East Coker by T. S. Eliot

III

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

Saturday, overcast and chill, but not with winter’s bitter frost that is typical for a mid January.  The mind is concentrated, the heart too, by the spare stimulus of the season.  It’s NFL playoff weekend.  I am unsure whether I’ll watch the televised American gladiatoral games.  I cannot rid myself of the certainty that the spectacles are eruptions of undisguised winner-take-all capitalism, — what matters most in America.  In how many ways do we exchange our singular life for a fist-full of dollars?  I am not exempt.

The sadness of David Crosby’s departure lingers.  He was a sweet music man.  I saw him perform just a few years ago at the Chicago Theater. 

Our tune for the day is Lynyrd Synrd’s Free Bird.  The nine minutes of listening are sublime…