Children of Darkness By Robert Graves “In their generation wiser than the children of Light.” We spurred our parents to the kiss, Though doubtfully they shrank from this— Day had no courage to review What lusty dark alone might do— Then were we joined from their caress In heat of midnight, one from two….
Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples Day, which is it? This day, the morning of October 9th is dedicated equally to each of these dimensions of our American past, which is also our present. A day to remember our ancestors attempts to enslave the communities that lived on this continent prior to our arrival from…
Yesterday with a group of friends in a large circle, we discussed “God,” considered our relationship to church, our past experience that inevitably effects our sense of what-the-sacred-means to each of us now. One of our group shared this Philip Larkin poem. I remembered reading it many years ago, when I was much younger,…
In the after-dawn hour of 6AM I fell back to sleep. As sometime happens I dreamed a nightmare. The dream “experience” was real enough then. Upon waking what I dreamed seemed as if an extension of my life. I dreamed that a post, my comments on social media had provoked outrage from one person…
What is happiness? By what means do we know if we are happy? It seems that only in retrospect I judge myself to have been happy. My grand daughter is almost four years old. She appears to be as happy as is humanly possible when I push her high in a swing. While swinging…
This strange poem resonates with me. Nietzsche was in a class by himself as a professional intellectual. The youngest person to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel at the age of 24, he later turned to philosophy. Nietzsche was an incessant writer. He was plagued with health problems. Also,…
“Souls that are unsure” Souls that are unsure and cloying I loathe like their acclaim. All their honors are annoying, All their praise is self-hatred and shame. Since I do not join their dances, Tied to their old rope, I am followed by their glances’ Sweetly poisoned envy without hope. Let them curse me…
The concluding appendix of The Gay Science is a collection of poems. The section is entitled Songs of Prince Bird-free, or “free as a bird.” The German term signifies an outlaw whom anyone can shoot on sight. The reader of The Gay Science likely would not be surprised at the ambiguity of the title. …
Saturday is a quasi holiday for many adults, and for children. A timeout from the usual routine of work, perhaps some chores around the yard or house, followed by a visit to the Farmer’s Market. Certainly that describes a Saturday in late summer for those like myself living in a Fox River Valley community. …
I received this poem yesterday. Later in the day I observed hibiscus growing wild in a wetland by the Braeburn marsh. I was excited to return later, parking my vehicle in a nearby neighborhood then hiking over the wetland, dry now because of the summer drought. The hibiscus were magnificent, glowing, saucer-sized gems in…
