Travel Day

On the turning away

From the pale and downtrodden

And the words they say

Which we won't understand

Don't accept that what's happening

Is just a case of others' suffering

Or you'll find that you're joining in

The turning away

It's a sin that somehow

Light is changing to shadow

And casting its shroud

Over all we have known

Unaware how the ranks have grown

Driven on by a heart of stone

We could find that we're all alone

In the dream of the proud

On the wings of the night

As the daytime is stirring

Where the speechless unite in a silent accord

Using words, you will find, are strange

Mesmerised as they light the flame

Feel the new wind of change

On the wings of the night

No more turning away

From the weak and the weary

No more turning away

From the coldness inside

Just a world that we all must share

It's not enough just to stand and stare

Is it only a dream that there'll be

No more turning away?

-Pink Floyd

That one's been playing in my head all morning, after corresponding last night with one of my former students who announced she's leaving Facebook because she can't bear to see what's happening right now. Another posted a photo from her apartment window in Kyiv of the early morning black smoke after a relentless night of drone and cruise missile attacks. She now knows the sound the latter makes as it whispers past one's window. And she knows these things, in part, because we're in the process of abandoning Ukraine to DJT's buddy in Moscow.

Meanwhile, the morning news includes a piece about Marines being mobilized to occupy . . . Florida.

Are we an awful country? No doubt a substantial portion of our citizenry is in fact awful, does approve all of this and the cruelty it imparts. No illusions here that they'll get their just reward in the Sweet By and By, and it's not my job to dole out justice to them here, remembering their motes and my beams.

An awful country? No, it's almost like an alternative universe in which Lincoln lost the 1860 election to some Southern Democrat who then glibly shoved slavery down the North's throat. Recall that a major driver for the regional discord that led to the Civil War was the antebellum version of ICE, bounty hunters roaming Northern cities with the mandate of the Fugitive Slave Act, dragging free men and women of color back to a life of bondage and torture.

We seem to have arrived there again. And as was the case back then, the neighbors of the prey are emerging from their homes to fight back.

Wondering when we'll have our John Brown moment. Or our Fort Sumter.

The clutter at the new condo is even starting to wear on me.

You can imagine what it's doing to P. Dio says he plans to take advantage of our absence this weekend by hanging pictures and putting things away. Cautiously hopeful that when we walk back through the door on Monday the mess will have abated somewhat.