( via / via )

Big Yellow Taxi.

"I wake up in the dark.
In dark I went to sleep.
There is a kind of stark
Accounting of lost sheep.

The day breaks with a dawn
So much like yesterday’s.
I turn the kettle on
And brew a dark malaise.

Things go from bad to worse,
Let’s call it entropy.
The blessing is a curse,
And treachery goes free

Or something. Never mind,
Here in the cradle of
Democracy I find
There’s history enough —

There on the shining rock
The entasis of state,
The subtle curves that lock
The crooked to the straight.

The centuries were slow
Where stood its solid scenes,
It took one night to blow
The roof to smithereens.

It boasts of Marathon,
It boasts of Salamis
Five generations on,
Of hemlock’s bitterness,

Between, the city nations
Of Greeks warred tribe with tribe
Why trouble with invasions?
It’s easier to bribe.

We still read Athens’ versions,
As though the Spartans lost,
As though the prudent Persians
Did not know what they cost.

Pericles died of plague,
And Phidias in prison.
Division’s sown, and vague
Suspicions have arisen.

It took nine years to build
Those columns in the air,
But half its marbles spilled,
Over fifty to repair.

It’s like a foundered ship,
That ruin on the hill.
It makes my heartbeat skip.
I’m afraid it always will."

--@aestallings.bsky.social via

The control tower in Acapulco. (via @billmckibben.bsky.social)

"For all of the adults were like the shadows of grotesque puppets dancing on a wall, and none was responsible. The puppeteer they dreamed of did not exist although he moved the strings."

--Marguerite Young, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling via @anth.garrett.bsky.social via @dreamsofbeing.bsky.social

"It adds insult to injury to have this be the last thing you see before the black bag goes over your head."