By Joel Kabakov

The day he left

two hawks were sited

copulating in the sky

above the lake

put there by a poet

returning from exile,

driven to lie

about all truths

By Marina LaPalma

Most thinkers who have reflected upon human fulfillment, on the finding of meaning in life, have told us that “work”, particularly creative, intellectual, world-shaping activity is integral to that. For centuries, while expected, as wives, helpers, housekeepers, and muses, to produce and reproduce the materials and the conditions for meaningful work, women were locked out of much of what was recognized as “meaningful”. The responsibility for the production and care of children, for household maintenance, for the cultivation of family networks, for the provision of daily sustenance fell on women pretty much everywhere, and in less developed societies that included the burden of agriculture and the hauling of fuel and water. The meaningful, “important” stuff – science, government, academia, the arts – was jealously guarded as the realm of men, who made sure that females were prohibited from accessing the education or self-definition necessary to carry out any such endeavors.

By Yuan Changming 

1. Don’t argue with any numbers, but just follow the google algorithm;

2. Abide by American interest rather than international law;

3. Whatever game Uncle Sam is up to play, join the team led by him;

4. Always shore up the green back, white face and purple heart;

5. Remember: information is always might, whereas power is always right;

By Paul R. Abramson

He has been a kind of cartoon leader, Mark Danner wrote in a recent New York Review of Books article, shouting and gesticulating…with frenetic ferocity. And it has taken nature, not man, in its embodiment as a deadly virus to show the fatal limits of his  [unscrupulous] imagination. 

With a preamble like that, how does one write a song about a pandemic where veracity is preserved, and subtlety and allegory matter?

You say it’s ok, I’ve nothing to fear.

Well, this ain’t Kansas, let’s get that clear 

Well, this ain’t Kansas is an obvious reference to the movie The Wizard of Oz. Courtesy of a tornado, Dorothy was transported to the Land of Oz, and her bewilderment was expressed accordingly: Toto, I’ve a feeling were not in Kansas anymore. That sentiment also seemed to be an especially fitting opening salvo to Trump’s unconscionable assurances about the pandemic. And let’s get that clear. The remainder of this first verse then introduces a fundamental concern voiced by applied mathematicians who model pandemics, the unknown unknowns as it were.  

By Cheryl L. Caesar, Ph.D.

I’m sitting on the edge of my chair, scrolling through the news. It’s one week to the inauguration of Joe Biden as President. I’m angry every day, frustrated, disgusted – and hopeful and excited. I’m thinking of a time thirty years ago… 

I’m sitting on the edge of the rust-colored corduroy Clic-Clac. It’s a French sofa-bed that folds sideways; if you put too much weight at the edges, it can flip over. I haven’t had to worry about this lately, because my husband hasn’t been there. Retired, he likes to travel between Paris and Tuscany every six months or so. Now he’s sitting in the leather easy chair in a dark suit and tie, smoking Gauloises and drinking whiskey. That’s what he does every day, wherever he’s living. I used to find the suit impressive – what American man would put it on every day to sit at home? Now I wonder what the point is. 

“You might as well let me go.”

By Peter Asco                   

 In quiet innocence sits the bird

to simply await ‘till brake of day

without expectations on a branch it rests

in relaxation but still alert

barely moving as darkness falls

rocking along the gentle breeze

like just another leaf on the tree

I sense no thoughts, no future plots,

I feel the peace within its soul.