled for some time now. (Not ever going to go into details here, sorry.) Almost every conversation becomes an argument. Well, I get on the floor with the babies tonight and start to play. I have been working a ton of late and this is a rare event these days.

I see my wife helping J- to put the cube in the cube space.

Good, I think.

Then I see her encouraging him to put in a wrong piece that happens to fit sideways into that same hole, but is clearly (by markings on the pieces themselves) not meant for that spot.

“That doesn’t fit there,” I exclaim, as if I believed the LORD could actually prevent J- from becoming Special Needs at this point.

“Yes it does,” my wife responds.

“What?” I ask, dumbfounded. “It may fit, but you don’t train the baby to put it there. The entire point is the right piece to the right spot.”

“I know.”

“Are you sure?? Because it seems like you just told me that ‘it fits’, even though it doesn’t?”

****

With Metallica’s new album and tour announcements, I have been mentioning to a coworker that I may text him some songs as he is uninitiated. I haven’t yet. It’s actually a daunting task to share something so intimate.

As I wait and consider songs, I found myself listening to the radio today, and a perfectly poetic—in the “eternally powerful” sense of the word—rock song came on. It’s main lyric is, “I hate everything about you/why do I love you?”

This got me thinking. I know exactly what he means. Not because I hate everything about my wife, but because it’s a killer lyric. Here’s my attempt at a killer lyric.

I want my wife to think/She never thinks anymore

I hate that my wife won’t think/When she does think, I have seen good results—like with most people/I think

Why won’t she think?

Teaching our son the wrong way to do the game is tantamount to abuse

Abuse/Not because the game matters—though it does

Abuse/But because other kids (her son for example) didn’t or don’t have games

Abuse/Because it’s a complete waste of an opportunity

Abuse/And I hate that

I’m Twelve. And I Believe Exile is Worse than Death.

My wife responds to my news, with barefaced contempt, “Because he’s black?”

“No. I didn’t say he brought the gun to school because ‘he’s black’. He did it because he’s stupid,” I clarified. “The reason I said he is black is because your son thinks all things black are right and cool, which itself is stupid, but the main point is I want to know what your son, A-, has told you about it. Because it is important that he agrees with me that this kid did something truly stupid.”

“He told me it was stupid.”

“Really?” I wondered, in blunt disbelief.

****

“Hey. How come you didn’t tell me about W- bringing the gun to school?” I asked A- nonchalantly as we drove home from school ball.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“I don’t understand why he would be expelled for bringing it.”

“Did you mention it to your mom?”

“On Monday I told her about it, but I thought it was a toy gun then.”

“Did you ever use the word ‘stupid’?”

“I may have said that I thought it was stupid that he was in so much trouble.”

“Okay,” I said. (I knew the boy would not react, ‘W- did something stupid.’ Check.) Then I took a father’s breath. “Here’s the thing. The most famous school shooting happened when I was a senior in high school. That’s over twenty years ago. And they have been happening regularly since then. For someone to bring any kind of gun to school at this point is absolutely, totally, and irredeemably stupid. Understand? Guns destroy. School, in theory, is about creation. The two will never mix. He was stupid. Or his decision was stupid. I don’t really know him.”

“Okay.”

****

“Well,” I answered my own 12 year old, H-, that night on FaceTime, “one of A-’s teammates brought, like, a bb gun to school. He’s probably gonna be expelled. So that’s causing some drama amongst the kids.”

“Expelled!!”

“Why is this shocking?”

“I can see suspended, but expelled? From the entire district?”

Drawing enough air to fill a sermon, “Guns kill people. Kids have been killing people in schools for twenty years now. What are we even debating, my daughter? So what if the kid has to go to another school. His parents maybe should be forced to move and try to live another way somewhere else. What they’re doing so far has failed. No person alive can suggest that ‘they didn’t know’ to NOT bring a weapon to school. How are we even talking about this, H-?”

“Okay, geez.”

“Tell me that your father thinks it is absolutely stupid to bring a gun to school and that it is absolutely fair to expel a kid who does.”

“You think-”

“-No, say, ‘my father’,”

Oh, the glare.

“My father thinks it is stupid to bring a gun to school and fair to expel anyone who does.”

“Good.”

****

Please, dear reader, lament with me. You already know how much I loathe public school. To hear that both my not-so-bright step-son and my I’d-like-to-believe-has-paid-attention-at-least-once-in-while daughter believe that expulsion or exile from the community is worse than being killed by a school shooter only feeds the fire.

Education is supposed to liberate, not indoctrinate. It’s supposed to turn the brain on, not off. Create, not conform.

Choose life, kids. Especially if it means alone.

People are stupid.

The LORD’s Air Traffic Control

This morning I found myself wondering an uncommon question.

“Just when is the sun coming up?”

I left the house at 5:30 with the aim to arrive in Wisconsin around 8. The “wintry mix” that had fallen all night proved to be more ice than mix, and traffic was slow. I figured I’d be safe because I’d only be in the dark for the first hour of my ride as surely BMNT (beginning of morning nautical twilight) would happen around 0630.

“My calculations must be off,” I finally conceded.

It hit me that BMCT is what matters when driving (civil twilight—sun at 6 degrees below horizon, not the 12 of nautical twilight).

No problem. But even at 7am, there was still no sign of our nearest star, and quite a bit more roadway to go than I could squeeze into one hour.

Then it happened as it always does—suddenly.

Suddenly, dawn made her appearance.

A few minutes later, the true miracles occurred.

Miracle Number 1: I saw a headless bird eating road kill.

“Wait-a-minute!! That’s no headless bird, that’s a BALD EAGLE! And it’s so close!”

Zoom. I passed within feet of him.

“And to think I saw him in Wisconsin USA,” I further thought to myself.

I mean, seeing a bald eagle is one thing, but seeing one in the great state of Wisconsin, USA elevates the experience well into the clouds, if not all the way to the heavens.

Next, it happened again.

Miracle Number 2: I looked and saw a bald eagle on the tippy top of a leafless tree. His chest was as broad as the Rocky Mountains.

Unlike last sighting from a few posts back, we’ll call that one The Sentinel, this treetop eagle had the pleasure of directing traffic.

Upon entering Wisconsin, I observed that the wintry mix had stopped at the state line and now there were only enormous snow flakes. Enormous snow flakes in need of some direction. And I was staring at the divinely appointed tower controller as he was directing traffic.

“Cleared for landing, Uniform Sierra Foxtrot.”

“Yes, sir. Come on down.”

“Wonderful flare, way to go!”

“Last calling, you’re number two for that branch on your right, keep your speed up, I’ve got two more behind ya.”

“Sierra Foxtrot Heavy, I’ve got a spot for you on the virgin mantle two hundred yards from centerline.”

And on and on he went. It was like listening to the soothing crackle of George Washington’s torch as it illuminated the unimaginable freedom just on the other side of the darkness.

A Crib?

How metal \m/ can a crib be? How rebellious can a crib be? How “I wanna rock!” can a crib be?

Imagine the most metal \m/, rebellious, and “I wanna rock!” baby crib you can and then go track down down the new Metallica album cover and see how you did.

Obviously Rock Gods can do no wrong. So I have no fear of them putting out bad music. Remember, I even own and enjoy Lulu.

But I’m sitting here in my home studio/office where I have a Master of Puppets T-Shirt draped over a lamp to get the lighting right. Hands holding puppet strings over a cemetery just feels right. Every time.

A crib?

I like that they’re actually going with what they feel like doing. They’re old and they have time to reflect on why they have done what they’ve done. Childhood is a tremendous influence. I get it. But I want to record here that there are elements that must be there for rock to be rock.

Hammer? Blood? Cemetery? Electric chair? Lady Justice? Blackness? Auto-body shops? Random fluids? Fists? Coffins? Life-like, damaged prostitute torsos? Glitchy photos?

All these seem pretty darn uniform to me. My inner scholar labels them as within the same semantic domain.

A crib?

I’m just glad we’re all mature enough to not be dissuaded by a “miss”.

Metallica!! \m/

Good Writing Compels Writing

Earlier today, while on shift on this day of unflyable weather, I began trudging through the Gateway to the Great Books essay by Friedrich Schiller. I began it back on November 14th. He calls it, On Simple and Sentimental Poetry.

It is a far longer entry than all others in this volume, Volume 5, “Critical Essays.” And it is rather boring. His vocabulary is far broader than mine and he employs it from on high, without looking down, without slowing down. But I wanted to finish the article, so I reread the introduction, re-caged my gyros, and plodded on.

Finally, the relationship blossomed. Check out this criticism of a man (hitherto unknown to me), Klopstock.

His muse is chaste.

Wow. Stops you in your tracks, no?

Got me to smile and want to share the sentence with you all. Hope it was worth it.

Onward and upward.

I’ll Say It Again, Trump Should Use Bird Signs This Time Around

The first bald eagle I saw this morning was orbiting dangerously close to traffic on the two-lane highway upon which I drove home after my night shift.

I’m telling you, the bald eagle has no fear. A glorious bird.

Then, I first saw what turned out to be the second bald eagle of the day from a much greater distance on that same drive. Here I confess though, with shame, that I didn’t immediately recognize the feathered sentry. But I have to believe that mistaking him for a large bird’s nest is fairly flattering in its own way. Like you, for most of my life the description “he’s as big as a house” has been reserved for use on only the strongest of us humans.

Add to this fact that in my own front yard, the fall season and the resultant leafless trees had revealed a rather large bird nest near the top of one of the trees and you’ll understand why at first—only for a second really—I didn’t recognize the winged friend for what it was. I figured, “Oh, a nest just like at home.”

But I was wrong. It wasn’t some random, unused, and derelict bird’s nest. It was a living, breathing, and rather chesty member of the stately, all-seeing protector of America.

Now as I approached I did my best to make eye-contact by leaning forward at just the right moment to briefly look up—while not losing control of the car.

I can’t report with integrity that we made eye-contact, but I can report that I saw the end of the slightest nod signifying “carry-on citizen” as he moved his gaze from analyzing my approach in particular back to the Minnesotan horizon in general. And I can definitely report that my heart warmed.

Your inescapable delight in reading the above over any other journalistic drivel is what ties this post to Trump. I like that he wants to be successful and wear the American countryside while doing it. All I’m suggesting here is he should model his campaign after this post and the rhetorical archetype itself, if he wants to seal the deal this election. It’s a gimmick, surely. But what isn’t in contemporary politics?

Finally, and with more than a merely temporal connection, I want to include that on this self-same commute, I was listening to a podcast in which I heard avant-garde writer Yuval Noah Herari exclaim, “What will the future history student’s answer be to the question, ‘What was America’s second civil war about?’ I mean the difference between the two ‘sides’ is nearly non-existent.”

I shook my head and thought, “Obviously this heady, wannabe-De-Tocqueville Mr. Herari hasn’t seen a bald eagle. The two sides are as clearly defined as sky and earth. Any true American knows this.”

But I can admit to my readers now that it seems that this vista only becomes apparent when one of these birds is in view.