WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
Gerard Van der Leun
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
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Reminds me of that one time I almost forgot my beer at the bar…almost.
Thank heavens the little birdie saved his friend, the bunny from falling all the way to the ground. That would have hurt the bunny really bad.
Hopefully, that near miss will make the birdie think twice about taking his friend, the bunny, on a thrill ride like that
‘Twixt, short for betwixt. But you knew that, Gerard. 😉
Obviously the bird knew he was being watched, and was just showing off.
We have had, of late, a covey of quail visiting the the bird feeder on a daily basis, pecking and scratching at what falls to the ground. Mrs. was a town girl and gets quite excited to see any kind of critter, and seems especially taken with these little guys. They come running across the wretched piece of grass that passes for a lawn at our place, backbones straight up and down or nearly so, and clearly on a mission. You can’t help but smile at the little bastidges for their focus and apparent resolve, so maybe it’s not just Mrs. who gets excited to see them. Fifteen of them at last count.
Anyway, I was watching the covey peck away the other day when a hawk swept through low and fast and scattered them. It missed on the first past, with the air suddenly all a-cluttered with whirring balls of feathered fluff, and the hawk pulling G’s in a tight turn to circle back for the kill, but it missed again. It made another loop, but the little guys had vanished.
Mission failure. Score for the day was quail 15, hawk 0.
When you are completely and totally done for. No escaping…
Did you ever watch a cat with a mouse? This cat has wings!