Stella Maris Kinread, “Buffalo Bulls Spanish Caves pastiche”
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana, “The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense”
Many years ago you taught me about how to learn from the past. I use that lesson every day, even more so in these times of unprecedented unpredictability.
Read Santayana’s elegant treatise on moral philosophy, “The Life of Reason” at the Gutenberg Project [full text online | download an ePub]
You hold shaking hands and provide the ultimate care: Your presence, the knowing, that you are simply there. You rise to face the giant of disease and despair, It is your finest hour, though you may be unaware.
By the path, a circle of wild lupins hold their upright spears, waiting for news. I can imagine how they toll their blue bells, hailing, luminous, and I bend to them, listening at their hundred open mouths so that for a while I fall under their spell
The fishing has finished. It is the beginning of hunting season. It is the time to pick apples and the time to make cider. A lost flock of Sebastopol geese shuffle from a pond on Stephen’s Green. They do not know that it is Michaelmas.
Albatrosses rise to 10,000 feet, cock their wings, and glide until the sound of spray wakes them. When I am there, silence can open like a sea rose, billowing.