Lesson Learned

One of the most delightful feelings possible is when you find yourself hurrying to meet someone.
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Quotation

"I believe that man must learn to live without those consolations called religious, which his own intelligence must by now have told him belong to the childhood of the race.  Philosophy can really give us nothing permanent to believe either;  it is too rich in answers, each canceling out the rest.  The quest for Meaning is foredoomed.  Human life 'means' nothing.  But that is not to say that it is not worth living.  What does a Debussy Arabesque 'mean,' or a rainbow or a rose?  A man delights in all of these, knowing himself to be no more - a wisp of music and a haze of dreams dissolving against the sun.  Man has only his own two feet to stand on, his own human trinity to see him through:  Reason,  Courage, and Grace.  And the first plus the second equals the third."

from The Blood Of The Lamb,
by Peter DeVries


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Dangling Conversations

Overheard at the Duck and Cover Diner
(home of the Scratch 'n Sniff menu)

"Commitment?  Why, that's like tenant farming, or being an indentured servant!"

"As a writer, she is very fond of Meaning No. 2."

"Sounds like he has a split personality."
"No, but he is half-assed."

"People who say risible are laughable."

"I used to run like the wind; now all I can do is break it."

"Young man", she said to me, "Young man, isn't it true that when I die and go to Heaven there will be only Americans there?"
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Poem for March, by C. S. Lewis

Each month I select for this blog a poem that is a personal favorite.  Here is my choice for March 2010.

The Future Of Forestry


How will the legend of the age of trees
feel when the last tree falls in england?
When the concrete spreads and the town conquers
the country's heart:  when contraceptive
tarmac's laid where farm has faded,
tramline flows where slept a hamlet,
and shop-fronts, blazing without a stop from
Dover to Wrath, have glazed us over?
Simplest tales will then bewilder
the questioning children, "What was a chestnut?
Say what it means to climb a Beanstalk,
Tell me, grandfather, what an elm is.
What was Autumn?  They never taught us.'
Then, told by teachers how once from mould
came growing creatures of lower nature
able to live and die, though neither
beast nor man, and around them wreathing
excellent clothing, breathing sunlight-
half understanding, thier ill-acquainted
fancy will tint their wonder-paintings
-Trees as men walking, wood-romances
of goblins stalking in silky green,
of milk-sheen froth upon the lace of hawthorn's
collar, pallor in the face of a birchgirl.
So shall a homeless time, though dimly
catch from afar (for soul is watchful)
a sight of tree-delighted Eden.
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Remember When?

When the singer sang the song instead of their 'personal interpretation' of the song?
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The Blood Of The Lamb

I am reading a novel, The Blood Of The Lamb, by Peter DeVries.  It promises to be a good read.  I am only into the second chapter and I find it to be funny and wise.  For example:

Humor:  "...my grandfather went out to the front porch, where he stood scratching himself in a manner said to be depreciating property values."
Wisdom:   "What people believe is a measure of what they suffer."

Now, that's my idea of a page-turner.
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Robins

The Field Guides report that the American robin is a common winter resident in south Florida but, for reasons that surpass our comprehension, we see robins in our neighborhood only at migration time, and even then, as a sometime event.
This spring, however, was very different. The sightings at migration time began the same as other years. A sizeable flock of robins appeared on the lawn and hopped about searching for food. We have three bird baths grouped together under the branches of a Senegal date palm (phoenix reclinata). Robins drank and bathed in happy communal groups and then exchanged places with those foraging on the lawn.
I saw that the water level in the baths was almost nil for the intensive use they received, but I was reluctant to refill them for fear of scaring the birds away. I was starved for the sight and sound of robins and I knew that, as in other years, once this flock was gone there might be no more until fall migration.
Then commerce intervened. A landscaping company, contracted to care for my neighbor’s yard, appeared with their roaring mowers and noisy blowers and whining trimmers. The songbirds fled.
I went outside to scrub and clean and refill the three baths. I told myself that another flock might come along in a day or so.
The landscapers finished and withdrew. An hour passed. Then - the robins were back! They were everywhere and the baths were crowded again! They seemed happier and more excited by their good fortune than they had seemed in the earlier visit but I may have been projecting my own feelings onto them.
I enjoyed their company until twilight when they began to drift away. Just before dark, I cleaned and refilled the baths for the resident birds to use in the day to come. Looking northward for a few moments, I visualized the robins in flight in the night sky, thanked them for their company, and said farewell.
The next day began with another flock of robins.  Or perhaps it was the same flock.   I say that because we had robins for a total of nine consecutive days!  This has never happened before and I believe it was the weather and that mysterious signal system which tells birds when it's time to migrate to nesting grounds.  It seems improbable that nine different flocks would stop in the same back yard for nine days in a row.
For the nine days the robins were here, south Florida had unusually cold weather with frost in the interior region.  Simultaneously, in the north, there were numerous snow storms including the record-setting snowfall earlier this month.
In any case, I was kept busy cleaning and refilling the bird baths.  I discovered that my doing so did not frighten the birds at all.  They simply pulled back and waited for me to leave.
All over now.  Great enjoyment while it lasted.
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