We all live on a tiny blue isle
in a ravening crimson sea
that scours our shore
as storm gales roar
from windward side to lee.

We all live on a tiny blue isle
that shudders against the waves
of scarlet brine
and turpentine
leached from sunk slavers’ graves.

We all live on a tiny blue isle,
that’s smaller, day by day,
as marshland sinks
into that pink
foam sloshing ’round the bay.

We all live on a tiny blue isle,
like a berry in currant crème,
a healthy mote
that stays afloat
in a sticky blood-red stream.

We all live on a tiny blue isle
and work one job, with glee:
we fling blue sand
with spade and hand
to fight that damned red sea . . .

I wrote this poem in a depressed rage on November 10, 2016, after seeing a then-current version of the Presidential electoral results map, which looked something like this:

I don’t often get political here on any partisan basis (though I presume my allegiances are clear), since nobody needs yet another voice howling into the Twitiotsphere about that which each of us feels is obvious, creating ever more repetitive echoes in our respective chambers of cognizant isolation. But as I’ve been (mostly) happily following the 2022 midterm election results, I re-read “Tiny Blue Isle” and remain pleased with it as an original take on a tiresome topic, so I am sharing it again today. Take it as you will.

The last time I posted an update of the poem here, Marcia and I had just participated in the dumpster fire that was the 2020 Iowa Democratic Caucus, which was appalling in the moment, and even more so in hindsight. Never again, America, please?  This time around, from our new home in Arizona, Marcia worked actively on behalf of the Democrats of the Red Rocks in their get-out-the-vote efforts, a much better organized affair with much better results. We have been pleased in recent months that, by the yard sign count metric, our little isolated neighborhood is indeed a Tiny Blue Isle tucked away in the corner of a deep red county. We picked good when selecting this home, for that and so many other reasons.

Yes, we did lose our good incumbent Democratic Congressman to a MAGA candidate, due entirely to 2020 redistricting that shoved large swaths of the old district’s Democrats into other buckets. But that disappointment aside, at the moment, it looks as if five of the six Statewide electoral positions are going to go blue, and the sixth will be filled by a competent and lucid Republican. That’s a pleasing outcome from this little blue mote rising from a blood red sea. And as I assess the national electoral results, I’m pleased to see some new blue peaks emerging from other crimson backwaters, and the blue breakwaters holding against the raging red waves in others.

And with that bit of politics on the table today, we will return to our regular piffle and tripe here on Ye Olde Blog with my next post, whenever that may be. But keep on shoveling, fellow tiny blue islanders. It makes a difference.