Wednesday
5 April 2017

— back to overcast after two glorious spring days

Good Morning All,

One of my Peace Corps compatriots gently pointed out I’d neglected to mention in yesterday’s list of historical events the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Somehow I must have just jumped over it; it was probably the most gut-wrenching political murder in America after Lincoln’s and JFK’s.

A university friend pointed out that Gone with the Wind was written by Margaret Mitchell, not Martha. Of the latter, he drolly points out: she "was the drunken wife of Watergate's John Mitchell. She used to make late night phone calls saying Nixon was in on it from the git go.”

I think I threatened a few days ago to inflict another C. R. Magwaza poem on you. I’m not sure the following qualifies as a poem, and I do have a few reservations about including it here, lest it confirm your worries about my tenuous grasp upon reality, but what the hell:

Fly by Night
(Based on a True Story)
C. R. Magwaza

Just above me on the driver’s sun visor
Of my bright red Mitsubishi Colt, clinging
To the fuzzy felt, is a decidedly defunct fly:

A proper Bostonian fly, possibly even a Beacon
Hill Brahmin fly who joined me without a by-
Your-leave at the corner of Park and Tremont.

This was late September, the maples just beginning
To turn along the ‘pike, the fly keeping me company,
Orbiting my head and taking breathers on the mirror.

Back home in Hartford, I left the window down,
Encouraged him to get out to stretch his legs,
Maybe visit our fire-hydrant environs were he peck-ish.

But there he was next morning, his one-month
Life span expired, both front legs in suppliant prayer
Firmly fixed to the felt as to a priestly surplice.

It is now mid-December, and we have been back
To Bean-town several times, his tenacious death
Grip on the felt holding him in suspended animation.

He does not look dead: that’s the problem, his wings
In tact, his legs jigging and jiving depending on the road,
And when I crack the window looking downright lively.

I wonder if he somehow sensed his end was near.
Did he have a bucket list, this gallivant to Hartford,
So he could boast to his buddies back at Dooley’s Tavern?

Does he regard himself as an insect Jeremy Bentham,
The founder of utilitarianism, who in his will had himself
Stuffed and put on display at University College London?

Yes, I do know hanging around with Musca domestica,
Especially dead ones, is generally frowned upon. I’ll give him
‘Til Christmas, then let him out back at Park and Tremont.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. As I mentioned, that is based on a true story. In fact, my friend the fly is still clinging to the felt of my Colt, but otherwise seems peaceful. I shall keep you appraised of any further developments.