…what, exactly?
Intensively? Extensively?
Gradually? Abruptly?
Publicly? Privately?
Overtly? Covertly?
Legally? Militarily?
Economically? Agriculturally?
Maliciously? Foolishly?
Preventively? Vengefully?
Coldly? Hotly?
Carefully? Wildly?
Exploitatively? Wastefully?
Forcefully? Weakly?
Greedily? Fearfully?
Expulsively? Expansively?
Yours? Mine?
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Herbsttag | Harvestday
By my calendar, summer is already a month and more gone. But we approach the peak of autumn and the weather is catching up to the sun. This is a favorite poem of mine. I have been lonely and alone and neither need be terrible. But I am glad now, daily, not to be.
This is a Tolkienesque translation, though I did not construct any cognates.
Original German by Rainer Maria Rilke, 21 September 1902, in Paris.
| Herr, es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß. | Lord, it ist tide. The summer was very great. |
| Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren, | Lay thine shadow on the sunclocks, |
| und auf den Fluren lass die Winde los. | and on the floors let the winds loose. |
| Befiehl den letzten Früchten, voll zu sein; | Command the last fruits, full to be; |
| gib ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage, | give them yet two southerly days, |
| dränge sie zur Vollendung hin, und jage | thring them to wholeness thither, and chase |
| die letzte Süße in den schweren Wein. | the last sweetness in the sweer wine. |
| Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr. | Who yet no house hath, buildeth him no more. |
| Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben, | Who yet alone ist, will it long belive, |
| wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben | will wake, read, long briefs script |
| und wird in den Alleen hin und her | and will in the alleys here and there |
| unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben. | unroolie wander, when the blades drift. |
I Get It Now
Nothing in isolation. In the five seasons since I last spoke here, I became engaged to be married, built a new home with my love in my previously empty house, became a husband again, became a father. And about a month and a half ago our daughter Milena Isidora died, hours before she was born.
Try your patience? Don’t mind if I do. You must try mine sometime.
[This began as an intended post to the “Religious Tolerance” Facebook group and ran long.]
I’ve been thinking some about this, somewhat due to any of the times that someone tries to claim that limited tolerance isn’t tolerant at all. If the ideal being pursued is a sufficient tolerance, that’s something which we not only expect from others but require ourselves to extend to them. And I say that not because I imagine anyone here doesn’t understand that, but because it’s something that can easily be lost to sight if one has or acquires a relatively high level of comfort with — even preference for — diversity. That comfort or preference can itself become an inflexibility, an intolerance that provides an excuse for friction where it’s not necessary.
Continue reading Try your patience? Don’t mind if I do. You must try mine sometime.
Afterglow
For all the glory of the thunderous blooms,
I love the lingering glitter of the leaves
on half-lit weeping willows of smoke.
Aduersus Apologias
I should write a whole post just analyzing the recent short diatribe of Todd Akin, US representative for Missouri’s 2nd District, and that diatribe’s fallout. But there’s an aspect of it which is independent from specifically what he said, who objected, and why that I want to call attention to: the public apology ritual.
These things come up with bothersome regularity (two more near me in recent months, but in Kansas) so let this serve as anchor for a series. The public apology ritual goes like this. A person is observed doing something some others find objectionable. The act is recorded or described. The recording or description is published. The ritual then consists of the following. Continue reading Aduersus Apologias
Innocents Abroad
In the summer of 1990 my parents took my brothers and me on our last grand family vacation, and made it the grandest of all. We went by airplane — which was still, believe it or not, a big deal for us in itself — to London, England, and spent some two weeks “overseas,” first in Wales and then in Europe, where we took a wandering tour almost entirely by train through Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and France.
I’ve Got the Will to Drive Myself Sleepless
One thing I should clear up first: I am not J. Alfred Prufrock, nor do I wish to seem to be. I didn’t discover T.S. Eliot in a high-school English class, and I don’t view that one poem as some kind of modern scripture, to be iconized or somehow lived by or even just to wear as some kind of badge.
But given that blogs are generally communicated by means of patterns on a screen, referring to mine as a magic lantern seemed irresistible.
Continue reading I’ve Got the Will to Drive Myself Sleepless