Editor’s Note: So there is the excitement on The Hill this morning, and we could talk about that. The minutes are fading away in a vista abruptly truncated by the hands of the clock tonight. We oldsters have a saying for that, but I can’t remember what it is. In terms of The Hill, there are four major moving pieces to this day, each of which contain thousands more issues. Perhaps we can account for some of them tomorrow, when the new Fiscal year is just that. “New.”

In the meantime, life has gone on in the country. A Shipmate of long standing stopped by to implement some joint conservation efforts in the shadow of the noise up in the Capitol. The results are below. We hope you are having as much fun as we are today. And tomorrow, we will greet a brand new year and a bushel basket of issues that straddle our artificial and arbitrary domestic lunacy. More on that as it comes. But for now, Arrias has this to say about:

Magic Carpets

Author’s Note: What a great day! And I got away with a haul! What a grand time. And an attempt at a sonnet… If I had a few glasses of wine it might be better!

– Arrias

Lunch with an old shipmate

North across the Rapidan, Autumn day,
I move along the road, a Piedmont fall,
Lunch with an old friend, sea tales to recall,
Some rugs to pick up, Apollo’s glorious ray.
A grizzled old sailor? Nay, full of life,
Lucid, perceptive, thoughtful yet laughing,
A crystalline blue sky, hawks on the wing,
A razor sharp wit that cuts like a knife!
We talk of many things, women and war,
Gray ships, inept generals, magic carpets;
A Blue Ridge sun warms, some cigarettes,
A delightful lunch and so much more.
The world may crumble and Babylon fall,
Still, lunch with an old shipmate, best of all.

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