Sherry Chandler

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Stoner Creek

The forecast calls for gusty winds and rain,
creeks may overflow low-lying roads
but birds don’t care, spring is their refrain.
Sex, sex, sex the mockingbird’s song explodes.
Mine, mine, mine the black-capped chickadee
replies, swaying in the leafless cherry tree.

The bluebells, too, explode out of the earth,
purple not gold is this nature’s first green.
The trillium crowns for greeny-purple birth,
the peony’s red, the trout lily’s obscene.
Enthusiasm tops finesse and taste
as Terra contemplates her thickening waist.

Exuberance
and not romance
must lead the dance
in the circumstance.l

According to a report by Linda Blackford of the Lexington Herald-Leader, Tracing the White Male Face of the Capitol, Kentucky doesn’t do all that well when it comes to racial and gender diversity amongst our elected officials:

Last week, Sen. Barack Obama made a nationally televised speech that put race at the center of American political discourse.

That’s not a place where Kentucky is entirely comfortable.

This is the state, after all, that waited until 1976 to ratify the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the laws that outlawed slavery and ensured blacks equal protection and the right to vote.

While certainly no trailblazer in women’s rights, Kentucky did elect the third female governor in the country. But the state has never elected a black to statewide office. There are now six blacks in the state House of Representatives and one in the state Senate. According to a study by the Secretary of State, there are five black mayors and two black circuit court justices in the entire state.

“What’s apparent is that, somehow, throughout the 20th century a message has been sent that African-Americans are not welcome to participate in the political process,” said University of Kentucky historian and author Gerald Smith.

But now into Kentucky’s 20th-century political scene comes the most cutting edge 21st-century presidential race anyone could imagine Ð a black man and a white woman vying for the top spot. Some believe the race might just be generating enough excitement — no matter who wins — to help lift Kentucky out of its somewhat hidebound political traditions.

For some reason that I’ve never quite understood, Kentucky, a state with severe problems with poverty and unemployment, persists in electing some of the most hidebound rightwing politicians in the country, even the ones that call themselves Democrats. This trend is especially true in Eastern Kentucky. I’ve never understood it. But then I don’t understand how the coal companies can bring a crowd of workers to the state capitol to protest in favor of mountaintop removal. I suppose, when jobs are so scarce, you’ll sell your birthright for the privilege of earning a little money.

But then you can’t trust women. They might do stuff like this.

But then again, I guess we could be Idaho.