Monday, March 31, 2008

A Man in His Life

A Man in His Life -

Yehuda Amichai

 

A man doesn't have time in his life

to have time for everything.

He doesn't have seasons enough to have

a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes

Was wrong about that.

 

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,

to laugh and cry with the same eyes,

with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,

to make love in war and war in love.

And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,

to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest

what history

takes years and years to do.

 

A man doesn't have time.

When he loses he seeks, when he finds

he forgets, when he forgets he loves, when he loves

he begins to forget.

 

And his soul is seasoned, his soul

is very professional.

Only his body remains forever

an amateur. It tries and it misses,

gets muddled, doesn't learn a thing,

drunk and blind in its pleasures

and its pains.

 

He will die as figs die in autumn,

Shriveled and full of himself and sweet,

the leaves growing dry on the ground,

the bare branches pointing to the place

where there's time for everything.

 

 

Dear Maureen et al – somewhat old fashioned, but I think nice.

 

Best & thanks for this – Marc

 

Dr. Marc Eichen

Vice President for Information Technology and

Chief Information Officer

MassBay Community College

 

In My Wallet, A Warm Stone

 

 

In My Wallet, a Warm Stone

This morning, I tried to write
a villanelle from a newspaper headline:
"Meteorite Lands at Teenager's Feet,"
but could only rhyme picked it up
with coffee cup. And never
can I anyways un-Dylan Thomas my ear--
"Do not go gentle into that good night."
Instead, I cleaned out my wallet
(today is my birthday) and found this:

Joseph, ma Cherie —
excuse the writing
for my hand is not too
steady right now.
Your Mom was quite sick
from the Bronchostropy.
Now I know how you felt when

(over)

you had that terrible pneumonia.
Coughing was terrible.
Will write later
about this.

Her pen's ink faded at steady,
then turned bold, in felt tip black, with
right now, and from there
seemed to sail through the paper —
in long dash-dotted i's and terminal periods —
like nodules of charred flying stones.
The Pleides, returning.

And oh, that scrap of paper —
four inches scissored out of the Pelham Senior's Gazette,
her message to me interleaving the news, like this:

Norman Perigny was a patient at Lowell General, he is home
ma Chérie
recuperating. James Elsmore, a member of our Club from Derry,
excuse the writing

was in the hospital recently. He is also at home.
for my hand is not too
Our condolence to the family of Rene Page on the loss of his
steady right now.
And too, in this wallet space, I found
her last instructions,
written on the back of a wedding picture shot —
beaming mother-of-the-bride, in comfy
blue jersey dress.
The same dress of which she pleaded, 
Joey, bury me in this.

But I didn't.
And don't, please, drench me with flowers.
But so many roses. . .
And remember, I want to be cremated.
This we followed, but buried the ashes
in a baby-sized casket. The one
into which I now wish
I'd left her the common news of the sky.
Unvillanelled, uncrafted, but
with love interleaving.

          Ma douce mère —
Did you know a meteorite
bruised an Alabama woman's hip in 1954?
That a flying stone
punched a hole in a San Juan Capistrano carport
in 1973? That today,
a 13-year-old Noblesville, Indiana, youth
watched a live meteorite
burn at his feet?

 
Joseph E. April
Director of Institutional Advancement
Executive Director, MassBay Foundation
Massachusetts Bay Community College
50 Oakland Street
Wellesley Hills, MA 02481-5307
781-239-3123 (Phone)
781-239-3070 (fax)
 
There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else." 

Peyton Conway March 

 

Love

From The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran

Then said Almitra, "Speak to us of Love."
And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them.
And with a great voice he said:
When love beckons to you follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

Chris Daniele
Technical Specialist
MassBay Community College
19 Flagg Drive
Framingham, MA  01702
508-270-4201
cdaniele@massbay.edu