Without The Gift Of Flowers And The

The Need Is Not Really For More Brains, The Need Is Now For A Gentler, A More Tolerant People Than Those Who Won For Us Against The Ice, The Tiger And The Bear. The Hand That Hefted The Ax, Out Of Some Old Blind Allegiance To The Past Fondles The Machine Gun As Lovingly. It Is A Habit Man Will Have To Break To Survive, But The Roots Go Very Deep.

Every Time We Walk Along A Beach Some Ancient Urge Disturbs Us So That We Find Ourselves Shedding Shoes And Garments Or Scavenging Among Seaweed And Whitened Timbers Like The Homesick Refugees Of A Long War... Mostly The Animals Understand Their Roles, But Man, By Comparison, Seems Troubled By A Message That, It Is Often Said, He Cannot Quite Remember Or Has Gotten Wrong... Bereft Of Instinct, He Must Search Continually For Meanings... Man Was A Reader Before He Became A Writer, A Reader Of What Coleridge Once Called The Mighty Alphabet Of The Universe.

Many Of Us Who Walk To And Fro Upon Our Usual Tasks Are Prisoners Drawing Mental Maps Of Escape.

Primitives Of Our Own Species, Even Today Are Historically Shallow In Their Knowledge Of The Past. Only The Poet Who Writes Speaks His Message Across The Millennia To Other Hearts.

One Does Not Meet Oneself Until One Catches The Reflection From An Eye Other Than Human.