WHY?

Down the drain with the United Church of Christ:

In circa 1982

midnight marauders ripped off

the copper downspouts

from Friedens church, Milwaukee

presumably for the value of the metal;

that just happened again out here in Waukesha

at St. Matthias Episcopal church;

a picture in the local paper showed workmen

replacing the stolen copper gutters and downspouts.

We were members of old Friedens, a dying church in the inner city.

The incremental symptoms of imminent demise

like the ripped off metal

and the death of the boiler

and the broken stained glass windows

and the defacements and gnawings of the proud edifice

of which there were many -

too many to catalog

in this journal devoted to the uplifting of raccoons

and to life in general

~ and by the way the Delafield legionnaires are about to unleash

their annual coon feed again ~

(see this posting and other SRN postings under the coon feed heading

http://raccoonnews.blogspot.com/2008/01/lip-smackin-good.html )

But ironically enough

the long-ago pastor of Friedens

a friend unremoved by the vagaries of a transitory church

just recently passed under the above arbor

atop which is perched an elbow of one of those stolen downspouts

a piece the thieves forgot;

there were no funds for replacements;

we should have given that souvenir to our visitor

if he would have taken it;

we put it up there as a symbol (of life after death?)

in the belief that everything stands for something else

and also in hopes that perhaps robins would make an "upscale" nest there;

but so far no luck. There seems to be a lingering question, clear, even among utilitarian wildlife:

WHY?

WHY?