sic transit gloria

This won't be news to most readers, but in my corner of the world, one can simultaneously rejoice in how well the roses are doing whilst slogging through a slough of despond and frustration over one's mistakes, the malice of others, etc.

Perspective helps. A few years ago, I picked up a battered copy of Loren Eiseley's The Star Thrower at a library bag sale. The chap was a much-honored anthropologist and writer in his day, with an endowed chair at Penn. Auden wrote the intro to this book. There are more than two dozen honorary degrees listed in an appendix . . .

. . . and I skimmed the book here and there, and decided it was not for me, and not even to put in the mail to another friend. Into one of the neighborhood's Little Free Library boxes it will go. A couple of lines just caught my eye -- "the thin blue bones / Of a hare picked clean by ants. A man can attach / Meanings enough to the wind when his luck is out" -- but the full poem ("Winter Sign") isn't tight enough for my taste (even though I agree with the overall sentiment), and that sums up the book as a whole for me: there are so many more poems and essays waiting for me that will hit me harder, closer, thrilling-er, and life is so damned short as it is.

And full (although going to bed before 1 a.m. instead of trying to power through an assignment was definitely the right call). The weekend includes paddleboarding and a wedding and a birthday dinner, along with a story to beta and music to practice and clutter to dispel, etc. Onward!


The kids are all right: this show of irises at a local Methodist church included handmade signs in support of LGBTQ rights.