...e'er so gently down

I awaken and it’s night, the return of blue-black's canopy stretched o’er me and light of softness sent from the stars is arriving, coming e’er so gently down. Ignoring the hour, hot water is backing up in a cone awaiting passage through the grind, about to invisibly weave wafts of aroma’s comfort into the air, as water becomes a brew that fills a carafe, as it trickles e’er so gently down.
 
There were times, once, that her neck lay upon my upturned wrist, head nestled in my hand, her angelic baby’s smell there but not enough, the love in my face wondrous and oh so close to hers, as into her crib, I placed her e’er so gently down.

There was the yellow balloon hiding behind the couch, seemingly at hover and forgetting the party of days before, wanting and begging, if it could, for up but coming, imperceptibly, so slowly, e’er so gently down.

I know too well the worst of me, those times I retreat, relinquish control to anger, and only after it’s been dealt find regret braided with remorse because I permitted weakness to sap true character’s will to leave it and grow by walking away after putting it e’er so gently down.
 
At times when 'blest' is forefront of mind it urges me to take this time, my now, to thank the one living between some- and everywhere and I know to give my gratitude, whispered or silent with the nod of affirmation from reverence itself and so few days left, to do so, and I kneel e’er so gently down.

Badly Numbered Days

Something didn’t feel right about its approach.  

I don’t like that others fear it on tippy-toes when it comes up,  while roulette players reach to cover its black space in antithetical hopes of good fortune.  

As a biker, I’m amused that an infamous ‘bad boys’ biker club lays claim to and brandishes it and to its juxtaposed “31.”  

 

On its odd-as-in-funny face, it’s been cast to represent “M,” midway through our alphabet and whose very reputation can be construed to mean “marijuana.”

 

Thirteen is tattooed on my calendar and life again and again this year.

 

13

 

A baker’s dozen, harmless as one of its doughnuts.

 

I’m not superstitious. I confess to calendar dread of thirteen, different than superstition or so I tell myself. 

 

There are unavoidable, inescapable collisions of health and finance in my 2013. 

 

That 2013’s early September marks my sixtieth birthday, there are wistful farewells to youth's bygone days. There’s increased, unwelcome frequency of misspent thought about my mortality that shadow boxes with my moods bank, as annoying and real as the fly you can’t seem to avoid or swat.

 

Should I die before December 31^st, thirteen will necessarily be engraved on my headstone sunk into the limestone and clay of a hilly cemetery in central Kentucky. 

 

Thirteen will will have beaten me, ad infinitum and for all to see, just as it's the odds-on favorite to make losers of roulette bettors. 

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Who's the Enemy, Here?

When I raised my right hand to join the United States Army, the oath I swore was this:

I, Joe Gensle, do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Support and defend the Constitution...against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Skirting Congress, the sitting President, our Federal Community Organizer as I like to call him, may issue and edict, an "Executive Order" requiring me and you and other citizens to surrender our guns, protected under the Constitution.

In an America of choice, I can choose to follow law or suffer its consequences. In the Federalism we enjoy with rights and freedoms born of our Constitution and its Amendments. I'd rather stand behind our Constitution than follow an Executive Order from an elected official, whether his or her name was Mickey or Minnie Mouse, Ted Nugent or Ted Kennedy or Marco Rubio. You get the picture. That it happens to be "Barack Hussein Obama" just makes me want to scowl before I spit.

My own government ordering me to surrender my last bastion of order, America's very last resort of defense? Could, in a worst case scenario, we have to protect our very selves from governmental tyranny? Is there a molecule of cerebral possibility that it can be cloaked in "Executive Orders?"

This is [sic] seriouser than you know or can imagine.

Washington refuses to act upon the illegal entry into our country, an assault upon our borders. It refuses to address the root cause--mental illness--for mass murderers' unconscionable acts of human destruction.

And now we're teetering on the brink of having to swing golf clubs or baseball bats, or iron skillets to defend our homes and homeland?

I don't think so. And they just plain don't think, those Liberal Washingtonians.

Proof positive:  If there's amnesty for illegals, or "Dream Children" allowances and legislation, what will happen to illegal border crossings? Will they decrease? Or will there be a massive overrun of our borders (and laws) for swarms of people hoping to gain for free what others have died to protect and defend and sustain?

It couldn't get seriouser, for, those who fashioned my oath must have been convinced that the enemy may come from within, be "domestic," against whom  I swore to defend the United States of America.

Don't vote with your weapon.

Let your vote be your voice,  and your voice be your weapon while those freedoms still stand protected and unchanged.