The Rats Are Underneath The Piles/ The

Fare Forward, Travellers! Not Escaping From The Past Into Different Lives, Or Into Any Future; You Are Not The Same People Who Left That Station Or Who Will Arrive At Any Terminus, While The Narrowing Rails Slide Together Behind You.

The Dove Descending Breaks The Air With Flame Of Incandescent Terror Of Which The Tongues Declare The One Discharge From Sin And Error. The Only Hope, Or Else Despair Lies In The Choice Of Pyre Or Pyre- To Be Redeemed From Fire By Fire. Who Then Devised The Torment? Love. Love Is The Unfamiliar Name Behind The Hands That Wove The Intolerable Shirt Of Flame Which Human Power Cannot Remove. We Only Live, Only Suspire Consumed By Either Fire Or Fire.

Today, You're Halfway To 100! Here's To Optimism, Whether It Is Realistic Or Not. Happy 50th Birthday!

I Do Not Know Much About Gods; But I Think That The River Is A Strong Brown God-sullen, Untamed And Intractable, Patient To Some Degree, At First Recognized As A Frontier; Useful, Untrustworthy, As A Conveyor Of Commerce; Then Only A Problem Confronting The Builder Of Bridges. The Problem Once Solved, The Brown God Is Almost Forgotten By The Dwellers In Cities-ever, However, Implacable. Keeping His Seasons, And Rages, Destroyer, Reminder Of What Men Choose To Forget. Unhonored, Unpropitiated By Worshippers Of The Machine, But Waiting, Watching And Waiting.

O Lord, Deliver Me From The Man Of Excellent Intention And Impure Heart: For The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, And Desperately Wicked.