The way parents sometimes think...

Found this old reverie in our hodgepodge of manila folders... and as grandparents it now holds true as ever...

Canephoros: two snippets

In the face of reflections on 9/11, Bin Laden--scintillating clarity, comfort--from C.S. Lewis, from St. Augustine.




1. C. S. Lewis, after the Nazi invasion of Poland. University Church of St. Mary the Virgin at Oxford on October 22, 1939.

It may seem odd for us to carry on classes, to go about our academic routine in the midst of a great war. What is the use of beginning when there is so little chance of finishing? How can we study Latin, geography, algebra in a time like this? Aren't we just fiddling while Rome burns?

This impending war has taught us some important things. Life is short. The world is fragile. All of us are vulnerable, but we are here because this is our calling. Our lives are rooted not only in time, but also in eternity, and the life of learning, humbly offered to God, is its own reward. It is one of the appointed approaches to the divine reality and the divine beauty, which we shall hereafter enjoy in heaven and which we are called to display even now amidst the brokenness all around us.


2. St. Augustine, c. 400, in a world of siege from Alaric to the Vandal Genseric:

You are surprised that the world is losing its grip? That the world is grown old? Don’t hold onto the old man, the world; don’t refuse to regain your youth in Christ, who says to you: ‘The world is passing away; the world is losing its grip; the world is short of breath. Don’t fear, your youth shall be renewed as an eagle.’

C.S. Coon's poetic tribute to'Wild Bill' Donovan

Louis Menand's review of Doug Waller's "Wild Bill Donovan" lists O.S.S. recruits who are "almost a capsule of mid-century American achievement." One--the anthropologist Carleton S. Coon (a beloved friend of ours in his life)--wrote this tribute to his "free fighter's hero":

On Learning of the death of
Wild Bill Donovan

Wild, people called him, who had heard of his fame
And wild he was in heart and in feyness
But more than wild was the man with the wile of Odysseus
Like the king of Assassins he welded together
An army of desperate, invisible soldiers
Each as bold as himself in single deeds
But none as keen as himself, the leader of all, commander of men
Who could ask, "Jim, will you limpet that ship?"
Knowing the answer, for none would refuse him, or
"Carl, a free ride to Albania?" "Yes? Then you're off,
Ten minutes to Zero," and we would all die for him.
Die for him some of us did, but he died for us all.
Some who are left would burn him whole, like a Viking jarl in his ship
Others would cover his bones with a colossal marble cross
Each to his taste, say I, Yankee, Irishman, Italian.
As many tombs will he have in our hearts as the scattered remains of Osiris,
How lucky we were that he came when he did in the long tide of history
Hail to Wild Bill, a hero of men and a name to hang myths on
As American as chowder, Crockett, and Putnam
A free fighter's hero, may God give him peace.


Carleton S Coon
June 2, 1959

Valentine 2011

Another poem for my sweetheart...

Clear-eyed girl you were, deemed “too
tall”—talking to the old anthropologist
(later—unhinged—“she’s beautiful”
he’d creak) that summer afternoon,
radiant, your yellow ribbon
windblown—his shillelagh tapped
across the dappled granite pavers.

Astride a cascade of longing
and tethered in trust we’d danced
together nights before, anchored
in love. But that day (just perhaps)
some prescient windward flow
of breeze and heaven kept
blowing us together and (unrelenting
as love) enlivened us that day, now.

Later that year we’d marry, then hop
into the Coronet (you still in your wedding
dress) to tell our love to him bedside
as he lay dying. In sickness and health,
through sweet and sour, a girl’s clear-eyed
constancy still persists and nourishes: the love
we’ve shared—once fumbling at words, waistbands
wedding prayers—rises tall, thriving with mercy.