Such a little buzz, the whisper of our voice;
Such a little space, our arms, our legs, our choice;
Measure that nutshell, our brain, against the stars;
What’s a secret tear to those remote quasars?
Answer for me, you, my distant little one;
There, across all time, breathe deep the air I breathe;
Though you never know my face, I see you, son:
Ripple on the still ocean, my memory.
T.H., 2 January 2020Our Bargain
Forgotten is that long past ancestor
Who made the bargain that seals up our curse:
To trade the here and now for that great prize,
The awful lizard’s Cain’s mark, consciousness.
And what is gained? We drop our buckets deep
Into the black and echoing gone-by,
Hoping to drink of its experience.
And hoisting up we find, like Roman forks
Of gold, our affluence has poisoned all
With words, words, words, self-justifying words.
For that too-solid future, palpable
As donkey’s carrots or the fox’s grapes,
We find ourselves merely sand-blind Magoos,
Building a Grand Canyon rope bridge, each new
Plank placed with magic knowing, where we step
Assured that it will materialize.
— Until one day it doesn’t. And we plummet,
Gesticulating, looking up and clawing
At no one, nothing, but a summer azure,
Nonplussed somehow that it was all illusion.
T.H., 17 March 2013
If Leonard Bernstein had done nothing else, we would be
indebted for his understanding of our beloved Mahler.
There is a garden in her face
Where roses and white lilies grow;
A heav’nly paradise is that place
Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow.
There cherries grow which none may buy,
Till ‘Cherry ripe’ themselves do cry.
Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearl a double row,
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
They look like rose-buds fill’d with snow;
Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy,
Till ‘Cherry ripe’ themselves do cry.
Her eyes like angels watch them still,
Her brows like bended bows do stand,
Threat’ning with piercing frowns to kill
All that attempt with eye or hand
Those sacred cherries to come nigh,
Till ‘Cherry ripe’ themselves do cry. — Thomas Campion (1567?1620)
