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I went back, for the first time since I retired, to my former college today, to take the woman who was my assistant to lunch. It was too familiar being there. I didn't feel relief at not having to stay, but I didn't feel longing to stay either. It was just a place I'd been a lot before. Well, maybe I was a bit glad not to have to stay.
Still waiting to hear when we travel to China. At this point it gets a bit irritating, since I have to put all other plans on hold. And if we had some advance time, we could get upgrades to first-class for the trip back, but those will all be sold by the time we get tickets, so we'll be in steerage, for 19 hours, with a baby who doesn't know us. Ugh.
Below are items unrelated to the above!
Poem xposted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
greatpoets
Last-Minute Message For a Time Capsule
I have to tell you this, whoever you are:
that on one summer morning here, the ocean
pounded in on tumbledown breakers,
a south wind, bustling along the shore,
whipped the froth into little rainbows,
and a reckless gull swept down the beach
as if to fly were everything it needed.
I thought of your hovering saucers,
looking for clues, and I wanted to write this down,
so it wouldn't be lost forever -
that once upon a time we had
meadows here, and astonishing things,
swans and frogs and luna moths
and blue skies that could stagger your heart.
We could have had them still,
and welcomed you to earth, but
we also had the righteous ones
who worshipped the True Faith, and Holy War.
When you go home to your shining galaxy,
say that what you learned
from this dead and barren place is
to beware the righteous ones.
--Philip Appleman from New and Selected Poems, 1956-1996 (University of Arkansas Press).
7 The Army
In the middle of the earth is water:
The image of the army (7).
Thus the superior man increases his masses
By generosity toward the people.
GROUND WATER is invisibly present within the earth. In the same way the military power of a people is invisibly present in the masses. When danger threatens, every peasant becomes present in the masses. When danger threatens, every peasant becomes a soldier; when the war ends, he goes back to his plough. He who is generous toward the people wins their love, and a people living under a mild rule becomes strong and powerful. Only a people economically strong can be important in military power. Such power must therefore be cultivated by improving the economic condition of the people and by humane government. Only when there is this invisible bond between government and people, so that the people are sheltered by their government as ground water is sheltered by the earth, is it possible to wage a victorious war.
This seems to me to be a comment on what we don't have here--the war is not latent in the people, and there is no invisible bond. Some go as true believers, but many are there because they joined the army as an economic choice. We have no great man to lead us.
Still waiting to hear when we travel to China. At this point it gets a bit irritating, since I have to put all other plans on hold. And if we had some advance time, we could get upgrades to first-class for the trip back, but those will all be sold by the time we get tickets, so we'll be in steerage, for 19 hours, with a baby who doesn't know us. Ugh.
Below are items unrelated to the above!
Poem xposted to
greatpoetsLast-Minute Message For a Time Capsule
I have to tell you this, whoever you are:
that on one summer morning here, the ocean
pounded in on tumbledown breakers,
a south wind, bustling along the shore,
whipped the froth into little rainbows,
and a reckless gull swept down the beach
as if to fly were everything it needed.
I thought of your hovering saucers,
looking for clues, and I wanted to write this down,
so it wouldn't be lost forever -
that once upon a time we had
meadows here, and astonishing things,
swans and frogs and luna moths
and blue skies that could stagger your heart.
We could have had them still,
and welcomed you to earth, but
we also had the righteous ones
who worshipped the True Faith, and Holy War.
When you go home to your shining galaxy,
say that what you learned
from this dead and barren place is
to beware the righteous ones.
--Philip Appleman from New and Selected Poems, 1956-1996 (University of Arkansas Press).
7 The Army
In the middle of the earth is water:
The image of the army (7).
Thus the superior man increases his masses
By generosity toward the people.
GROUND WATER is invisibly present within the earth. In the same way the military power of a people is invisibly present in the masses. When danger threatens, every peasant becomes present in the masses. When danger threatens, every peasant becomes a soldier; when the war ends, he goes back to his plough. He who is generous toward the people wins their love, and a people living under a mild rule becomes strong and powerful. Only a people economically strong can be important in military power. Such power must therefore be cultivated by improving the economic condition of the people and by humane government. Only when there is this invisible bond between government and people, so that the people are sheltered by their government as ground water is sheltered by the earth, is it possible to wage a victorious war.
This seems to me to be a comment on what we don't have here--the war is not latent in the people, and there is no invisible bond. Some go as true believers, but many are there because they joined the army as an economic choice. We have no great man to lead us.
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