sonora2sonoma

 

The Ahwanee Hotel

wears its name

like a well broken-in

pair of shoes;

like the song you find

hard to get out of your head;

like an old smell

that sweeps you back in an instant

to a long-forgotten childhood moment;

the old familiar name

rolls off the tongue

with the familiarity

of a lovers touch

and the comfort

found in a relationship built on trust.

 

Corporations may cause it to be assigned other titles

like the Majestic Yosemite Hotel

or some other such nonsense

in their unsavory quest for dominion

but I will not participate in this dishonorable exercise.

I will continue to simply call it the Ahwanee!

 

To call it by any other name

Would be heresy.

 

14 January 2016

Tim Konrad

We live on the margins–

A fragile sliver of Bio -dynamism

a thin veneer of subsisting and persisting vitality

Floating above the slow churn

the sea of magma

at our planet’s core,

While suspended beneath

The soundless

and boundless

vacuum of space.

 

Two lifeless realms

Between which we, like pastrami on rye,

reside, placed, by design or mere circumstance–

Take your pick–

 

A Cambium layer, of sorts,

Comprising the whole of life as we know it

within its boundaries of metaphorical phloem and xylem

And, upon which we depend for our very existence.

Venture too far in either direction

And existence becomes extinction!

 

Yet emotions rule when reason should prevail

And lessons go unheeded, much less learned

And fools do what they always have done

And bad choices beget their own destiny

And the most vulnerable among us

Always pay the bill.

 

12 January 2016

Tim Konrad

 

 

The Wild West may still be happening

in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

or at least a watered-down version of it.

 

News reports of men with guns

expressing their displeasure

with the Federal Government

by making a statement

via armed occupation

while relying on that self-same government

in the guise of the Post Office

for the delivery of snacks and sox

which, had they made provision for beforehand,

they would not have had to muddy up their message

so.

 

And the message?

taking back the land

for the people.

Begs the question, one might ask,

to which “people” are they referring?

The people from whom they wish to reclaim the land in question

are you and me and, yes,

even the occupiers themselves,

which is to say, being federal land,

the taxpayers.

 

Why would these occupying forces

wish to reclaim land

they already own?

 

So, it isn’t really about reclaiming the land

is it?

If not that, then what?

What drives these men

with their pickups and their guns

to go camping in the dead of winter

without any snacks

or extra socks?

 

To reclaim the land for the “people”

makes no sense

when the people already own

the land.

 

And what is so important

about their dubious quest

as to drive them to threaten an armed confrontation?

To engage in a game of chicken

with forces that could pluck their feathers with ease

were they inclined to do so.

 

The leader of this group

claims the refuge

constitutes an “unconstitutional presence”

in the country.

One wonders

where he gets his information.

Certainly not from a civics class!

 

One might assume they are in earnest

in choosing to forego snacks

and sox

in the hope that their logically challenged enterprise

might prevail.

 

One might also assume

the armed campers

seek to return the land to the “right” people

so that the wrong ones

can be designated as trespassers.

 

And one might reasonably assume

that their game of chicken

will, in the end,

cause them to be forced to eat crow.

 

Which, since they chose to enact their ill-fated drama

in a bird sanctuary

may not be an entirely inappropriate

outcome.

 

07 January, 2016

Tim Konrad

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“They were short-sighted

and overly optimistic”

people will say of us

after we’ve finished ruining the world.

That is,

that’s what the kind ones

will say.

 

06 January 2016

Tim Konrad

An old woman

thrown to the ground

stones hurled at her

struck with fists, feet

face bloodied

then hoisted atop a low roof

as if in reprieve

only to be drug back down into the mob

pelted with rocks

pushed over a barricade

beaten with sticks . . .

 

An old woman

probably somebody’s grandmother

kicked repeatedly

as she lay on the ground

slowly dying.

 

Words appear across the screen

below the grisly images–

“She threw a Koran in the trash.”

As if, by so explaining,

the reason was sufficient cause

to justify such violence and cruelty.

What may have been considered reasonable

in the 7th Century

does not seem reasonable at all

when viewed on my 21st Century

social media device.

 

Seventh Century mayhem

care of 21st Century technology

but the mayhem seems equally at home

here, now as then, there

for barbarity needs no home page

much less a fixed time location.

 

Her murderers

appeared driven by rage

such was the violence inherent in the scene

but the underlying motive

was fear disguised as outrage

The fear of a people threatened

by an act they could not abide–

the perceived desecration

of a symbol of their faith;

an action so unreasonable to their way of thinking

that their outrage blinded them

to the outrageousness of their response.

 

The arrogance that underlies

any notion

that MY beliefs entitle me

to take your life

simply because your views differ from mine

is stunning beyond belief!

Yet, inhuman as it is,

so very human.

 

It is easy

to appreciate our connectedness

to each other

as seen in the love of a mother to her child

or in acts of piety and self-sacrifice.

It is much harder to see it

when violence is acted out

against the defenseless.

But how is it any less real

when viewing our brethren murder each other?

Are we somehow less connected

to them?

 

What words are there

to describe the feelings

that arise as I sit, bearing witness,

to this unspeakable act,

taking place

thousands of miles and another world away

connected

not just by my Iphone

but by the invisible bonds that connect us all

to each other.

 

One thing seems certain:

Any religion

that is based on fear

is not a religion dedicated to

the celebration of life.

 

So, I sit here, in relative safety

(if such a condition truly exists)

worlds away from the scene on my Iphone.

And I sip my beer

and watch the ducks lazily floating in the river.

While trying to reckon with the dissonance

between the visions in my mind’s eye

and the beauty of my outward surroundings.

That violence may not be here, now

but the fear that drives it

is never far away.

 

29 December 2015

Tim Konrad

 

 

 

 

 

Feathers unruffled

despite the bombardment

ducks slip past,

the salvo’s meaning

lost to them.

 

19 December 2015

Tim Konrad

 

A swarm

of egrets

incurvate

wound round

a dream.

 

19 December 2015

Tim Konrad