Leaving Michigan. Another family vacation, swimming in the lake, sitting under a beach sun, watching four grandchildren play – becomes memory. And the country, the world staggers on, to what end as always, is unknowable. Woke up this morning to read of the President of the United State’s threats to Rosie O’Donnell to remove…
Our fourth day in France featured a pilgrimage to Chartres. Could one conclude that the cathedral at Chartres is one of the wonders of the world? Yesterday in conversation with three Parisians we mentioned our plans to visit Chartres. Their eyes became wide, they assured us Chartres was amazing. The story of this great…
A View from the Quarter, March 12th, 1965 we are in a terrible hurry to die as large Negroes break the pavement our fingers tremble on dark coffee cups as this city all the cities lie spread-legged dipped into with beak, I awaken to pull a shade open I awaken to black men and white…
But granting that someone did sayin all seriousness thatthe poets lie too much: he was right – we do lie too much. We also know too little,and are bad learners: so we are obliged to lie. And which of us poets has not adulterated his wine?Many a poisonous messhas evolved in our cellars:many an…
Waking to an overcast day. A stiff wind continues to blow. There’s some relief from the high gusts of yesterday which transported a dust storm, yes giant horizon-wide clouds of yellow-grey field soil from farms to the distant west. A dust storm in Chicago. This is the American mid-west, not a middle eastern country…
My intention has been to learn more about Stoicism. Stoicism was (and is) a point of view as well as a practice located in history 4th century BC. Zeno of Citium facilitated a gathering on Stoa Poikile, the painted porch on the north side of the Athenian market place. This view that you are…
Sometimes I have something in mind to write. At other times nothing in particular has come to me. Life is a moving current, languid, – then that sound ahead becomes a roaring white water. Just attend to the friction of movement, (there’s always friction) some topic will rise to the surface of consciousness about…
Wednesday is mid-week. Sometimes it happens in the middle, one is able to with a backward look, take measure of where one has come. Are we in the middle? In the middle of what? I was urged yesterday to abstain from glancing at my iphone news feed. None of those snippets was positive, “good…
To a Young Poet Zaina Alsous I don’t usually write because I’m too busy being afraid of it. Not of writing but the it. It’s more like breaking open a fruit. Not to taste but to see what bleeds out. Here is a country. Here is a person in that country who has no papers but…
I offer some lines and phrases from the story-poem Stardust by Hisham Bustani. Tired of turning the dials of history. I LOOK AT THEM: they are motionless and shackled, sap sucked dry, faces covered with imbecilic smiles. Who are these people… (First answer) Physical systems change…from highly ordered to more disordered. Entropy The entropy…
