Treat the blessings you desire
as if they are already being directed toward you.




Sun 8/24


Leaves are falling in the backyard, in the streets, aphids attack the tomato plants, move on to the green beans, in the park crows circle overhead, cawing, cawing, at first 4 of them, and now a sole blackbird perched high in a tree, looking down on the human species, and giving its piercing cry: Prepare pilgrim, for death is upon thee.

The French envision sex as a little death, a rehearsal, because the body knows, is preparing. But the treacherous mind rejects it: I will keep these very grade school friends all of my life and I will live on Oak Street with my same neighbors; I will always work for Wood & Smith and love my wife till I die, keeping my children close at hand through adulthood and middle age; I will remain attractive, by any means necessary.

Death is seen as dishonest, or worst. One is not playing by the rules: the wife takes a lover; Jon graduates and moves to California; Cecily gets an abortion; and Dad has started drinking. SummerÕs tender flower begins to wilt, not OK. SexÕs power and energy dissipates through intercourse and one is debilitated, so sweet yet so short.

But nothing is final, the reaper gathers whatÕs been sown and reached fruition, then gives the wife, Jon, Cecily, Dad, and even the flower another beginning. As I cross Columbia campus today, young adults with parents by their side take in the new life awaiting. They have made their death-defying promises of not leaving the old life behind, of remaining unchanged and incorruptible. In a month or two, all will be forgotten as new assumptions and a new community replace summerÕs tender flower.



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