New Poem for Winter

Here's a poem I just wrote that seems to reach back to my boyhood spent in the long winters of Wyoming.

Seasons

These were the clean white prairies of your birth.

So much winter for the picture window,

Snowflakes that mirror the likeness of mirth,

Your heart’s soil is a cup overflown

With silver ladling of her country laugh.

How her green shoot of a boy from the white

Reminded her of the long year’s green half.

Horses rage beyond the snow, beyond night.

Is the picture window a darkened mirror

Tonight? What tall figure’s shape strides within? 

Youth’s years have gone. Age’s autumn is here

And September’s grim harvest must begin.

Will you give him a coin for the final

Crossing, or leap the fire of fondest sin?

Women in the Military Are Now Just as Disposable as Men

Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, recently lifted a ban on women in combat roles in the military. Is this women's lib realizing its full potential, or is it yet another cynical way for our nation's military to exploit a wider range of people? Mary Theroux from the Independent Institute offers this great perspective on women, war, and the military-entertainment complex.

Women in Combat: Women's Lib at Last?