Humus is a very rich soil.
This paralyzing waiting for the next bomb to drop.
A friend of mine has just published a book of poems called Moments of Past Happiness.
That seems to be all that‘s left, and moments of past pain. In an uncertain future we will all probably be transformed into ashes and spirit.
What I most remember is when I was teaching in the country and I had recalled, on an airplane to Seattle to visit my sister, going up through the tunnel they all describe in a near death experience. Toward the light, and then coming down. There was no one I loved up there as much as I loved the people on earth. Not True now. But when I came down I realized that I had been living in the afterlife on earth, and the trees and the sky and the moon and the honeysuckle were so beautiful, just as though it was Paradise.
They were never so beautiful again.
They say that people who have had near death experiences emerge with a great sense of purpose. They are the twice born. If I have done anything in my life it has been to preserve the world and all its experiences. When I was teaching in the 70s I thought that it would be wonderful if everyone were telling their stories. Now everyone is writing her or his memoir. Oral histories became very popular for a time. I have written a memoir and am trying to get all my friends‘ memoirs published. Laura Lam has published a memoir, Late Blossoms: Memories of Life, Love, and Loss in Vietnam. Her book has been published in Hong Kong, and she wants a U.S. publisher.
Charlie Rose on TV talking blather.
Mir is the Russian for world and it is also the Russian for peace. Mir mir.
My mother, after the Second World War and FDR, believed in the U.N. and one world.
Heartbreaking desolation all over the globe.
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The Brazilian housepainter sneezing outside as he artfully tries to repair this old Victorian house. Tikkun – to repair the world, to give back.
Hope and hopelessness all mixed up together these days.
Humus.
I have known so many hopeless people, desperate people, and all they can want is to make you as hopeless as they, as isolated, as lonely. Does this sound like Bush & Company? Divide and conquer. We all have to stick together in these times or we will all be burned to a crisp. Celebrations, rituals, a cup of tea together, birthday cake, Christmas, New Year‘s – will there be a new year? When will they drop the bomb? And something exploded in this earth a long time ago, maybe six or seven years, maybe with the distortion of the election. Can we change course? We are going in the wrong direction.
Can we turn the ship of state around? It‘s more than we bargained for. People are torturing other people with cattle prods. Soldiers are committing suicide. Can we right it?