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inspired to post, in part, by Frederick's poems today End-of-the-World Poem And unless the seed falls and dies, and unless the seed falls and dies, and unless the seeds falls and die…John 12:24 As brave as a deciduous tree in winter, with only its trembling to give, I live. Leaves, ordinary,thin, brown, die; dying, enrich the earth; I? Not I. Today is my atheism. For the cruciform tree, a resurrection, seasons, promise, a rebirth. Beauty, in perpetuo return. There are no coincidences, there is a plan, the hope of seedlings, again, again, again… Not for me. For me, the responsibilities of chaos. For me, the uncertainties of matter, the randomness, the ecodisasters, the blasted, dying trees, the impartialities of space, of place. (They now find patterns in nonlinear matter, clinging to fractals, still hoping to escape random, null space and soon eroding place.) Even Heisenberg was certain that electrons would not die, become, if need be , force: the Einsteinian assurance. But dying is no big deal: Only cockroaches live forever. And matter, as we know it, must disappear. Abandon fear. The ultimate change, called end,is already embossed on your genes. And determined to live at all cost, what freedom, what real, if evanescent, truth is lost? In a message dated 4/1/2009 1:35:45 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes: No Deposit, No Return Someone has mocked reincarnation, which that culture takes very seriously; the idea of recompense, in some form, at some time, is like a better Lottery. So a mob, with the warmth and closeness of mobs, chases him through the city. But this occurs in colonial times, and the stranger takes refuge at regimental headquarters. “You’ve caused a spot of bother,” says the colonel, who had expected a grim, aging missionary of his own monotheism with its unrepeated soul. But this is a lad, a smiling scapegrace who says, insincerely, “I’m sorry, sir.” “I presume you told them about Grace, Salvation, and the Moral Law,” intones the colonel. “How everything is rewarded in the next life and balances in this.” “Actually no,” says the youth. “I don’t think one has the right to speak for the dead or suffering, to excuse their pain.” “Then,” says the colonel briskly, “I suppose you said there are only atoms; that death is a sleep like the one that preceded us.” “I’m afraid not. Given endless time and recombination, that conclusion too seems unwarranted.” “Well then, my God, man, what did you say to upset them so?” cries the colonel. “I agreed with them, sir. With a cavil: something essentially ourselves is born again and again in other parts of the universe, and in other universes. And in none of them do we look like this, or breathe this air, or feel anything that we feel, or share any of these concerns.” Been There Done That That bird flying northwest isn’t one of the geese who, returning, used to live at the reservoir and delight people when, past the fence, lines of goslings followed their mothers, or upset people when goslings strayed under the fence, or disgust people with their poop. Either they wanted a change, or the new radar and missiles beyond the reservoir bothered them. Now they stay along the canal or Potomac, where herons pose on one leg and turtles on logs for as long, apparently, as it took them to evolve, or until the Greenland ice sheet slips off and drowns them. That bird is a heron, elegant and silent, its head and neck the shape of the failed Concorde. In fall I gain IQ points. In spring I lose them, but used to regain and now at least remember as much of the body as I used. And partial, sketchy images, not of the past but what things in the past represented. It’s a distinction I must insist on. Otherwise I risk accepting spring, and that spring isn’t mine, and death, the soft focus and general second-rateness of things. Rather the way Lenin said he couldn’t listen (couldn’t “afford,” actually, to listen) to Beethoven, for it made him want to say nice things to people, make them smile, pat their shoulders with awkward, accommodating gestures. **************Worried about job security? Check out the 5 safest jobs in a recession. (http://jobs.aol.com/gallery/growing-job-industries?ncid=emlcntuscare00000003)