George and the Placenta

Fancy, the grey mare, gave birth to her colt yesterday. Instead of waiting for some murky dusk to slip out the baby, it happened in the afternoon, hot and heavy. Exciting as it was, we nearly forgot the wet sac that came with the baby. So while Archie tested out his new legs in the feild and his funny knees matched his funny eyes (one brown, one blue) something else was left behind of equal wonder and beauty.

Corinne, the barnhead, held back her excited dog from the fleshy placenta: gripping him by the collar and butting her hip and leg into his side to close him away.

"Easy, George!" She said. "Not for you!"

George is a good dog, some sort of labrodor breed. He has his own agenda. Sometimes I see him jumping into the horse water trough on hot days. Other times he wanders among people, not looking on either side until he finds Corinne. She is never far from him.

Corinne kept the placenta over ice, to show the kids that came through. We examined the skin, the hundreds of veins that covered it, better than any leaf. It was a fine bit of engineering; and I couldn't understand why something so complete and well thought out would pass right through the body. Wouldn't Fancy want to keep that? I touched it with my finger.

The week passed on and I imagined that George the good dog had eaten the placenta meal because he was wild and his own self and he would devour the placenta and it would nourish him. Instead, the smell from the top barn wasn't of horses and dirt and hay. It was the sickly stench of meat like the time I accidently left the thrown away chicken in the trash instead of taking it to the dumpster.

4th of July

Fourth of July is big here at this summer camp at which I work. A day of patriotic festivities ends with a fire works show in the camp director's backyard. Impressive and expensive: the ultimate American display. As the show blasted and glimmered along, a soundtrack played in the background of old-fashioned marches and yankee-doodle type songs. I felt while I was laying there on the blanket, gazing above the glow sticks and glowstick bracelets, like I was in turn of the century America ... circa 1903. I remembered just then the historical breadth of the country, a different direction to consider than iconic displays of the Fourth of July that are on holiday table place sets.

Last week and the week before I went to D.C. -- saw the monuments. My favorite was the Thomas Jefferson dome. It was peaceful there on the other side of the water. I wandered at one of the quote panels inside though. I looked it up again. It says:

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

And I wonder if its true that societies evolve, if we really become more "enlightened" as time passes. My history teacher once said that each new technological advance promises leisure and enlightenment for the masses. Instead, well that doesnt happen. Is it just an inflation of problems and solutions, more solutions breeding more problems?

I was thinking about that while I was watching to fireworks. The colors traced over and over until I could see them even when my eyes were closed.