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He thought he kept the universe alone;
For all the voice in answer he could wake
Was but the mocking echo of his own
From some tree-hidden cliff across the lake.
Some morning from the boulder-broken beach
He would cry out on life, that what it wants
Is not its own love back in copy speech,
But counter-love, original response.
And nothing ever came of what he cried
Unless it was the embodiment that crashed
In the cliff’s talus on the other side,
And then in the far distant water splashed,
But after a time allowed for it to swim,
Instead of proving human when it neared
And someone else additional to him,
As a great buck it powerfully appeared,
Pushing the crumpled water up ahead,
And landed pouring like a waterfall,
And stumbled through the rocks with horny tread,
And forced the underbrush–and that was all.
When all Earth’s seas shall Levitate,
Dark shawled within the skies,
Upon our eyes will Starfish dance
Their waltz of Blind surprise.
The sun will Rise within wine Dark
As Argonauts imbibed,
Whose drunken arms embrace that sleep
Where Phaeton’s horses Stride.
Upon all of Earth’s wind-sanded shores,
As dolphins Learn to soar,
All we once were on the land
Shall be sealed behind the door
Of Ivory and Chastened Gold,
That the Mystery solved complete
Shall never til the seas’ Long fall
Wake mariners from their sleep.
— Van der Leun
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
— The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
Gerard Van der Leun
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When she says she needs to take the day off for a “mental health day,” it’s not a joke. That’s real. I had a long conversation a couple of months ago with a very senior manager of a national insurance company who told me that all new hires have to start employment answering the phone as a customer-service rep. She said the Board even had required the new CEO hire to do that. For if they can’t cut it there, they don’t move on.
“Millennials,” she told me, “are almost immediately stressed out talking with customers. Normal customers, just calling for a clarification about something. When an irate customer calls, their heads explode. It’s not at all unusual for a new-hire Millennial to take a sick day to see a counselor after only three days on the job. The counselor then gives them a week or two of recuperation for mental wholeness. In the old days, they would have just quit or we would have fired them, but now we have to run short-staffed because they are on medical leave and the job must be held for them. Believe me, they know it, too, and are experts at gaming the system. I can’t wait to retire.”
Big Don,
Fortunate they are not equipped with similar training and experience then dropped into a combat zone.
Whew! That is an eye-opener.
I am on your premises, and you are an employer, therefore I have a job and you bear responsibility for my every well being. I guess that’s what she was thinking. If you can call that *thinking*.
About 15 years ago, the neurotic hypochondriac daughter in law had just been dumped by a call center run by an insurance company. She had too many absences. She was complaining on social media about how (the company) needed to understand that some staff have issues that need to be accomodated, and blah, blah, blah, etc. Everyone else I knew, to whom I showed the whine, thought she was nuts and in need of a reality check: companies don’t have to do that.
Now I see she was just ahead of her time.
And Casey, that’s a parody, but just barely. I was having lunch with some early 20-somethings. We talked about their college efforts. I said, “When I was your age, one could go to a state school, and work part time during the school year, and full time in the summer, and graduate owing nothing at all. But you have a Vice-president for Diversity and a climbing wall. I hope you used the wall.” I also took the blame, saying people my age allowed college costs to explode and didn’t stop it.
Later, one of those in the audience told me privately that she was greatly offended by my bringing politics into the discussion. I looked at her like she was nuts, because I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. She was clearly trouble, and I kept my distance and arranged for her not to be on my teams in the future.
Welding, man. I need to get me some welding skills. That should carry me till death, and I don’t have to put up with millennials.