I was born during the 1950s. The middle class continued to disengage from “manual labor”, focusing on abstraction over action. Information over communication. Commodity over community. C. Wright Mills observed that work no longer had intrinsic meaning.  The meaning of work became increasingly extrinsic for men, women and their families.   Middle class blue collars gave way to white collars, suits and ties.  “Business Casual” hybrid Zoom remoteness.

Family farms?  Mostly a memory .   A streaming consumer culture subservient to monetized networks, under threats of nation states in constant war, allowing unmasked greed to rape this precious planet.   A culture of screened in wounded souls in need for poetry - the searing love songs, joyful chants, contemplative silence.

With significant naivete and gullible optimism, needing a regular paycheck, I plunged into the work world without ambition or pressing desires to amass wealth or title.  

I negotiated.  What I truly loved – poetry - was kept at arm’s length.  I did not publish my own “works”. I launched Glitch, a small alternative literary magazine.  Much later, in dire need, I reassembled my heart, learned to breathe, reuniting with old friends. Returned to writing poetry with an eye on atomic submarine shipyard experiences and beyond.   And now, as expressed eloquently by Wendell Berry: 

“What I stand for is what I stand on.”