Time
Capsule is a weekly series featuring the writing of Robert Gibbons
Dear Mike Mellor:
It’s a bit before eight in the morning up here in Portland, where the overnight low was five below. In the kitchen with blinds shut across the bay window, I can still make out brittle dogwalkers faithful to their unenviable task. Venice Radio is tossing the B-minus work of François Devienne (1758-1803) across waves trying to lighten, if not warm things up. However, three baked potatoes, one sweet in the oven since seven help raise the temp. Needless to say, we’ve given thought to, said a prayer for, & hope others out there today offer compassion to the homeless. At this moment I have a particular couple in mind, what with her heavy under five layers with some kind of magnifier constantly held before her eyes & face like a veil under her hood, while the guy manages all the belongings in a double carriage, she follows blindly. They know all the heating grates in the city.
What I wanted to address up front is that we’ve been at this collaborative venture of Time Capsule for exactly four years now, four years two days, to be exact, since you invited me to write on Obama’s first inauguration. Initially we posted something bi-monthly, what with you coming up with images & music to enhance the texts. Soon after, posting weekly. Granted, it wasn’t as arduous as writing daily for two years two days in the Log, November 24, 2007-November 25, 2009, but it has taken a certain dedication on both our parts. I jumped ship back in 2009! What I propose here is a to request an unspecified hiatus. I expect to work with you, again, just as we began long ago in the library. Right now, however, I need to recharge the battery, which thank goodness isn’t hooked to a pacemaker, yet.
Yours Gratefully,
Robert
P.S. Let’s leave the few readers we have at this point with a piece written during the winter five years ago reflecting similar concerns expressed today:
Where Compassion Stands
Welcome pain of the furnace not kicking in on the coldest Monday of the year, forcing one to stand next the homeless in the winter-cold shower. That’s all I could see this morning, the men shifting back & forth in more meandering lines than the straight ones waiting for a bus in the nation’s capital, you remember, DC? The real of the real problem in the yet-again-Republican-run country is lack of compassion. I don’t know where compassion stands among the grand list of Buddhist virtues, but the cold this morning placed me right there among the lowliest of the low, where poets belong. Spare change, madam, trickle down unemployment compensation, mister?
FURTHER STUDY:
Empathy dirty word to RNC Chairman Michael Steele
François Devienne
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