shape future that will be determined by what we do in the present
Once the war in Ukraine started, I often found it difficult to write a haiku on a daily basis.
To fill in those gaps, I turned to this entry, originally posted on March 6, 2022 and created several haiku to fill in gaps.
Please forgive this effort on my part to produce a daily haiku in retrograde fashion but as I like to say, my blog my rules.
Suffice it to say, this entry may not have been created on this date and this essay was not written for today but then the essay itself is somewhat timeless in its application.
Despair is a delusion of confidence that asserts it knows what’s coming, perhaps a tool of those who like to feel in control, even if just of the facts, when in reality, we can frame approximate parameters, but the surprises keep coming.
Anyone who makes a definitive declaration about what the future will bring is not dealing in facts.
The world we live in today was utterly unforeseen and unimaginable on many counts, the world that is coming is something we can work toward but not something we can foresee.
We need to have confidence that surprise and uncertainty are unshakable principles, if we want to have confidence in something.
And recognize that in that uncertainty is room to act, to try to shape a future that will be determined by what we do in the present.
Recognize that in that uncertainty is room to act.
I have been told that the symbol of Ukraine is the sunflower.
I find it, well, comforting, or fitting, or entirely appropriate that Vincent Van Gogh let out so much of his expression through sunflowers.
While I agree and endorse that We need to have confidence that surprise and uncertainty are unshakable principles, if we want to have confidence in something.
I agree too with the statement that the world we live in today was utterly unforeseen and unimaginable on many counts.
But I also am comforted knowing that when the when Moses came down Mt. Sinai with the 10 commandments and he wrote the the first five books of the Bible, God knew that it wouldn’t be long until I was reading those books on something called an iPhone.
at the violet hour eyes turn upward from the desk human engine waits
Part of the series of Haiku inspired by The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot and the article, ‘It takes your hand off the panic button’: TS Eliot’s The Waste Land 100 years on by Andrew Dickson.
Mr. Dickson asks, ‘Is it genuinely one of the greatest works in the language, or – as the poet once claimed – just “a piece of rhythmical grumbling“?’
Readers of this blog may remember that from time to time I struggle with the weight of effort of producing a daily Haiku and any thoughts I may have about the words and time that went in the Haiku that day.
This daily schedule of missing a day can bring on a personal mental paralysis wherein writing these entries becomes impossible.
I learned to deal with this by not dealing with it and let it go.
Then when I look at my register of entries and see blank days with no post, I will grab a topic or book or poem for a source and produce a series of Haiku to fill in those blank dates.
This is one of the great benefits of this effort being my blog and my blog, my rules.
It IS cricket because I say it is.
It is ‘according to Hoyle’ because I say it is.
Thus I have this series based on ‘The Wasteland.’
A thoroughly enjoyable connection of wordplay and source of endless discussion in the search for meaning.
For myself, I like that bit about a piece of rhythmical grumbling by Mr. Eliot so said Mr. Eliot.
I have remembered this story before in these posts, but it reminds me of a story told by the actor Rex Harrison.
Mr. Harrison recounted rehearsing a play by George Bernard-Shaw and that the company was having a difficult time with a certain scene when, wonder of wonder, Bernard-Shaw himself dropped by to watch rehearsal.
Mr. Harrison tells how great this was as they went to the play write and asked how did he see this scene – what was he striving for?
Bernard-Shaw asked for a script and read over the scene, read it over again and a third time, then looked up and said, “This is rather bad isn’t it.”
boats of mine boating other little children shall bring my boats ashore
Adapted from Where Go the Boats? by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894).
Dark brown is the river. Golden is the sand. It flows along for ever, With trees on either hand.
Green leaves a-floating, Castles of the foam, Boats of mine a-boating— Where will all come home?
On goes the river And out past the mill, Away down the valley, Away down the hill.
Away down the river, A hundred miles or more, Other little children Shall bring my boats ashore.
I thought it was fitting that Mr. Stevenson also wrote Treasure Island and I was on an island, looking at these boats, with my Granddaughter Dallas and all I could think was the verse in the Bible, For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:21).
And my treasure wasn’t in the boats.
I also cannot help but think of my sixth grade class at Crestview Elementary School in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
As I think of it, many of my teachers started the day reading to us.
Saying that I realize that for the years, 4th, 5th and 6th grade, I had 2 teachers.
Miss Critchell was my teacher for 4th and 5th and Mr. Vanderwheel was my teacher in 6th grade.
Miss Critchell was a rookie and Mr. Vanderwheel had been at Crestview forever.
I can picture them in the mornings getting coffee and Miss Critchell having a nervous stomach about walking into the classroom and not knowing where to begin and Mr. Vanderwheel saying something like, “you know what works for me …”
We would all gather on the playground and blacktop as we called it, outside the school doors and wait for the first bell.
That was the signal to line up by class in front of the glass doors that led into the scool.
Crestview was U shaped and had an entrances to the building off the blacktop at the top of each arm of the U.
Facing the school looking at the top of the U, the left hand side was the 4th thru 6th grade side.
The big kids.
The side that had one large set of boys and girls restrooms off the main hallway.
The right hand side was the K thru 3rd grade side.
The little kids.
The rooms on this side had restrooms in the classroom which was great when you had to throw up.
The restroom in the Kindergarten was an in-room restroom and for some reason, the light switch was on the outside. This made for great fun when someone was in the restroom and the light could be turned off by anybody else.
Not that I would have done anything like that.
That first bell would ring and we would all line up.
We lived so close that many times my Mom would yell, “I heard the first bell!” and we would run out the door still getting dressed or eating a pop tart.
We lived a block down the hill from school and could hear all the bells as they rang.
Every once in a while due to power surge or outage or something those bells would go off on their own.
Sometimes on weekends and sometimes even in the summer.
Time change weekend always seemed to mess them up.
One time I remember, but I don’t remember how old I was, they went off in the middle of the night and rang for what seems like over an hour.
We always wondered who got in trouble for that one and we knew someone got in trouble because our neighbor across the street was Mrs. Schad, who was Chairperson of the school board for as long as I was in school and we knew she had to have been woken up by the sound of the bell as well.
Maybe that is why they got turned off.
As an aside, for the longest time the Grand Rapids Public Schools never closed, never missed a day, for snowy weather. When Mrs. Schad would be interviewed by local media, she would always say she looked out her window and the children were having no problem getting to school.
Those children were US.
We often talked about walking out into the snow and collapsing in fatigue in front of her house but we never did.
After the first bell, all the teachers came and lined up at the different entrances.
The hallways that ended at the top of the arms of the U were walled with glass windows and the doors were steel framed glass and the teachers would all stand there looking out at their day waiting to burst in on them.
Then the second bell would ring and the doors would open and we would file in and tramp down to our class room.
The halls were lined with long rows of pegs and we would hang up our coats and arrange boots and mittens and hats.
In the winter and on rainy days, the hallways were a swamp and everything was damp.
As fast as we could, we got into our classrooms and sat at our assigned seats.
I can’t remember if there was one more bell or if the clock just got to 9AM but the day would start when the two flag monitors, a boy and a girl, chosen by rotation, we all had to take a turn, would walk to the front of the class to spread the flag that stood in the front of the classroom.
One kid took a corner of the flag and stretched the flag out best they could.
The other kid grabbed a hold of the flag pole so the flag wouldn’t fall down.
With right hand over heart, (because the heart was on the right and your right hand was the hand ‘closest’ to the heart – at least that’s what I remember being told) we recited the pledge of allegiance.
I have to ask, is this still done today?
With the pledge over we would sing a patriotic song , usually America the Beautiful or America (My Country ’tis of thee).
I always wanted to sing the “Internationale”.
I didn’t know the words but I knew OF the song from some where in my reading.
Years later in the movie UNSTRUNG HEROS where the little kid hero sings the Internationale and is dragged out in the hallway yelling about rights for the oppressed workers of the world, I was seeing a missed opportunity.
With the song over, we all sat at our desks, the flag monitors returned to their seats and when I was in 4th, 5th and 6th grade, the teacher took out a book and began to read out loud.
Miss Critchell read Charlottes Web, Trumpet of the Swan and Henry Huggins books as I remember it.
Mr. Vanderwheel read “Treasure Island”.
I don’t know if it is a sign of my old age or what, but in my mind, in my memory, I cannot recall anything as spellbinding as Mr. Vanderwheel reading that old book.
Think of that great word.
Spellbinding.
As if bound by a spell.
That is just what it was like.
I know I was taken over by the story and it seems to me that I wasn’t the only one as the classroom was STILL.
Spellbound.
Mr. Vanderwheel made the story come alive.
I wasn’t just listening to the reading.
I was there.
To this day, I will take a square of paper and draw a black circle on it and write 7PM on it. Then I’ll give the paper to someone or leave it on their desk and walk away. Every once in a while, someone would say ‘A BLACK SPOT, Oh no!!”, but I haven’t had anyone figure out what I was doing in forever.
Mr. Vanderwheel just read, with some affectation to his voice for the pirates arrrrrrrgh and Ben Gunn’s voice asking for cheese, but for the most part he let the words trigger our own imagination.
Mr. Vanderwheel also was watching the text and knew the story so that he would be reading something like, “‘There was a Knock on the door. Jim opened the door and ….’ and then Mr. Vanderwheel would pause and say, “We’ll stop right there this morning.”
And the class would go “oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
Treasure Island has been made into a movie 4 or 5 times and I have seen them all and been disappointed in them all.
None of the movies can come close to the way I saw it my mind when Mr. Vanderwheel read to us each morning.
The morning reading accomplished a lot things and eased the class into each day but it also an incredible gift.
I look at all the gadgets and items available to day that offer to stimulate learning and imagination.
All the games, devices, videos and such and all the wonderful things kids have today.
And I think of Mr. Vanderwheel reading and I remember my sixth grade class.
I enjoyed because of what the reporter, a Mr. Tom Perkins of the Guardian, did.
He did the math.
He did the the very basic math.
GM and the State of Michigan have announced a deal that gives GM $1 Billion dollars in tax incentives over 20 years, — that is 9 zeros – $1,000,000,000 — to build a plant in the State that will create 3,200 jobs that will in around $55,000 a year.
Mr. Perkins divided that 1 billion by 3,200 to show that each job will cost State and Local entities $312,000 in lost tax revenues.
Mr. Perkins then figured state and local tax revenue at $4,600 per job over 20 years and came up with $300 Million in revenue.
Leaving the State of Michigan and local towns a $700 Million short fall.
I thought that the basic math employed by Mr. Perkins to be refreshing, simple and to the point.
This announcement, and I am sure the planning of the announcement went through several drafts and plenty of hard work in producing a memo that, used wonderful words explaining the wonderful benefits of this wonderful deal.
So long as no one did the basic math.
As Mark Twain wrote in The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg, “There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practiced in the tricks and delusions of oratory.”
To be sure, Mr. Perkins, admits that each job will have an impact as each worker needs banks, gas stations and pizza places.
But Mr. Perkins writes, “The state also claimed the direct and indirect jobs created by the project will generate $29bn in new income over 20 years, or the equivalent of 29,000 jobs paying $50,000 annually. Economists from across the ideological spectrum who reviewed the analysis said that level of job creation is highly unlikely and pointed to a US Commerce Department report that labels such claims “suspicious”.”
Mr. Perkins quotes Michael LaFaive, fiscal policy director with the right-leaning Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Forecasting 20 years of economic impacts is nearly impossible, LaFaive said, and the MEDC’s (Michigan Economic Development Corporation) job projection “strains credulity”.
“They can’t tell the future because they can’t tell the future,” he said.
Oddly enough, after writing this, I remembered that the ‘Verse of the Day’ for yesterday was:
Jeremiah 29:11-13 (NIV) For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
I am okay with some one knowing the future and I am okay that it is NOT the folks running the State of Michigan.
PS: I went searching online for what for me would be the perfect image of the GM building in Detroit. I did not want that silly logo on that silly ReCen. I wanted the old General Motors Building in downtown Detroit over by the Fisher Theater. And I wanted to show the sign, GENERAL MOTORS and I wanted it a night to show the sign how it looked with its glowing red letters. I grew up in a Ford family and GM was kind of a shadowy evil empire. In my mind, that huge, multi winged building looming in the haze that always seemed to be around Detroit with those glowing red letters, was the twin of the Castle of the Wicked Witch of the West. If she drove a car, she would drive a GM product. NEVERTHELESS, my search turned up empty. If anyone can find a photo of the old GM Building AT NIGHT with the sign in red letters, please let me know.
at four a m Kyiv was bombed, in the spring, the time when kings go to war
There was a time when school kids learned the verses,
Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
In Russia, I am told, school kids learned the verses,
Dvadtstat’ vtorogo iyunya, rovno v chetyre utra, Kiev bombili, nam govorili, chto nachalas’ vojna
Which is translated,
On June 22, exactly at four in the morning, Kiev was bombed, we were told that the war had begun
It is from a Russian song about the start of World War 2, when the Germans attacked Russia on June 22, 1941.
This morning, I picked up my Bible to start my day and my reading took up at the book of 1 Chronicles, Chapter 20.
“In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, Joab led out the armed forces. He laid waste the land of the Ammonites and went to Rabbah and besieged it, but David remained in Jerusalem. Joab attacked Rabbah and left it in ruins.”
I guess the world grows older, but the world never grows up.
I am reminded of the lines of Robert Conway, played by Ronald Colman in the movie, ‘Lost Horizons’ when Conway talks about how he would run Foreign affairs:
You see, the trick is to see who can out-talk the other. Everybody wants something for nothing, and if you can’t get it with smooth talk, you send an army in. I’m going to fool them. I’m not going to have an army. I’m going to disband mine. I’m going to sink my battleships – I’m going to destroy every piece of warcraft.
Then when the enemy approaches we’ll say, “Come in, gentlemen – what can we do for you?” So then the poor enemy soldiers will stop and think. And what will they think? They’ll think to themselves – Something’s wrong here. We’ve been duped. This is not according to form. These people seem to be quite friendly, and why should we shoot them?” Then they’ll lay down their arms. You see how simple the whole thing is?
Centuries of tradition kicked right in the pants — and I’ll be slapped straight into the nearest insane asylum.
Is it any wonder that Frank Capra movies were labeled, Capra Corn?
I grew up enamored of war and the study of battles and the romance of it all.
I am reminded of the scene in the book, Gone with the Wind.
A scene not in the movie.
It takes place at the opening barbecue at the Wilkes Mansion, Twelve Oaks.
Talk of war breaks out and in the movie the only one who speaks out against the war is Rhett Butler.
But in the book, Margaret Mitchell wrote this:
Under the arbor, the deaf old gentleman from Fayetteville punched India.
“What’s it all about? What are they saying?”
“War!” shouted India, cupping her hand to his ear. “They want to fight the Yankees!”
“War, is it?” he cried, fumbling about him for his cane and heaving himself out of his chair with more energy than he had shown in years. “I’ll tell ‘um about war. I’ve been there.” It was not often that Mr. McRae had the opportunity to talk about war, the way his women folks shushed him.
He stumped rapidly to the group, waving his cane and shouting and, because he could not hear the voices about him, he soon had undisputed possession of the field.
“You fire-eating young bucks, listen to me. You don’t want to fight. I fought and I know. Went out in the Seminole War and was a big enough fool to go to the Mexican War, too. You all don’t know what war is. You think it’s riding a pretty horse and having the girls throw flowers at you and coming home a hero. Well, it ain’t. No, sir! It’s going hungry, and getting the measles and pneumonia from sleeping in the wet. And if it ain’t measles and pneumonia, it’s your bowels. Yes sir, what war does to a man’s bowels–dysentery and things like that–“
The ladies were pink with blushes. Mr. McRae was a reminder of a cruder era, like Grandma Fontaine and her embarrassingly loud belches, an era everyone would like to forget.
“Run get your grandpa,” hissed one of the old gentleman’s daughters to a young girl standing near by. “I declare,” she whispered to the fluttering matrons about her, “he gets worse every day.
Maybe I’ll just go back to bed and crawl under the blankets.
things I never thought would see see where this is going, not pretty
‘I see,’ said the blind carpenter as he picked up his hammer and saw.
This ‘Wellerism” or pun goes back to 1845 when a version first appeared in print.
I heard it a lot growing up.
Most of the time it was when I finally understood something that for most people was accepted common knowledge.
I have been thinking about those things that I accepted as common knowledge in the field of politics this morning.
Maybe I should say ‘accepted as fact’ rather than common knowledge.
When I was in college, it was accepted as fact and so I was taught, that with their 104 seat majority in the House of Representatives, the Democratic Party would never lose control of the house.
Then came 1994 and 54 seats changed hands and a lot of fingers were pointed at feelings created by then President Bill Clinton.
Except for two non consecutive sessions, the Democratic Party held control of the house for 58 of the previous 62 years.
I never that I would see a Republican, conservative led house, but I did.
But things change and a lot has changed in the last 5 years.
I never thought I would see Republican Conservative Evangelicals support a foul mouthed, womanizing, lying creep, but I did.
I never thought I would see Republican Conservatives risk their health over politics, but I did.
I never thoughts I would see an American President come out against NATO and the USAs allies in Europe, but I did.
Then last night, watching the coverage of Ukraine, the coverage turned to the former President and his take on what was going on.
Not surprisingly, the former President is coming out on the side of Mr. Vladimir Putin and the Russians and against Mr. Biden, Europe and NATO.
He has hailed Mr. Putin as a genius.
I said to myself, what is going on here? Just WHAT is going on here.
Then, as the blind man, I picked up my hammer hammer and saw.
I never thought I would see Republican Conservatives backing Russia, but I bet I will.
You can go back to Rome and Carthage where Romans led by Cato the Censor ended every speech with Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam or Carthage must be destroyed
Didn’t matter what Cato was talking about, trash removal, the next public games or fire insurance, he would end with Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
He did this long enough that Rome finally got around to attacking and destroying Carthage and scattering salt on the ruins to make sure nothing ever grew there again.
I mention this to describe this is how Republican Conservatives used to feel about Russia and the old USSR and communism.
For most Republicans the watchword was that Russia must be destroyed.
I for one, don’t think this new Russia is much different from the old USSR.
If nothing else, this was evident in the just concluded Winter Olympics.
New Russia but old story.
New Republican leader and new Republican story.
I can see it clearly.
All the angst, all the conflict, all the turmoil of the last couple of years will all back as again the former President has found another way to divide us.
It was General Patton who said, “Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance.”
Well folks, compared to a depth of feelings over a foreign war, over sending men and women into danger, over situations where people, sons and daughters, get killed, all other forms of expression of feelings, feelings about masks, vaccines, convoys and elections, will shrink to insignificance.
What I am saying is we haven’t seen anything like what is coming.
Take all the scenes that have played out on TV the last couple of years.
Then turn the volume up.
Way up.
I can see it coming.
And it is not pretty.
Maybe Mr. Trump is right.
That Mr. Putin is a genius.
Also those other Russians, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, all wanted to beat the United States and spent fortunes in money, treasure and lives in the attempt.
Mr. Putin might just pull it off by letting the US destroy itself.
encourage the arts duty that good citizens owe to their country
I like George Washington.
I like George Washington a lot.
I hope I am never in a situation where I might have to choose between the General and Mr. Lincoln because I couldn’t so I would break the rules and take both.
I had a Professor in college who complained about the General that the more you read these incredible stories about the General, the more you dug into his past and history, the more you have to admit, that the stories are true.
The man and the legend are more true together than not.
I don’t mean the legend legends – the cherry tree and throwing a silver dollar over the Rappahannock (or was it the Rapidan) and those stories.
Though I did hear of a version of the Cherry Tree that stated it took place in Texas, where the supposedly the Washington family first settled (not true BTW) and when the General’s Dad asked who cut down the cherry tree and young George said, “I cannot tell a lie, I did it.” The General’s Dad said that if he couldn’t tell a lie, he would never make in Texas and the family moved to Virginia.
But I digress.
The stories of his personal bravery in battle.
His concepts of leadership.
His realization that he was the revolution would last as long as the army would last and the army would last and long as he would last so he lasted them all out.
He realization that the United States was going to be around for some time and that he had a part to play as the First President that would set the bar for all other Presidents.
He really did say, “To encourage Literature & the Arts, is a duty which every good Citizen owes to his Country, & if I could be instrumental in promoting these, and in aiding your endeavours to do the like, it would give me pleasure.“
If he had said it a speech that would be one thing.
In a private letter to a bookstore in Phildelphia.
It gets better.
In a private letter to a bookstore in Philadelphia, Boinod & Gaillard, who were two DUTCH guys who opened up a new shop.
And in the letter, the General is requesting a copy (among other books) of The Histy of the Ud Provinces of the Netherlands by Wm Lothian.
This was in 1784.
The same year the General wrote to his friend, Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, I am not only retired from all public employments but I am retiring within myself, and shall be able to view the solitary walk and tread the paths of private life with heartfelt satisfaction.
The General has retired and looks forward to tread the paths of private life with heartfelt satisfaction and what does he do?
He orders a book of Dutch History.
TOP THAT!
Then to read the note he sent, “Your Books being chiefly in a foreign Language (which I do not understand) & my Library containing the most valuable of those which are named in the English catalogue, my demand will be small, but if those mentioned below are yet in your Store, they may be laid by, or sent to me as occasion offers, & the cost shall be paid to your Order.“
I find it hard to imagine anyone today who could admit so graciously their inability to speak a foreign language and maintain a level of dignity and thoughtfulness.
I have to believe that when he said, “To encourage Literature & the Arts, is a duty which every good Citizen owes to his Country” he really meant it and meant it say to encourage literature and the arts for NO OTHER REASON but that literature and arts NEED to be encouraged for a country, any country, to succeed.
I like George Washington a lot.
By the way, these are the other titles the General ordered:
An Accot of the New Northn Archipelago by M.J. Von Stræhlin 8Vos. The Histy of the Ud Provinces of the Netherlands by Wm Lothian 4to A review of the characters of the principal Nations in Europe—2 Vols. 8vo. Hermes, or a phlol enquiry, concerning Languages &ca by J.H. 8vo. The true French master, or rules for the Fh tongue by Mr Cheneau of Paris, 8vo. The New pocket Dicty of the Fh & Eng: langs. by Thos Nugent 2 vols. 8vo. A course of Gallantries, translated from the Freh of Mr Duclos.2 parts—8vo. The rise, progress & prest state of the Northn Govts by J. Williams Esqr. 2 Vols—4to.
start game toss the ball be honest and no whining the gaga pit rules
There is a school, Red Cedar Elementary, nearby and when we go for a walk, we walk past the school and sometimes, cut through the playground behind the school.
In a field next to the playground is the Red Cedar GAGA Pit.
Lucky for us there is a sign next to the pit or we would not have known what it was.
The rules of the GAGA pit are also listed on the sign.
The pit is used to play a version of dodge ball but the ball has to be bounced before it hits you so a line drive dodge ball throws doesn’t count.
Interesting to note that thinking about the bounce, the GAGA Pit versus Dodge Ball argument is much like the Cricket versus Baseball argument where in Cricket the ball has to bounce before it is batted.
I love rule 9.
Rule 9 states: BE HONEST & NO WHINING IF YOU GET OUT.
There are those who might say that more is expected of the grade school kids at Red Cedar Elementary School than is expected of the so called ‘grown-ups’ in the Government.
There are those who might say that.
But not me.
I want to avoid controversy.
But if the shoe fits …
And I will say that the image of putting everyone on Congress into the GAGA PIT really appeals to me.
Talk about must see TV.
And I will also say that Rule 9 could be abbreviated to just BE HONEST & NO WHINING and I would be happy.
There are those times where important learning takes place at school but not in the classroom.
in cold blast I hear rattle of the bones, chuckle spread from ear to ear
Part of the series of Haiku inspired by The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot and the article, ‘It takes your hand off the panic button’: TS Eliot’s The Waste Land 100 years on by Andrew Dickson.
Mr. Dickson asks, ‘Is it genuinely one of the greatest works in the language, or – as the poet once claimed – just “a piece of rhythmical grumbling“?’
Readers of this blog may remember that from time to time I struggle with the weight of effort of producing a daily Haiku and any thoughts I may have about the words and time that went in the Haiku that day.
This daily schedule of missing a day can bring on a personal mental paralysis wherein writing these entries becomes impossible.
I learned to deal with this by not dealing with it and let it go.
Then when I look at my register of entries and see blank days with no post, I will grab a topic or book or poem for a source and produce a series of Haiku to fill in those blank dates.
This is one of the great benefits of this effort being my blog and my blog, my rules.
It IS cricket because I say it is.
It is ‘according to Hoyle’ because I say it is.
Thus I have this series based on ‘The Wasteland.’
A thoroughly enjoyable connection of wordplay and source of endless discussion in the search for meaning.
For myself, I like that bit about a piece of rhythmical grumbling by Mr. Eliot so said Mr. Eliot.
I have remembered this story before in these posts, but it reminds me of a story told by the actor Rex Harrison.
Mr. Harrison recounted rehearsing a play by George Bernard-Shaw and that the company was having a difficult time with a certain scene when, wonder of wonder, Bernard-Shaw himself dropped by to watch rehearsal.
Mr. Harrison tells how great this was as they went to the play write and asked how did he see this scene – what was he striving for?
Bernard-Shaw asked for a script and read over the scene, read it over again and a third time, then looked up and said, “This is rather bad isn’t it.”
tomorrow and yesterday have lighted fools the way to dusty death
Adapted from Big Bill in Macbeth, Act V, Scene V:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
When I was growing up there was a secret agent craze created by the success of the James Bond movies.
For the serious side, there was The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
It wasn’t completely clear if UNCLE was a man or a secret service but they fought againt THRUSH, otherwise known as Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity.
James Bond fought against SPECTRE or Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. Which was freaky if you were american and spelled it SPECTER.
Then there was GET SMART where agents of CONTROL fought KAOS which was the international organization of evil and KAOS wasn’t an acronym for anything.
It was the opening sequence of GET SMART that has been on my mind.
The show opened with Agent Maxwell Smart entering CONTROL Headquarters walking down a hallway as giant doors opened and slammed behind him.
It occurs to me that life is one long trip down that hallway and as our tomorrows turn into yesterdays these doors open and close behind you as you walk through life.
The other night while engaged in general conversation with some guys that I know, one of the fellers looked at me and shook his head.
We are all about the same age and have some common experiences.
Though the discussion in hand about car rental problems in Europe when staying for less than a month and whether the drive down the Adriatic Coast of Italy was better than the the drive on the Mediterranean side pretty much left me without much to say.
I did work driving from coast to coast into the discussion but I did not mention I was thinking of driving across from the coast of Lake Huron to the Coast of Lake Michigan.
So this one feller was looking at me and smiling and then says, “You just remind me so much … of my Dad.”
That was a new one for me.
And I heard another one of those doors slam behind me.
As George Washington once said, “Alas, my dancing days are over.”
To the last syllable of recorded time, life is but a walking shadow.
No Haiku For You 