Cleared and a need to know

In boot camp we learned the classifications of materials. How having a clearance didn’t mean you got to see a document, you also had a need to know. In every command I was at, especially as we handled classified material, we trained and trained and trained again on how to handle, store and destroy classified materials (if it could be destroyed or declassified/reclassified). How to account for everything. I’ve seen the panic, the oh f*ck, I’m going to throw up, I’m going to jail look when something seemed to be missing.

I was in Naples when the John Walker spy case broke. Our communication network was compromised, Navy wide, and we all had to shift how we received and entered information. The workload went up tremendously. The chance of error went up. We were still in the throes of the Cold War, Uncle Ronny was still growing the military, the years of Greed is good was coming up not only as a movie quote but as mantra for defense contractors and the GOP. We turned people out of houses and those who needed a safety net and ignored disease and hunger. And it created the very shallow, shadow that was elected by electoral votes: the Don, the Cheeto, the Insurrectionist in Chief. The man who right this moment should be on a plane to Guantanamo. If he wasn’t holding those classified items to sell he was holding them to blackmail the United States of America; monetization was part of the plan, that’s the Orange one’s M.O. He’s already done more damage than Walker could have dreamed of, and he has done it in the light of day with the support of a lot of people who had no problem with the grift, the hate, the bigotry, the racism, the misogyny, the fascism, the meanness, the petty small-handed, intellectual amoeba (sorry amoebas) of a human…

Here’s a metallic green sweat bee leaving its nest. We spent many minutes this morning looking at one another before I was able to get a clear picture.

         

Also in the yard lately is a Cicada Killer Wasp, which is a gruesome guest but fascinating. Another being I have spent many minutes watching and then researching (The Atlantic has a wonderful article from 2013). 

(Photo: Chuck Holliday)

And here’s a little poem I found in my notebook from April:

How light catches leaves
then feathers, how catkins
reach out to touch her, how the breeze
stifles its endless giggling
to listen to her wings,
how the clouds pull back
the curtain of light open further.

The birds dive, alive with each turn
each wingbeat lifting heat, settling dust.
How a flutter of wings is like a book
shuffling shut. How the book and the bird
are both things that can ease thought.

How the tree shudders
when she leaves, how she is grateful
in return. Tree and bird. A need.
And the listen, birdsong, leaf music,
a breeze hum symphony.