“In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.”- Camus
I can call up their appearances, and for most, their specters, yet after all these years my memories of them are glittering and sharp, as if each in turn bore a reminder of a planetary innocence inconceivable now. Still, they come forth, but fewer than before. I can name them in their numbers and measure how settled I grew in their presence, how tied in to what felt like a […]
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Recently, after marveling at his performance in King Lear , I watched an interview with Anthony Hopkins, 83 now, who said that to keep his wits sharp he memorizes a poem a week, and so with his good advice, I have begun to try to ward off the darkness I fear the most, the loss of mind and memory, and thus also have begun to learn by heart the first of 52, […]
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I think I sometimes use the possessive to stave off considerations of mortality and not only to register affection, but that said, ‘our’ two fall and winter crows have become five, and when they visit the feeders, the three young look sleek as racing cars and walk, hop and sit as near their parents as they can. Young mourning doves, still slim as models, visit and nuthatches and the Cooper […]
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Only their own lives mean something to tyrants. The importance of life for others is dependent on how closely they circle the Sun of the ruler. If they exist beyond the sight of his glancing, disinterested eye, let’s say beyond the orbit of Saturn, a sometime evening star, then the reality of those lives is murky, their humanity erased. “No real person is involved”* in their deaths. Tyrants see them […]
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