speaking over the telephone while ironing a blouse
with French cuffs

Thus each occasion takes its initial from the character of its environment.

To love & hard febril disalligned, continually

disalligned almost disheartened fearing

disappointment in you or disgrace in lack

The story of how the animal was sent
across the Mediterranean on a ship,
wearing a strip of parchment around her neck

I'd seen him scuttling under a parked car
In the oil-stained side street near the auto shop,
Or peering from beneath the juniper bush

While we were waiting for the movie to begin,
my wife caught up with her old friend Maryann,
and because I could only make out every
third or fourth word, my attention fluttered off
in search of something else and landed on
the thirty-five-ish couple sitting three rows
in front of us—the backs of their heads

How stupid Penelope's suitors must have been,
Each morning as they elbowed for a place
Near her, and cocked their wits, eyeing each other,

Schweitzer, The Teaching of Reverence for Life.
Tich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness.
Mortimer Adler, Ten Philosophical Mistakes.

In 1834, when Alexander Kinglake
stood by the banks of the Sava River,
at the frontier of the Ottoman Empire,

Leona heard the engines again, the great
cranes outside her window breaking up the old history,
the bulldozers striking layers of rock that ran