Bear Mountain

Hiking down from Bear Mountain
Under the shadow of black cumulonimbus
I stoop to pick blueberries beneath mountain laurel
Descending again, the peaks of the Catskills fill the horizon to the west

Thirty-seven years have passed
Since we loved among those hills
Beside country lanes bordered by purple loosestrife and Queen Anne's lace
Spent and squandered at summer's end.

Northampton, Rainy Day

Northampton, Rainy Day

Alone, gazing out onto the gray streets of Northampton

Beneath the green awning of the coffee shop.

Kangamangus Highway

Brian and I rode down from the Kangamangus Highway

Fearless, self-confident and finally soaked

The thunderstorm overtaking us as we rode in the wake of a tracker trailer

My gearshift broken and Brian with only half a tent

We seek dry shelter by the roadside.

Today, I skirt billowing cumulonimbus in Monterey

Sedate, the Berkshires roll gently on through Tyringham

I pass telephone poles festooned with U.S. flags

Among these verdant hills.

High Summer

High Summer

The high trilling of katydids at the forest's edge...
Fields carpeted thick with the violet of thyme...
Bees and hummingbirds dart about the spires of lavender...
Burnt orange of roadside wild lilies...
The certain warmth...
Venus rising beside the pale moon.

The Case Against Ethel Rosenberg

Today, The New York Times carried the obituary of Ruth Greenglass. Greenglass provided the corroboration for her husband, David Greenglass, stating that Ethel Rosenberg typed information about the development of the atomic bomb intended to be sent to the Soviet Union. On the basis of that information, Ethel Rosenberg, along with her husband Julius, were executed by the United States in June 1953 at the height of the hysteria of the Cold War.

Ethel Rosenberg's brother,David Greenglass, stated in his biography The Brother: The Untold Story of the Rosenberg Case (2003), that he had no recollection of Ethel typing the information used to convict her, and that it was in fact his wife Ruth who had typed it.

The government's case against the Rosenbergs involved manipulation of witnesses and facts. Much controversy surrounds the nature of these secrets, and how a then-machinist (Greenglass) in the Army working in the Manhattan Project could have possessed the sophistication to comprehend and steal secret information on the development of the atomic bomb.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/us/09greenglass.html?ref=obituaries

More Of The Same from Obama: More No Choice

Barack Obama seems ceaseless in his attempt to cement his image as a neoliberal. While he mouths the call for change, he positions himself to oppose late-term abortions even in the presence of severe emotional distress of the mother. He will not take war off the so-called "table" against Iran, putting himself in direct opposition to the U.N. Charter and the Geneva Conventions. His platform offers nothing to end the war between Israel and the people of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He will not commit to a complete and total withdrawal of troops from Iraq if elected president. Here is the corporate candidate speaking corporate-speak! And then, of course, there is John McCain...the warmonger.

The Lone Mourner

The lone mourner stood, singular against the gray of sky and hills.

A sea of graves, askew with time, now stained by rivulets of gentle rain.

There was no hope here, only the inaudible whispers of a single soul against the enormity of the certain void; the absolute emptiness.