”PACT

It is written in the skyline of the city (you have seen it, that bold and accurate inscription), where the gray and gold and soot-black roofs project against the rising or the setting sun,
It is written in the ranges of the farthest mountains, and written by the lightning bolt,
Written, too, in the winding rivers of the prairies, and in the strangely familiar effigies of the clouds,

That there will be other days and remoter times, by far, than these, still more prodigious people and still less credible events,
When there will be a haze, as there is today, not quite blue and not quite purple, upon the river, a green mist upon the valley below, as now,

And we will build, upon that day, another hope (because these cities are young and strong),
And we will raise another dream (because these hills and fields are rich and green),

And we will fight for all of this again, and if need be again,
And on that day, and in that place, we will try again, and this time we will win.”

--Kenneth Fearing

Nothing should be simpler to keep up than the meshing of
related purposes, like well-used forest paths that don't have to
be recleared everytime somebody uses them. I only have to
count the crossed out lines in my address notebook to see
the likelihood of that. Well, we are gossamer, and if like the
coral-tube worms we contribute to some Great Barrier Reef,
visible from the moon, that's not a part of the tubeworm's
plans. Maybe 'organizations' are obsolete. And networks
--except as the temporary filament sufficient for a contact,
a letter, an image glimpsed for 1/30th of a second... But i
don't know that (true, the Bank has not bought its new
building like all the others before it--they rent). The old
paradigm, of building to last, still troubles me; it must be
too long since i've travelled, for that's like a great wind
sweeping away a lot of clutter & reducing you to essentials--
it helps teach the art of prioritizing, which is worth any
number of megalithic monuments. Having gotten that, further
travel is redundant--turns into a place itself; albeit one without
any particular topography.

"The waste of fine tea through incompetent manipulation
was considered one of the three most deplorable acts in the
world (the other two being false education of youth and
uninformed admirations of fine paintings)." --F R Carpenter
on tea in the Sung Dynasty, quoted in The Signet Book of
Coffee and Tea

"Grammar of five-fold rose and six-fold lily..." --Kathleen Raine

"How many ages since has Virgil writ!
How few are they who understand him yet!" --Roscommon's
essay on translated verse