What we need. Those words capture in retrospect my sense of the exchange of ideas experienced a few hours ago when the philosophy discussion group held a virtual meeting to consider (M)existentialism. The launch pad for this discussion was Carlos Alberto Sanchez’ essay about Emilio Uranga’s philosophical work. The texture of the discussion was…
I In my beginning is my end. In succession Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires, Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth Which…
The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the…
Yesterday was a sublime fall day. In the morning I worked to gather the leaves that remained on our lawn. The mulched leaves were used to form a berm across a boundary section between our yard and the public park. In the months intervening till spring perhaps these leaves will turn to humus. I…
Continuing To Live By Philip Larkin Continuing to live — that is, repeat A habit formed to get necessaries — Is nearly always losing, or going without. It varies. This loss of interest, hair, and enterprise — Ah, if the game were poker, yes, You might discard them, draw a full house! But it’s…
THE DRY SALVAGES* (No. 3 of ‘Four Quartets’) by T.S. Eliot I I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable, Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier; Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce; Then only a problem…
II Garlic and sapphires in the mudClot the bedded axle-tree.The trilling wire in the bloodSings below inveterate scarsAppeasing long forgotten wars.The dance along the arteryThe circulation of the lymphAre figured in the drift of starsAscend to summer in the treeWe move above the moving treeIn light upon the figured leafAnd hear upon the sodden…
Thursday morning, One of my ancestors might have been a common foot-soldier in service of some Medieval nobleman. In my imagination I am back in time, re-living his life, standing in place on a castle wall. The crossbow is heavy. I look over the countryside from the high vantage point to see the tents…
Arbery, remember that name. I am late to be aware of the killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia. I overheard others in the household conversing about his death. The 25 year old was jogging through a neighborhood, when two armed men, a father and son, pursued him in a pickup. Arbery’s path was obstructed,…
This morning I feel compelled to write about this poem. The poem is entitled “Fool’s Gold.” Since a kid, I’ve been fascinated with fool’s gold. Iron pyrite is the less romantic term for the substance. It mimics the sheen of true gold but is worthless except in the imagination. The title of the…
