Clifton Lee
@cliftonlee
"The mystical is not how the world is, but that it is". - LW LTP, P. 6.44. Ted Scripps Fellow CU-Boulder 23-24.
In dwelling, live close to the ground. — Lao Tzu (You miss so much otherwise.)
This struck me this morning as a metaphor for the state of the US democracy.
There's a solid case to be made that barbed wire should replace the Statue of Liberty as the US national symbol.
We hang our hats on memories and hope that beanstalks grow... The age of Duchamp passed us Bye for now my brilliant friend I would take every tutorial on kindness Compassion and cooking with coriander and cardamom Would they bring you back to me.
I camp near Tres Piedras, New Mexico often, where Leopold was before Wisconsin. His house is still there. At one point writers could apply for a short-term fellowship to write there. The last time there, I stopped in the ranger station. The ranger took me back inside the station. Leopold's desk.
I dreamed I saw John Calvin Alive as you or me Shuffling down these corridors In a sort of proto-fascist glee With a bullwhip/bible in one hand And a tooth of solid gold Screaming for more black human slaves Like those already sold...
New Mexico motel signage is in a class of its own. One of my favorites; an image I took of the Buckaroo Motel in Tucumcari a few years ago.
Bring the intensity and passion Bingo has to catch this flying disc to your love for democracy.
"The dogs on Main Street howl 'cause they understand If I could take one moment into my hands Mister, I ain't a boy, no, I'm a man And I believe in a promised land... " — Bruce Springsteen
There are times I feel in my gut utterly alone — in multiple ways — and then I remember all of you.
"Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians? Those people were a kind of solution." — C.P. Cavafy (1898)
Born of the union of fear and despair, the gods born in the deserts become the most frightening gods. And then they presume to talk to you from clouded mountain tops.
I've seen the nations rise and fall/Heard their stories, heard them all/But love's the only engine of survival... — Leonard Cohen
If you travel US Highway 285/Colorado State Highway 17 from Colorado to New Mexico or vice versa, I hope this map I annotated this morning will be helpful. The Rio Grande River Bridge, the direct means of entering Alamosa from Highway 17, is under construction until October 2026... (Alt in thread)
Nature comes back in spite of us. (Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest, on Colorado-Wyoming border, 1 June 2026)
"Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull, from the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol... " — Bob Dylan
The Weight of the World in this world we walk on the roof of hell gazing at flowers - Issa 1763-1828
An illustration of what I mean by transactional fascism. And the cause of the US of America collapse in a nutshell. Mafia ethics.