Poem 3  (PD 20)

The Last Angel I Noticed

wasn't up in the sky or on someone's shoulder.

No.

The other warm afternoon, an angel was alive

in the soft music from a neighbor's house

that came drifting through an open window, into my heart.

and while I walked in our house, from room to room,

looking, just looking, a stranger's company came to me, 

beautiful, understandable,

light and on the wind.

There it is, don't you think?

Music is an angel's dream

happening yesterday, today, or sometime soon.

Wait and wait.

It will come.

From: Coming Back to the World, by Lisa Ann Berg

Laurel Poetry Collective, St. Paul, MN, 2005

Poem 2 (PD 19)

Lord,
what a menagerie!
Between Your downpour and these animal cries
one cannot hear oneself think!
The days are long.
All this water makes my heart sink.
When will the ground cease to rock under my feet?
The days are long.
Master Raven has not come back.
Here is Your dove.
Will she find us a twig of hope?
The days are long,
Lord.
Guide Your Ark to safety,
some zenith of rest,
where we can escape at last
from this brute slavery.
The days are long,
Lord.
Lead me until I reach the shore of Your covenant.
Amen.

From: Prayers from the Ark, selected Poems by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold, Translated by Rumer Godden. Puffin Books, @1995. Original English text copyright @1962.

"May you live in interesting times" 

Interesting times, indeed.  Frightening, dangerous, catastrophic times; unprecedented in our lifetimes!  What do we do when every person living on the planet is presented with something we've never had to deal with before? (Think of that...everywhere, everyone impacted in one way or another, no borders, no barriers) How do we respond, cope, adjust, fail or succeed?

There are many ways at many levels to answer that question.  There are the formal, necessary answers that governments and institutions arrive at; and there are the smaller individual actions and mindsets that we each choose.

Among my choices, I am choosing to return to writing this blog.  I started it a long time ago, when I was working as a media curriculum coordinator/technology strategist in the Minneapolis Public Schools.  I'm a very sporadic journalist, but at the moment I'm not going anywhere, so I'm going to give it another shot.

The blog title: "Information Woman" is meaningful to me.  Accessing information for my own enlightenment and entertainment and sharing what I found and learned has always been important; important enough to make it a career. 

In today's information environment, ethical, accurate and useful information sharing is endangered--false, inflammatory and politically divisive information sharing gets more than its fair share of airing and viewing and spreads its virulence.  It's hard to know what truth is.  In my small way, I'm going to try to make a difference.

I'll start with the saying that is my title.  I've often quoted that as an ancient Chinese curse.  Using it as such would seem highly appropriate in light of the Co-vid 19 virus coming from China and certainly creating "interesting times".  Unfortunately, it appears it's not an ancient Chinese curse at all, but has a much more recent origin, at least according to the Quote Investigator.  Garson O'Toole appears to be very credible and cites both sources and investigative processes. 

I'll express my own opinions as well, but state them as such.  You can agree or disagree.  Today is day 19 of the declared pandemic.  There is much to ponder.

Poem One (day 18)

I was never good at hide
 & seek
because I’d always

Make enough noise so my

Friends would be sure to
Find me.
I don’t have

Anyone to play those games

With any more, but now &
Then I make enough noise

Just in case someone is

Still looking & hasn’t

Found me yet

 From: Story People by Brian Andreas,
Story People Publishing, Decorah, IA, 1997

Day 18–filling the days with activities important and mundane. After selling books online since 2006 through my little bookstore, Ginger Tea Books, I decided a few months ago it was time to close up shop. I gave away a lot at my birthday party, took bags and bags to Half Price Books and some to a thrift store but still have a book cart full ( librarian envy alert...). Yes I have my very own library cart, acquired when White Bear Lake Library was being renovated. So, these fabulous, but not on my reading list books, will have to sit in limbo ‘til summer. It did free up some bookshelf space however to shift my poetry collection. In doing so I realized I have over 100 poetry books collected as a teacher and bookseller and aspiring poet. I’m going to crack one open each day that the world is under quarantine and share a random (or maybe curated) poem on my page and on my blog. Hope you enjoy them.

March 28, 2020
 Day 18 of the World Health Organization declared pandemic

 This may take awhile.
The price will be high.
Our character as individuals and as families,
communities and nations will be tested.
Many of us will fail;
many of us will muddle along,
most of us will strive to do our best,
but will still suffer.

The virus will not discriminate
but the discrimination we have already built into
our systems and our social relations
will make the suffering greater
for some than for others.
If only we can always think of the greater good
and recognize that working towards
the greater good
works for us as well.

It was snowing today.  This is not an unexpected event in Minnesota on a February day.  However, the swirling snow got me thinking not about driving or shoveling but that each of those snowflakes could represent the thoughts and feelings that are swirling around our country today in the wake of another mass shooting; the attack on high school students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Valentine's Day, Seventeen lives were lost and many others were injured.