Two White Wines

Dinner with old friends:

salmon with red cabbage, asparagus, Caesar's salad, penne with

      broccoli, two white wines.

Jane Jacobs could analyze how it all got to our table

or even how their daughter came to us from Cambodia.

The economy or market bringing a thing of beauty, the farms, the trucks,

such comfort. The ancients knew this too

yet we are anxious about famine, genocide and nuclear war.

How can we organize (govern) ourselves to end self-imposed suffering?

That Quebec and Puerto Rico may secede peacefully at any time a

      majority chooses is a source of pride. Why not Kurds, Chechyns,

      Tibetans and Armenians?

Difficult to write a poem about it. At table, candlelight, we debate

or whine about the other side winning and making a mess

of our lives. The election could be stolen, tampering with voting machines,

what policy question does that possibility raise? War in Iraq,

school testing, prison population. Religion, the abyss surrounding the

little promontory life.

It'll all work out in the end. Go to your daily practice, be a good citizen.

Another failed effort to write what I mean. Such confusion, yet

two white wines.