David K. Leff, Essayist, Poet, Lecturer

Connecticut's Greenest Building is Powerful

The greenest building in Connecticut isn’t what you’d expect.  It’s not some high tech, high-rise office using experimental materials or a super-insulated home fitted into a south facing hillside with solar panels perched on the roof.  It’s the Woodchip Central Heating Facility at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, according to the Connecticut Green Building Council which gave it the 2013 Alexion Award of Excellence.  Long before Kermit the Frog learned that being green isn’t easy, power plants often struggled with environmental compliance and a public image associated with smoke, soot, noise and water pollution.  Providing heat to over a million square feet of space in tens of buildings by burning sustainably harvested woodchips to produce steam and hot water, the Hotchkiss facility leaves typical power plant stereotypes in shambles.

Barfly

In Memory of Bill Wilson and The Fireplace Cafe

Standing at the bar
knocking back a longneck,
after just a few sips
I’m ready to kick.
Lots to do, but still ready.

I’m where the clock is right,
and the beer’s cold,
pinball’s an easy touch
with a juke box loud
and T.V. bright.

Not soon, but go quickly
is the joke over drinks
where regulars recall
old-timers and new faces
are an omen.

Average ages on the obit
page creep closer in tidy
paragraphs like biopsy specimens
while we each jaw our own
sprawling novels forever unfinished.

Do we linger just
to eye the ending?
Loitering on the stools,
we know conversation is currency
and life’s residue is laughter and stories.

Crack open another before
last call.  Lot’s to do, but
I’m good to go.  Fully alive,
I’ll down just one more for the ditch,
and the long road leading wherever.

We Brake for Artists

In the old mill village of Collinsville, Connecticut, we don’t just break for artists, we close Main Street for them.  In brilliant September sunshine last Sunday a dozen talented people used the pavement as their canvas and drew vibrantly colored images on dull macadam where tires and shoe leather usually tread with impunity.  Vendors sold handcrafted item from booths set up along the curb and music from a local band rocked the neighborhood, creating a festival atmosphere.  In a contagion of talent, children drew pumpkins, animals, robots and ghosts on the sidewalk until every step was a literal art walk.  The street was busy with smiles as bright as the sunlight.