Let’s face it—there’s just no good that ever comes with a hurricane. Or a tornado or tsunami or earthquake or wildfire or mass shooter or cruel despot. Yes, there’s a provocative philosophical argument to be made about whether the latter two of those belong on a list of the so-called “natural” phenomena that precede it, but let’s hold that aside for now to affirm the larger point that human suffering, particularly on a mass, out-of-the-blue scale, is always tragic and unwelcome. Which is different, however, than saying, “No good can ever come from or be revealed and expressed by tragedy.”…
-
-
My friend Sally and I were chatting one day a year or two back and she suddenly noted, somewhat brightly, “Andrew! It seems every time we meet we wind up talking about death!” Upon the briefest reflection, I had to admit she was right, which begat what felt to me like a most natural response: “And the problem is???” Death, of course, grins in at the banquet table of life with increasing frequency and just-plain-reality as one traverses the sixth and seventh decades of one’s life, all the more so after getting a good running start on one’s eighth. The transition…
-
Irish poet Seamus Heaney made a previous appearance on this page more than five years ago with his poem, “Doubletake” So here we will engage in our own doubletake of enjoying another of Heaney’s gems, this one from a series of eight 14-line sonnets that he dedicated to his mother under the heading, “Clearances.” The series appeared in his 1998 collection, “Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996.” Since the sonnets are all printed consecutively, they have no separate title, and are known only by their number and first line. Thus the odd-looking headline atop this post and the poem below, with only…
-
Attending a memorial service yesterday for a longtime friend of Mary’s gone too young, I beheld at the subsequent wake in a spacious social hall a looping video of still images from Peter’s life, scores of them showing endearing portraits of him paired sometimes individually with his son or daughter, other times with both of them, still others with his wife and children as a family unit. All of the photos collectively, in the spirit of this cold gray December day dedicated to honoring one man’s life, exuding the sweep, the presence, the intrinsic and undeniable power, the wide magisterial…
-
Sometimes, as the weekdays click by like a train churning thunka thunka purposeful yet deceptive, the sum of its sheer doggedness depositing me with unexpected speed on yet another Friday with no coalescence, no particular object of attention bobbing to the top from the background sea of ideas for this page, I yield to the steadfast gravitational pull of those near-and-always-dear, almost interchangeable twins: poetry (with its inherent music), or music (yep, with its poetry). No matter that the world seems going to ruin (hasn’t it always been so?), its cruel tempests both natural and human descending with oppressive regularity…