Happy 4th
I’m reading a book on hope
which sounds like I’ve taken up tatting
old fashioned and harmless
hope is unpopular
even Buddhists diss it telling us to live
in one awful moment at a time
and these days almost everyone wants to be a Buddhist
hope is hard to grasp when your imagination’s
grown fat on darkness
like the thick underside of a mushroom
tragedy is grand scale
predictably beautiful in its way
hope is hokey
imperfect full of stumbling little acts
the way a strand of neighbors standing in the rain
on the shoulder of Highway One American flags
in their hands and homemade signs:
Peace is Patriotic
can make another strand start up
even in the imagination
standing on a curve of the coast highway
where the land seems to fall away
into the open mouth of the ocean
their bodies like flags
waving sloppily
steadfast in the downpour
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
How to Hope by Katharine Harer – with thanks to Rebecca Solnit for her book, Hope in the Dark
💙❤️💙❤️💙❤️🇺🇸
Listen to Los Lobos/Grateful Dead sing This Land is Your Land http://youtu.be/zM18HENqNbk
❤️
But the day is past. The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore.
John Adams
July 03, 1776 to Abigail Adams
read full letter at http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/john-adams-to-abigail-adams-2/
life: acoustic & amplified 