A flock of cormorants at the airport was shot rather than delay a flight. Great pines and ancient oaks were destroyed in the night with gasoline-powered chainsaws and bulldozers. Rivers were rerouted to more convenient locations.

Flowers, and wild berries, neighborhood play lots and cemeteries, and the old or unfashionable folks had to go. Sentiment and Nature were for the weak. Progress - gargantuan highways and tall climate controlled buildings and sculpted landscaping, nuclear power and monitoring of resident activity - was for those with big financial vision and bottomless pockets. The gifts we'd been blessed with were met with disdain and wasted on a whim.

Walking was not exercise. Walking was breathing. Walking was what swimming is to fishes, flight to butterflies. What is a parrot alone in a cage with a little mirror? A whale living in a concrete pool? What is a human confined to a room with a television? What is a mustang in a stall?

I'd like to watch the Luthier at work.
I'd like to see the Maker's hands, with tools, vises, sandpaper, shaping wood.
I'd like to see the relationship between wood and sound develop, how wood comes to refine sound, how human desire for harmonic sound refines wood.

Lafayette, Louisiana, 16 October 2012

It was their first apocalypse; they were winging it.

They quickly saw that somebody needed to save the world. With perhaps as yet unmerited bravado, they said, 'sure! we can do that -' and they were on their way, cheerful to have a chance to contribute as a team.

The first time they all were held flat, facedown to the floor, they did entertain some doubts. Perhaps they had bit off more than they could chew.

what's been lost
what might be gained
whose at fault
what remains
(the bugs and willows
camellias and brim
are
breathing
weaving
what's to come)