Vacation Musings

April is National Poetry month and I needed some vacation time to delve into verse. Thanks to @OxfordJournals for providing access to several articles on esoteric topics. The following is an excerpt from TS Eliot's Four Quartets:

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing façade are all being rolled away —
Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing —
I said to my soul, be still. . . (pp. 27–8)

I am again reminded that poetry distills the spiritual and is so necessary.
I also checked out from the library The Complete Works of Emily Dickinson, which is a slog thru- mud. Confound her use of dashes--

Spring is coyly emerging in New England which means the venerable mud run:


April is also a month of birthdays. My sister and I failed to collaborate for my mom's present and each sent her the exact flower arrangement from the same company. I also called to wish her happy birthday on the wrong day. I claim head injury/and or stroke;). I also sent my Republican father a book of collected short stories from NPR's The Moth. Children are always trying to get their parents to join them on ground they feel is sacred. See me, see me,

Finally, my husband and I have acquiesced and are taking badminton lessons. Very nuanced game except when I play it.

Found time. May we all have it.