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The Diaries

One day before --- Last impressions of the farm

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Red hot sauna, the fire built with pine branches and oak boards.
Two broccoli heads for dinner picked from the Garden.
The dogs hovering, blocking my path, pleading for me not to go.

Clothes almost dry on the clothesline, finished up in the sauna,
Prior to being sorted, counted out

7 pairs of socks
7 sets of underwear
14 shirts of all kinds
2 belts
2 coats

Another hot bath, extra water boiled on the stove, quick rinse.
Just long enough to miss a minute of “Survivor”.
I’ve been voted off my Island, being adjudicated into
the federal Bureau of Prisons halfway house.

Awoke at 2:30 am and should have just gotten up.
But I stayed in bed, my bed, fresh sheets from the last night at home.
But to get ready, I got up and covered my nakedness
with sweat pants and a sweatshirt.
Getting ready for (some unknown time of) non-nakedness.

Finally got up for good at 4:30 am, pot of coffee
with the last milk in the fridge.
Four pieces of toast with blackberry jam.
My jam, from my berries.

A few more emails,
a few more posts on Democratic Underground,
reading what my recent “get busy” email had generated.
Letters to the State Election Commission from Thelma and Ed,
to the Scene from Phil.
And then my own letter to the Scene – a “thanks for nothing” letter,
for the shoddy and condescending piece of ass-kissing fluff they had published.
I could have re-titled their article “Attack of the Naïve Newbie –
Hinton shills for ‘vapor-based’ voting.”

Wondering how people are reacting – right now – to that letter.
Wanting to send it to John Gideon with VotersUnite
and Joan Kravitz of VoteTrustUSA.
I just can’t. There isn’t time.

Packing furiously, filling three garbage sacks
with mail and papers that need to be sorted and stacked
or just … discarded.

Throwing my clothes, my three computers
and my books into the truck.

Tripping over Duke, my dog, one more time.
Seeing Annie, my other, laying sad upon her pad.
She knows that I’m leaving … for a long, long time.

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