How can anyone imagine what the old man thinks? (Ts'en Chen)
I am certain that the sense of well-being, of being home again is all in my head, but returning to Eastern Standard Time fills me with a deep satisfaction. East Holmes County did not change time when I was growing up – counties had a local option. I would have been in college in April 1970 when Ohio went fully to DST.
In any case, for me the change back seems to release a tensed spring. And the spring brings back that brace.
The day before a bonfire.
I begin each morning with a walk and then read some poetry before I settle into the day — what ever doing so may entail.
A line from the poet Linda Pastan came back to me this morning before I began to write. It’s from The List and is written in the clear, certain, but never simple, voice of the poet.
I made a list of things I have
to remember and a list
of things I want to forget,
but I see they are the same list
Speaking plain, unvarnished truth in the flood of fabricated outrage and falsehood should not be difficult.
Recorded in farm house breezeway
When we romanticize the past speaking only of what was good for us, not only do we lie and permit injustice and exploitation to be forgotten, but we also signal what arose out of that past is good only to the extent it conforms to our romanticization .
Another anniversary of Tiananmen Square yesterday. We commemorate but do not study our own history of violence against protest domestically or imperially — for the most part the bravery of others in other places gains approval. I think it to be so everywhere, in all times.
Protest is political. Suggesting a day of remembrance and discussion for those who protested and why they did so without regard for cause is impractical. Each of us honor the deaths we choose to honor
In a way, we live a form of ceteris paribus acting as if variables in flux will not impact one another nor us, and, indeed, expecting life will settle back to what we are accustomed to — all things being equal — without even the nervous glance over the shoulder.
After re-reading Sontag’s “Against Interpretation”, I thought of Yeats’ poem, The Dawn.
The Dawn
I would be ignorant as the dawn
That has looked down
On that old queen measuring a town
With the pin of a brooch,
Or on the withered men that saw
From their pedantic Babylon
The careless planets in their courses,
The stars fade out where the moon comes.
And took their tablets and did sums;
I would be ignorant as the dawn
That merely stood, rocking the glittering coach
Above the cloudy shoulders of the horses;
I would be -- for no knowledge is worth a straw --
Ignorant and wanton as the dawn
east of the fog 