remember, forget
remember what I cannot
remember, forgot

Maybe its better to just forget.

Forget and move on.

Move away from the memory.

Move away from the memories.

Or as the poet closes:

For one that you remember
    And ten that you forget

Adapted from Rococo by Charles Swinburne.

TAKE HANDS and part with laughter;
    Touch lips and part with tears;
Once more and no more after,
    Whatever comes with years.
We twain shall not remeasure
    The ways that left us twain;
Nor crush the lees of pleasure
    From sanguine grapes of pain.

We twain once well in sunder,
    What will the mad gods do
For hate with me, I wonder,
    Or what for love with you?
Forget them till November,
    And dream there’s April yet;
Forget that I remember,
    And dream that I forget.

Time found our tired love sleeping,
    And kissed away his breath;
But what should we do weeping,
    Though light love sleep to death?
We have drained his lips at leisure,
    Till there’s not left to drain
A single sob of pleasure,
    A single pulse of pain.

Dream that the lips once breathless
    Might quicken if they would;
Say that the soul is deathless;
    Dream that the gods are good;
Say March may wed September,
    And time divorce regret;
But not that you remember,
    And not that I forget.

We have heard from hidden places
    What love scarce lives and hears:
We have seen on fervent faces
    The pallor of strange tears:
We have trod the wine-vat’s treasure,
    Whence, ripe to steam and stain,
Foams round the feet of pleasure
    The blood-red must of pain.

Remembrance may recover
    And time bring back to time
The name of your first lover,
    The ring of my first rhyme;
But rose-leaves of December
    The frosts of June shall fret,
The day that you remember,
    The day that I forget.

The snake that hides and hisses
    In heaven we twain have known;
The grief of cruel kisses,
    The joy whose mouth makes moan;
The pulse’s pause and measure,
    Where in one furtive vein
Throbs through the heart of pleasure
    The purpler blood of pain.

We have done with tears and treasons
    And love for treason’s sake;
Room for the swift new seasons,
    The years that burn and break,
Dismantle and dismember
    Men’s days and dreams, Juliette;
For love may not remember,
    But time will not forget.

Life treads down love in flying,
    Time withers him at root;
Bring all dead things and dying,
    Reaped sheaf and ruined fruit,
Where, crushed by three days’ pressure,
    Our three days’ love lies slain;
And earlier leaf of pleasure,
    And latter flower of pain.

Breathe close upon the ashes,
    It may be flame will leap;
Unclose the soft close lashes,
    Lift up the lids, and weep.
Light love’s extinguished ember,
    Let one tear leave it wet
For one that you remember
    And ten that you forget.

Nations truly great
free, active, in service of
an ideal higher

Adapted from a Matthew Arnold’s Democracy, 1860, where Mr. Arnold is quoted as writing:

Nations are not truly great solely because the individuals composing them are numerous, free, and active; but they are great when these numbers, this freedom, and this activity are employed in the service of an ideal higher than that of an ordinary man, taken by himself.

Employed in the service of an ideal higher.

I wanted to be
a cowboy when I grew up
Mom said make a choice

Ran into the the same problem with my front tooth.

It was chipped in half when I was 9.

My Dad was a Dentist.

He said he would fix it when I matured.

He fixed it anyway.

Seems like I told this story already.

Still not a cowboy.

Still haven’t grown up.

Seems to be some hope yet.

A lot about growing up ain’t all that it is cracked up to be.

My friend Doug was always quoting his Grand Father saying, “it’s great get old but it’s hell to be old.”

I would tell my Mom I am still thinking about making the choice.