Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The calming thought of all
That coursing on, whate'er men's speculations,
Amid the changing schools, theologies, philosophies,
Amid the bawling presentations new and old,
The round earth's silent vital laws, facts, modes continue.
- Walt Whitman from Sands at Seventy.
Now I am nearing Seventy and have learned to appreciate what Whitman said. Earth does not care about what we think, or how we vote, or even if we vote. It only reacts according to what we do and that just may be our undoing.
Would someone read a little Whitman to Sen Inhofe.
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2 comments:
My Dad's favorite says something similar:
"The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."
- Omar Khayyam, page 42 of the Rubaiyat
Similar mood, Tian, but very different ideas. Khayyam was writing about history and moral action. Whitman presented a fundamental fact of ecology, though he had probably never heard that term.
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