Siberia’s wildfires are bigger than all the world’s other blazes combined. (Robyn Dixon, in the WaPo.)

 

Russia is currently fighting more than 170 forest fires in Siberia that have closed airports and roads, forced widespread evacuations, sent a pall of smoke across the North Pole. But it has abandoned dozens more fires covering thousands of square miles, with no effort to fight them.

Siberia is all aflame/ev'ry pine is now fair game/for a charcoal destiny/with drought now reaching apogee.

*

The temperature does naught but climb/Thermometers work overtime.

The permafrost evaporates/The taiga

has no advocates.

*

The air is greasy with wood smoke/It's making penguins gag and choke/far off in the bleak arctic wastes/where krill are dying as it bastes.

*

Poor Mother Russia grows more parched/as forests to their doom are marched/But when you ask an apparatchik/they say life there is a picnic.

*

I would not be a Gloomy Gus/and hope that if we make a fuss/our leaders East and West will vow/to save the earth, and not the Dow.

A Prayer.

 

Christ Jesus, Savior of all flesh,

my leaden soul deign to refresh.

Weak and weary, yet proud and thick,

my sin-bred burdens make me sick.

Oh may I speak with joy sincere

of having thy sweet spirit near! 

Sneaky Thieves Steal Hair From Foxes, Raccoons, Dogs, Even You. (Annie Roth for the NYT.)

 

Professor Torkildson has studied the wild life of Provo Utah for years. His conclusion: There isn't any.

"It’s simple: Mammals have hair or fur. Birds want it."

'Kleptotrichy' is the handle

used when birds begin to vandal

hair from off the human head

for their nesty comfy bed.

*

Titmice swoop down on the brow

of a blonde or any frau,

plucking strands with bold resolve

for an aerie to evolve.

*

And the black cap chickadee

will also do hair thievery.

From a dog or wild raccoon --

its heists are never picayune.

*

So beware when you're outdoors;

those little birds can be raptors.

Snatching such a hairy ration

just to have some insulation!

Woman left dead mom wrapped in newspaper while she sapped her bank account. (Mark Lungariello for the New York Post.)

 

"An Arkansas woman left her mother’s dead body wrapped in newspaper for months while she slept in the same house and sapped her mom’s bank account, authorities said."

In Arkansas when your are dead

no coffin do you get, instead

they have you all appareled

in the Pine Bluff Daily Herald.

*

Like the pharaohs of past ages

your hollowed corpse is stuffed with pages

of the local news and then

it's ready for the grand Amen.

*

Folk in Arkansas are canny;

 when it's time to take old Granny

to her final resting place

she's wrapped up like a chunk of plaice.

*

You might say stiffs in Arkansas

have joined the Fourth Estate -- haw! haw!

Eternal headlines they will read

while worms and bugs inside them breed.

*

Let's hope the news won't cause reflection

that makes them miss the Resurrection!

Prose Poem: Democracy dies in darkness. It turns out, foxes steal newspapers in darkness, too. (John Kelly for the WaPo.)

 

TIm Torkildson, otherwise known as 'Foxy Grandpa.'

"Every few years, I hear about foxes that are stealing newspapers. In 2009, it was happening in Alexandria’s Yacht Haven subdivision, where a fox (or foxes) unknown was plucking The Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Examiner and the Mount Vernon Gazette from in front of people’s houses."

I found a fox sitting on my front porch

reading my newspaper

this morning.

"Would you like some coffee?"

I asked it facetiously.

"Earl Grey tea, if you don't mind"

replied the fox.

Another fox strolled out

from the bushes and joined

the first one.

"Could I have the sports

section, please?" it asked

the first fox.

This was getting too much for me,

so I went back inside to make

vichyssoise to serve chilled at dinner --

that always calms me down.

When I came back out on the porch

the foxes were gone,

and so was my newspaper.

My dog Rufus came up to me;

it smelled like it had been rooting

around inside a dead skunk.

"Well" I said to it, "can you talk

now too? Where did those foxes

go with my newspaper?"

Rufus just barked at me, 

then went over to the corner

of the porch with direct sunlight

and lit up a meerschaum pipe.

So I decided that if animals can

act like humans,

humans can act like animals.

If you want me

I'll be hanging upside down

with my hands and feet

from a branch of the sycamore tree,

like a three-toed sloth.

I've left instructions for the 

newspaper to be delivered on

top of my stomach each morning.

Touring Trinity, the Birthplace of Nuclear Dread. (Dennis Overbye, for the NYT.)

 "A recent visit to the site of the first atomic bomb explosion offered desert vistas, (mildly) radioactive pebbles and troubling reflections."

Nuclear fission contains/the work of the world's finest brains/Whether a blessing/or menace distressing/depends on who's holding the reins. 

Photo Essay: A Letter to my Grand Daughter Ceci.

 

Former Clown Peggy Williams Looks Back on Her Decade in the Ringling Bros. Circus. (Stacey Althen, for Sarasota Magazine.)

 

Tim Torkildson, AKA Dusty the Clown. Long ago and far away . . . 

Long ago and far away

clowns did banish all the grey.

*

Raucous faces, wigs on fire;

they obeyed no staid umpire.

Whatever rules they might accept,

at bending them they were adept.

*

Shuffling in clown shoes which

gave the audience a stitch,

they took pratfalls and soap pies --

wore the most enormous ties.

*

All to make the world much brighter

for the average anklebiter.

*

They were savage sometimes, too;

slapstick is not cordon bleu.

*

Clowns created chaos, sure;

but their grins were clean and pure.

*

Where their like today might be

is a slighted mystery.

*

No one wants to give first aid

to the baggy pants brigade --

so the sly and silly clown

of yesteryear won't come to town . . . 

Study paints stark picture of how some get mired in collections because they can’t pay medical bills. (Erin Blakemore in the WaPo.)

 

This patient suffers under the delusion he is a poet; doctors hold out no hope for a cure.

I've been in debt to doctors all my life it seems to me;

From babies to their acne -- now my colonoscopy.

*

Some clinics have been patient and have given me a break;

but others are so ruthless they would shame a cobra snake.

*

They've called me up at breakfast; they have called at midday meal;

they knock upon my door at night, so my repose they steal.

*

Even with insurance and that good old Medicaid,

those medical collectors treat me like a renegade.

*

They threaten with foreclosure and the repo of my car;

they try to take my salary (hah! that won't get them far.)

*

Talk about your pound of flesh; they'd also like my liver

unless a couple thou today I promise to deliver.

*

I've moved and changed my phone number and from now on I'll tarry

not with doctors anymore but reps from mortuaries.

Police shootings continue daily, despite a pandemic, protests and pushes for reform. (WaPo)

 

"Since 2015, police have fatally shot more than 6,400 people."

I remember long ago

our grade school textbooks pealed

with praises for the men in blue --

our nation's finest shield.

*

But now I am distressed to find,

according to statistics,

the cops don't care a fig for law

but only for ballistics.

*

It's like the days of Wyatt Earp

and necktie parties, too;

police are shooting from the hip

at every bugaboo.

*

There's too much gun play in the land;

too many screws are loose --

I hope police and public can

work out some kind of truce.

*

For otherwise this frail old man

that I've become today

will simply lock my door for good

and in my bunker stay . . .