The Dogwalkers

Dogs are easier to love than people.

—Joan Rivers

Truckle, fawn, cower, toady, shrink,

Or cringe before the latest news—

Ersatz, a substituted fraud,

Not life.  Prequel on video.

You never know how far they'll go!

I've grown to hate the endless strings

Of voices on the radio

Making sense of senseless things.

The friendly walkers with their dogs,

What do you think they really think,

Advancing calmly in the light,

Entelechy* their line of sight,

Assuming what the future brings,

Guessing it might be . . . alright?

*In Aristotle's philosophy, the soul or force that “realizes or makes actual what is otherwise merely potential” (Encyclopædia Britannica).

Friday, August 9, 2025

Amusement

The a in "amuse" was once privative:

In Greek, άμουσος means “unmusical”—

i.e., not acquainted with the muse: a “clown.”

Which word derives in turn from colonus,

Occupier of what was another's land,

Something, willy-nilly, that we all are,

Some of nearby territory—

Though most, naturally, by far.

“Sir, Colonus is an Inhabitant:

A Clown Original: as you’ld zay a Farmer, a Tiller o’

Th’ Earth,

E’re sin’ the Romans planted their Colony first."

—Ben Jonson, A Tale of a Tub (1633), act 1, sc. 3

Hence we're amused, albeit unbemused.

It's not just our language that's confused!

Thursday, August 7, 2025

Ingenium

Lacking ability, I am urged on by a force greater than mine.—Ovid, Fasti 2.123 (8 CE)

Thus Ovid's Calendar, or Book of Days.

How to account for present ways?

The sown whirlwind can bear no fruit,*

But you shall know them by their loot.

Nothing lasting, nothing stays.

We must play this as it lays.

Such habitus is life's pursuit,

And greater than a vibe, its root.

*Hosea 8.7, KJV: “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.”

Wednesday, August 6, 2025