The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of paraheliotropic trees

Initial thoughts:

Poor Mill, dead too soon.

A city destroyed, devastated. A people with their back broken. The storm.

Me watching it happen from Washington DC, five years ago.

Language and people and the dignity of being poor. You should be able to be poor in this country.

Images: the Great Indian Chief, emerging from the darkness. A man, yes, but also something else.

There are myths in America; American Gods; brought here from across the Middle Passage. Smuggled in Hope Chests. Forged in blood and crimes against humanity. A New World, they called it. The Father of Waters goes unvexed to the Sea. Abraham Lincoln. Asynchronously the bullet is always in his brain. I’ve seen the pillow where his life bled out.

No one ever talks about President McKinley, dead at an anarchists’ hand. Or Sacco and Vanzetti of Braintree, Mass. Or strange fruit hanging in trees. White hoods.