Category: Community

Muse in the Morning

Random Poem

Art Link Self-portrait, most days Talking Teaching Blues (Boomer edition) Run run run and run some more I don’t remember what I’m running for I work so long from 8 to 8 then up next dawn so I won’t be late Work work work it’ll be over soon if only I could sleep to noon It’s nice to know as I wipe my spittle that all we teachers just work so little Sixty hours a week so you could grow For this you hate us? We need to know. What did we do to deserve your slap work so hard and get paid crap? –Robyn Elaine Serven –April 18, 2006

Muse in the Morning

Random Poem

Splitting the Binary Can you learn? They asked me if I hunted or fished choose one What did I kill for fun? I gave my answer eight years later I killed their comfort in dead seriousness Can you learn? Too often the answer was disappointing There was danger in proving that human life could exist could endure could survive could even thrive in between There probably still is Can you learn? It is not too late Can you learn? It is never too late Can you learn? –Robyn Elaine Serven –December 14, 2007

Muse in the Morning

Random Poem

Art Link Fire Teaching There must be a spark to which tinder can be judiciously applied to get a smolder (Or is the spark applied to the tinder?) With skill the smoldering tinder gives rise to a flicker and then a flame to which the kindling is added leading to creation of a real fire with the introduction of the hard wood How delicate is the the process that it can so easily be derailed I am a teacher It is my job to nurture the fire There is rarely a second chance if this flame dies –Robyn Elaine Serven –December 6, 2005

Muse in the Morning

Random Poem

High School Colors English Teachers Of the majick of gods and goddesses Marion taught of myths and legends and creations other realities as well as the fact that teachers sometimes drink And chain-smoking Scholastica leadfoot schooled me in Pepys Hawthorne and Irving and the boundless unconditional love she displayed to us for her beloved Ben But Mrs P Holly’s wonderful mom you lit the spark with Buffalo Bill and mister death and the pretty how town which now burns in me some forty years later –Robyn Elaine Serven –January 2, 2007

Muse in the Morning

Random Poem

Art Link Cat on Amethyst Patent Pending With total attention I focus energy concentrate on giving a gentle loving touch Thus will my human problems be diminished according to my cat –Robyn Elaine Serven –March 14, 2006

Muse in the Morning

Pseudo-random Poem

Art Link Purplegreengold And miles to go… A flicker of white appears in the dark maybe the Big Bang of some microverse Perhaps it could be Tinkerbell’s candle The color soon dims through yellow to gold Then green tendrils spread out from the center The sparkling dwindles to a throbbing pulse as purple appears and black and I sleep –Robyn Elaine Serven –March 9, 2006

Muse in the Morning

Random Poem

Art Link Lace Like the Pixels The pixels laid singly or in short segments pixilated sand intricately woven into a meaningful pattern pixie dust spread to simulate complexity My world grows takes new form until it gets to the point where it can be flipped, flopped flooped it’s the flooping that makes it distinctly mine Moments are the pixels of being by which we color the larger tapestry of our lives living in the instant in the now is our floop –Robyn Elaine Serven –November 8. 2005

I wasn’t going to write anything until after the election (Go Obama!) but this is important, IMHO. Yesterday melamine was found in several egg products in South Korea following last week’s similar discovery in Japan, marking the first time the toxic chemical has been found in Chinese egg products.

Some of you have followed my pieces on the Chinese melamine scandal, here is the last one with a comprehensive list of the tainted products. Add egg products to this list now, and God knows what else! Egg products can be found in many items such as cake mixes, cookies and much more, see the list below. Having said that, don’t be alarmed, just make sure you know the provenance of your food products and read the labels carefully.

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XXXIV – finis

Art Link Passage Rites and Passages (the latter years) Isolating Declaring Bemoaning Observing Writing Speaking Affirming Protecting Finding voice Initiating Writing Speaking up Ghettoizing Returning Creating space Confronting the beast Writing Speaking out Helping Representing Taming the beast Depicting Moving on Broadening Writing Spreading out Identifying the larger beast Combining Proclaiming Defending Teaching –Robyn Elaine Serven –November 15, 2005 –June 13, 2006

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XXXIII

Art Link Desert Tortoise Survivor When I was a small child and life seemed so very hard I was positive I could not survive When things happened to me that should happen to no child I doubted I would survive When the sins of my parents were visited upon their children I questioned whether I might survive When I grew older, I somehow learned to think of myself as a worthwhile person I thought, I can survive Faced with the cruelty of not living in a world of my own making I decided, I shall survive I endured the harshest challenges that I can imagine a life having to offer As excruciatingly hard as it was, I survived When life itself, cruel cellular biology Seemed to conspire against me Even then I did survive Even age, that most viscious mistress tries to slowly grind me into giving up but I have still survived I don’t care what life brings my way now no matter what or who may come or go I know that some way I will survive –Robyn Elaine Serven –April 28, 2006

Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry XXXII

Art Link Islands in the Storm In Passing Every year or so I stop for a moment grieve about the people I met and befriended as much as I knew how My existence has flicked from thought to precious thought from spacetime to spacetime those friends have become painful fond memories My life journey required that I had to move on though I could have settled for the bittersweetness and shared more time with them –Robyn Elaine Serven –December 19, 2006

There’s a kind of beauty to work, to labor, and in these tumultuous times that beauty just glows.

Last time I saw the glow was on 9/11.  I walked home from work in Midtown and bought a sandwich at the fake French bakery across the street.  It struck me very forcefully that the woman behind the counter was still at work while I was able to go home.  We didn’t know yet whether the attacks were over or not, the city was in shock, and yet I was able to buy a sandwich and later to go to the drugstore to pick up a few things, where yet another woman rang up my order.  She didn’t leave work either.

Of course one the best known examples I can recall of this glow was when John Swigert, Jr. and James Lovell who, with Fred Haise Jr., made up the crew of the US’s Apollo 13 moon flight communicated to Earth that something had gone technically wrong.  The real phrase is “Houston, we’ve had a problem,” which morphed into the well known phrase “Houston, we have a problem.”

That line was the sound of work, that glow I’m writing about.

In the world of teevee, there is Captain Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise.  When the going got dangerous, they were at their workstations, fully engaged in the situation.  Scotty got the most flack, imo.

I’ve been doing diary rescue over at Daily Kos for the downticket races.  The rescued diaries get put into one big roundup and the whole thing goes on the front page.

I’ve been reading folks who have been posting every day on the races they’re involved in, and often this is on top of their canvassing work and such.

When I think about the last couple weeks, with big changes going on all over the place, I am seeing the glow in those diaries, the ability to focus on the situation confronting you and do the work you see needs to be done — with no boss, no paycheck, not a whole lot of comments most of the time, just to do it because you think it should be done.  That’s the glow.

There is not a poster here at Docudharma who I’m not getting that glow from.

Just sayin’.