Outside of a dog, a
book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.
—Groucho Marx
Winning is such a great feeling,
isn’t it? Nothing like winning. You got
to win.
—Donald Trump, graduation speech at US Naval Academy, May 2018
—Donald Trump, graduation speech at US Naval Academy, May 2018
August
heralds in the dog days of summer—not
much going on—the hands of the clock pausing at lethargy, bad luck, and mad dogs —before finally sticking on hot. It’s vacation time—not a therapist or a
plumber to be found.
So it might
be time to take a breath between innings of the interminable baseball season to consider
the nature of sport and the human need for competition. What drives our will to
win—and sometimes at all costs? Whether it’s sports, business or politics—we as
humans like to be “number one.”
What will
we do to gain a “competitive edge?” Sports have been plagued with performance enhancing
drugs and rule bending, business has subcategories for fraud, embezzlement, and
bribery, and politics is the ultimate game of corruption and defining
“alternate facts” in order to enhance one’s position in the pecking order.
As we
prepare our nests for the autumn winds and the coming winter chill we should
also consider the “art” of cooperation. Too often these days we hear about the U.S.
failing to cooperate with the international community on policy ranging from
trade to arms, immigration, and climate change. We need to put aside the
belief that winning is what it’s all about and work toward achieving a consensus
for the benefit of all people regardless of where they sit on the fence.
As former
President Bill Clinton said, ““When times are tough, constant conflict may be
good politics but in the real world, cooperation works better. After all,
nobody's right all the time, and a broken clock is right twice a day.”
Nesting
A flat lined breast, heavily veined,
Nesting
A flat lined breast, heavily veined,
it’s nipple loose and withered
keeps pumping in measured increments.
Instinct, the corollary of survival,
feeds on legs battered in a marathon whose route is defined by perseverance and circumstance.
The race is a sham, the winners have been
predetermined, but the charade persists,
as if a nightingale’s song was performed
for the opportunity to roost on a branch
laden with newly formed fruit.
Below the surface sound erupts,
laced with a strident staccato—
the call of a damp fever caught between
crumbling walls and crashing waves.
Limbs, feathers and fronds emerge, caked with
ambition, waking with low labored breathing.
Eager incisors and frenzied mandibles,
churn in a determined minuet,
locked in steps that repeat the motion prescribed by the turn of the tide buckled in tandem with the glow of an autumn moon.
Advantage diggers, chewers and weavers,
burrowing, paddling, spinning, roots, rocks,
rivulets, tilted, tumbled, twisted.
Frightened slits watch the dawn,
summoning the strength to make the run.
Dancing flames on the first turn,
torrents surging on the pole,
an obstinate tempest on the back stretch.
Rules disregarded, upstarts in contempt,
integrity waning in the grasp, the finish in sight.
Wind raking the last turn, sinew and tenacity defining the
path,cut with the wonder and anticipation of an elusive refuge that lies
beyond the next turn.
