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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Nov 16, 2012 - 02:38pm PT
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Guns Kill Bullets Blame
I blame Twinkies and the Hostess Co.
I blame the Norwegian for making me blame the Twinks.
I blame Oakley and Cody.
But it's OK because eventually there will be no one to blame and no one who doesn't share the blame.
Better we get hit over the head with a rolled-up copy of Argy-sod magazine real hard twenty times right now than to have to admit we are wrong about our "need" for guns.
We'll all have killed each other off before we settle this.
Ma Deuce sounds sooo sexy.
But what's so "special" about Saturday night?
By the logic of the hunter, weapons of mass destruction seem good.
That may seem extreme, but the Rev sez my logic is to change the subject.
The Rev never lies, for the sake of argument or otherwise.
When he an his dad got into archery, they settled the bug duck question with their scores, not by pricking stags with those long flying things the deer knew nothing about.
Hinting that hunting with arrows is just as unfair as hunting with guns might get me in deep doodoo; some may even mention my duck size, but at my age, that's laughable.
Is there much difference in "conquering" a route with aid, leaving our sh#t on walls that are utterly (except for falling stones) defenseless?
My mind is spinning like a high-speed bullet.
There goes another couple of innocent bystanders.
When God takes away our guns and leaves us with stones to throw and just our fingers to grip the throat, at least we will not have this argument to plague us.
Then she will have given us true freedom.
Here's a "sport" which may appeal.
Put up firing benches on the South Rim and charge tourons for taking potshots at aid climbers on El Cap: out-of-state permits twice the fee for Californians, but the revenue-sharing would be between the Feds and the STate.
In an ideal world, Guns and Ammo would be Buns and Amour.
There's a full-page ad for Twinkies in there, and a half-page ad for the Traverse Winery, owned and operated by me!
Hold on
To what you believe
Even if it is a tree
Which stands by itself.^^^
The sentiment is a good one. We believe what we believe, we feel how we do. It's right to stand up for them and it's the purpose of a forum. I brought my thoughts here rather than try to turn them into arguments. I dislike arguing. It's puerile, and for all I know, even "ternary." :0)
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Nov 16, 2012 - 04:07pm PT
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A poem by Willie Nelson on his 75th birthday:
"I have outlived my pecker."
A Poem--by Willie Nelson
My nookie days are over,
My pilot light is out.
What used to be my pride and joy,
Is now my water spout.
Time was when, on its own accord,
From my trousers it would spring.
But now I've got a full time job,
To find the f***in' thing.
It used to be embarrassing,
The way it would behave.
For every single morning,
It would stand and watch me shave.
Now as old age approaches,
It sure gives me the blues.
To see it hang its little head,
And watch me tie my shoes!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Nov 16, 2012 - 09:51pm PT
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Liberty Cap by Joe Fitschen, from Going Up
The rest of the morning was marked mostly by ferocious thirst, the bete noir of Yosemite climbers.
Our saliva glands went on strike, our toungues felt like resin bags, our lips like slugs.
At cramped belay stances our muscles cramped for want of water, while below us Nevada Fall still fell, and amid the unceasing roar we heard the cry of that ancient mariner So there was suffering.
But during those seemingly interminable waits at a belay stance, while I willed my body into quasi-hibernation--lower pulse rate, lower blood pressure, mimimal muscle tension--my mind, not keen on suffering, cast about for something of interest.
Here a satisfying piee of astract art composed of facets of granite, there the peregrinations of a minuscule red spider, and, several feet away, a single-bloomed flower atop a green stem, thrust from a hairline crack and waving to and fro in the wafting air.
Yosemite walls are rife with Zen gardens that, if you were a nautral theologian, would make God a Buddhist wich, if you know something about Buddhism, is odd.
This represents a passage that has remarkable mimetics and wonderful imagery. There's an exuberance. There is a short bridge to cross between Joe's prose and what could be a really great poem with a little shearing here, some faint padding there. Royal would have been proud to have written this, I think. For that matter, I would.
So poetry's not hard if you are already competent at prose. It just requires a little time at the feet of the one's that the muses have already favored and some mimetic ability. Imagination's on you.
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Trevbo
Trad climber
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Nov 17, 2012 - 12:42am PT
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“Crow” by Ted Hughes
When God, disgusted with man,
Turned towards heaven,
And man, disgusted with God,
Turned towards Eve,
Things looked like falling apart.
But Crow Crow
Crow nailed them together,
Nailing heaven and earth together-
So man cried, but with God’s voice.
And God bled, but with man’s blood.
Then heaven and earth creaked at the joint
Which became gangrenous and stank-
A horror beyond redemption.
The agony did not diminish.
Man could not be man nor God God.
The agony
Grew.
Crow
Grinned
Crying: “This is my Creation,”
Flying the black flag of himself.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Nov 17, 2012 - 08:47am PT
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Here's one for the Fossil Climber, in retaliation for your mouse-poem, and in thanks for the recognition and the (ghostly) recommendation to North Face, so long ago.
Mouse
Having written lots of words
He has not completed a book
Nor even begun to compile his droppings
Having left a pile of words
He defines them as his little turds
Like sundaes with gross chocklit topping
He's fond of cheese and all the nuts
Ropes and rice and other stuff
His bad habits send climbers shopping
Old hands know and hate his guts
They can't afford to feed him much
They get so mad they're often hopping
If you would save your things from he
Then string them up in yonder tree
Keep fixing rope they all need chomping
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Nov 17, 2012 - 09:11am PT
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Here's Timid Tightrope's fine untitled poetry, his attempt at emulating the weej.
Mr. T., I hope you don't mind my lifting it gently for repose where it really shines!
The coward's tail's 'tween me legs
it's in the very name i named
but joy 'tis aint the game i play
just lost the flaming flume
it speaks or tweaks of bracken' hearteds
past the flames of dear departeds
wish i had the fire retarted,
restart my old game
in comfort combustfamulating
break a sound that sets to grating
turn a page of hister splaying
spray aginst the wind
icy winds that sinned her wounds
broke the cymbal of thine tombs
the magic harper fuccks the tune
and slowly plucks within
keeper of the sea sick sawing
saw bucks of my past belonging
longing for the thing that lacks
and laps at death-test doors
ner was i to come a scriber
all along just duck and diver
diving for divininations
like a paltry sum
sum of zero was summation
left it parked no jubilation
left the what? in what up zillions
'till i reach the silvery shore
but a new tune comes erasing
setting sun the sky still blazing
recriminations of my hazing
still paps the smear of navel gazing
pecker pecks upon my eaves
flicker quickly knows my deeds
sower of the deadened seeds
and slips before me done me screed
all is lost dear supertoper
not one to enunciate this dope no sir
silence on the killing floor
erections come elections go
lift the beam and raise the bong
won't you sing the siren's song?
may be two too stanza's long
knock on heaven's lawn
butthurt scribblers go a-walin'
comfort them no need explaining
rage aghast machines and bodies
'till we breathe no more.
the coward's tail's 'tween me legs
it's in the very name i named
comfort those that need the same
timidly i walk the plank
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Nov 17, 2012 - 05:26pm PT
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Boogie woogie was a deer.
Boogie woogie had no "ear."
Boogie couldn't boogie.
Now really, how could he?
--Mouse
EL PERIFICO, OR SLEEP
A man throws ten thousand shovels of gravel at a window screen
propped upside a wheelbarrow so only the powder
passes into the wheelbarow and the gray rocks fall to the ground.
You musta died once to live like this.
Yeah he says I died once and I had lost my ear
so I was looking for it in a field and the stars were like a seiner's net
and then they were like a system of nerves
and then they were like a seive I came through
that right back into this country and got a job and married
the woman the first two things
she said to me in that fiery field holding in her hands
my ear were how this country now is full
only of pilgrims and residue and her name is Beatriz ending
like light ends with a z.
--Joshua Clover
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Nov 17, 2012 - 05:35pm PT
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This was the eulogy I was not fated to deliver at my dad's memorial. It's a long story, involves anger. Rather not say now.
My dad and mom BOTH loved golf, but only after Mom decided she actually enjoyed it and had an interest did she doff her Golfing Widow Weeds. Once you get them on the course, they are hooked, sliced, and sunk, she would say..
A Man Who Loved Golf:
Boomer and Bobbye
(par four/300 words)
On behalf of my family, thank all of you for coming today.
It is tempting to memorialize my father with golfing metaphor, yet this is an inappropriate moment.
Even so--
I am human, like Boomer, and will resist the temptation to be completely decorous during this obsequy.
But I will make my attempt short and sweet, like a hole-in-one.
I may “ace” this address if I may say simply that the act of marrying Bobbye was like a “hole-in-one” for Dad: it was his stroke of luck and his stroke of genius, if you will, but he would ascribe his fortune as a gift from God, as is proper in a Christian.
His high school sweetheart was perfection to him, in spite of her peculiar breaks and swings: his swing might be off or his yardage miscalculated on occasion; and he might have missed the sweet spot any number of times; but the net score was perfection. They were a evenly matched, in my opinion.
No talk of handicapping, they played for keeps and kept it honest.
I don’t mean to sound flippant or irreverent at this solemn moment, but it is in fact not a solemn moment, but a joyous one. It doesn’t call for a mild golf clap. It requires mirth, but not frivolity.
Our honoree has reached his destiny as his partner has reached hers. They are content if anyone is content. Let’s be happy for that, among other important things.
I loved both my parents equally and love the prospect of playing the rest of my life’s round with a pleasant and well-loved foursome made up of my family, Mike, Lenna, and Tim.
Rest in peace, Dad and Mom.
Your loving number two son, Brian
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cowpoke
climber
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Nov 25, 2012 - 01:04pm PT
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I Ask You
By Billy Collins
What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?
It gives me time to think
about all that is going on outside--
leaves gathering in corners,
lichen greening the high grey rocks,
while over the dunes the world sails on,
huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.
But beyond this table
there is nothing that I need,
not even a job that would allow me to row to work,
or a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4
with cracked green leather seats.
No, it's all here,
the clear ovals of a glass of water,
a small crate of oranges, a book on Stalin,
not to mention the odd snarling fish
in a frame on the wall,
and the way these three candles--
each a different height--
are singing in perfect harmony.
So forgive me
if I lower my head now and listen
to the short bass candle as he takes a solo
while my heart
thrums under my shirt--
frog at the edge of a pond--
and my thoughts fly off to a province
made of one enormous sky
and about a million empty branches.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Nov 25, 2012 - 01:29pm PT
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Evocative and nuanced
Is what I want to be
In my writing
The germs of my soul
Revealed
Blatantly
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weezy
climber
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Nov 25, 2012 - 01:55pm PT
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Bluebird
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?
Charles Bukowski
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Nov 26, 2012 - 11:53am PT
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He’s an uncommon love for the common man and godly wisdom resides in the least of things so that it may well be that the voice of the Almighty speaks most profoundly in such beings as lives in silence themselves.--Roy Tor Wrong Lee, chinese intellectual, on cloning the Devil
What the Fvck, it's Charles Buk.
Bluebirds fly and real men cry:
Those Euros flowing in and all that urine flowing out.
He's still a poet, though dead and commercialized
And even given as Christmas presents.
That's the spirit, consumers.
But Chuck Buck isn't Chuck Berry.
Some of his visions are way too scary
Let's just wait till/for rock 'n roll to really die.
In a Patrick Sawyer internal-view
Which I am watching, he is asked:
Who's likeliest to read you?
Who's likliest to heed what they read?
Who's Next, do you like that album?
It turns out that Chuck's checkbook
Is loaded with signatures of those who read him.
Marlow, for one, a Euro; Lolli, for two, disgusted;
And Mouse, who just had to check him out.
Like follows like like drink follows drink.
I thought I was Swedish, but I was just borracho, Dios mio!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Nov 26, 2012 - 12:43pm PT
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Downward Monday Spiral
Poor damned Monday
Wants it still to be Sunday.
Not too happy in its own calendric skin
Wants like hell to be free of all out sin.
Long holidays are OK, for Monday can then still come out and play.
Monday isn't guilty of a thing except having to follow a sanctimonious day like Sunday.
In a parralel universe it might be Sinday,
But why be such a bitch?
It might you get voted off the team, like poor Grenday,
Named for that one, yep,
Whom was shown the door by Bolt-Tosser for making light of the Dark.
But we heard that story second-hand and read it in AP English, freshman year.
Well, history didn't really exist back then,
When ever back then took place back, back, back in the Day-Daze,
When in spite of our modern outlook,
Days didn't mean much and Truth and Whimsy consorted more equally.
Time was asleep at the wheel.
We had eight days here on Earth.
Now there are just seven and we may have it right.
Only Time will tell, but he's over at Starbucks with ChuckBucks.
Sobering us up is Monday's job.
Monday is the Salvation Army of the span we call the Week.
In fact, the muses suggest, the eight-day version was called the Weak,
Signifying Earth's relative place in the Cosmos.
Pretty heavy stuff for a Monday,
But I haven't much time myself,
So I just play like I know these things
And hope like the Prodigal Son
That you laugh and think
"Monday, Monday, such a tragedy."
Yep, Monday used to be another kind of day of the Weak.
Now it's the worst for many.
Unlike Black Friday.
Now that's something to think about, shoppers.
Think about returning the Charles Buk book,
And order one of neebee's Jake's Ranch series.*
You'll thank Grendel/Grindl, Greenday,
And A Confederate General from Big Sur.
Have a peachy day, Americans, in the Amazon jungle.
* The story of Jake and his twin sister's love, will touch your heart forever...
* http://jj-ns.read-jake-and-donate.com * http://go.neebeeshaabookway.com
Blatant commercialism? Not in the least. It's the least I can dofor our beloved nature-praising, God-fearing lady of charm.
What else can I say to thank her for us?
Hey there say a prayer or draw a cartoon
For the little lady of the haiku moon.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Nov 26, 2012 - 02:41pm PT
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hey there say, mouse...
well, my my...
what did i spy, with my little eye...
as the kids' games goes...
well, now you 'knows'...
i spied a mention of my book...
well--after YOUR mention, to take a look...
:)
say, all, the one link though, i had to sadly let go...
it was doubled in the pay, up to 25.00 for the year, i think it did a show...
but the 'go.neebeeshaabookway.com' is still good...
and this one, (soon to be below) is for you to see which
books, you may want, or order-should:
http://neebeeshaabookway.com
(go to the STOREFRONT link, on that page...
and see the 'lastest rage'...
we, as to neebee books, that is...
in your spirit, they really will a'fizz...
:)
see if this works, as a storefront link...
i say and hope, with a wink...
http://neebeeshaabookway.com/id31.html
(if not, just hit STOREFRONT on the main neebeeshaabookway.com deal_
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Nov 26, 2012 - 03:34pm PT
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To Mouse himself
No poetry here:
Be kind to Mouse
Don't judge too harshly
Know it or not?
It's there.
Thrives outside
...at the center?
There's many ways...only...
Be kind to Mouse
make his day...
his way...
The legislator
Edited:
Yeah, shucked simile is just one of the strengths of the text and fitting it's subject quite well.
hehe...
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Nov 26, 2012 - 05:11pm PT
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The legislator's rule of thumb! ha-ha! heehee!
A 'haha' is a fence set in a ditch (Scrabble dictionary).
And they don't make no mo Ho-Hos.
Part of the Hole Mouse Story:
He made his way into the Ditch, down the south bank, then under the NPS haha made of withies, vines and sticks. It was laughable how easy it was. "Ha-ha," he laught to his left mouse, while his inner mouse was most hopeful. Heeding his instincts now, he followed the Ditch for some ways before he climbed out the north bank near Turtle Dome. He would find that left thunb in Thuolumbne Meadows eventually. Or one like it. Tome thumb things are just not too important, except it had to be a left. Color, length, strength, none of those mattered to him. He just wanted to play his guitar like a normal guy. Gladly, badly, radly, it didn't matter. As long as he could bar the frets!
Not to worry, this story is never-ending, too.
Pottery in prose is the next subject. Shards of shreds of shucked simile lend distinct grace to your text, a must-see for musetry lovers.
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Fletcher
Trad climber
The rock doesn't care what I think
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Dec 15, 2012 - 02:00pm PT
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Wish I didn't feel inspired to post this today. But it needs to be out there.
Eric
Dirge without Music
Edna St. Vincent Millay
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.
The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Dec 15, 2012 - 06:52pm PT
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On a much lighter note
I dance my fool head off to entertain people and to educate people, most of whom can barely bring themselves to notice
Who live in the cross-hairs, always on the brink, addicted to both the bottom line and the summit
Can't go a day without chasing power, humbling or being humbled.
Why do I dance for them?
What choice do I have?
You either dance for them
Or become one of them.
--Jules Feiffer, 1999
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Dec 16, 2012 - 04:17pm PT
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EPITAPH
Having lived long in time,
he lives now in timelessness
without sorrow, made perfect
by our never finished love,
by our compassion and forgiveness,
and by his happiness in receiving
these gifts we give. Here in time
we are added to one another forever.
--Wendell Berry
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Fletcher
Trad climber
The great state of advaita
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Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection:
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is lead forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action —
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
~ Rabindranath Tagore ~
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