In bed at 10, awake at 5:25, stretched out on brr till Lilly came looking for me at 6:20. 53°, high of 56°, cloudy, windy morning ahead, AQI=24, wind E at 15 mph, 6-18/28, 0.15" of rain expected. Sunrise at 7:01, sunset at 6:14, 11+12.
Thoughts on the invasion of Gaza. Every year I remember that Febrary 19th was D-Day for the amphibious invasion of Iwo Jima. My father was one of the 70,000 U.S. Marines in the landing force. He was one of the assault trooops who landed under heavy fire on D-Day. On most years, I think of my father not just on D-Day, but on D minus 1, the day before the landing. I don't know what kind of ship he was on, perhaps a troop ship, perhaps an LST that carried troops as well as tanks or an LSD, perhaps on some other type of ship, but I have some slight appreciation for what life was like in the troop compartments the day and night before D-Day. Everybody was aware that he might die in a matter of hours, or might have a leg or arm blown off by some high explosive weapon. What I can't know is what my father's exact thoughts were. Did he think of me, his 3 and 1/2 year old son, or of my sister, 6 months old, his 23 year old wife, his parents, his sister Monica? What other thoughts would he have had? I can't know and he of course rarely talked after the war about any of his experiences in the Marines or on Iwo Jima but I think of him now as I see footage of thousands of Israeli soldiers massing along the Gaza border, knowing that many of them will die in the days ahead. What are they thinking, when they have time to think? What are the Gazans thinking, both Hamas members and supporters, and others, especially parents of children? The spectre of Death is everywhere. And those who do not die will be mutilated, many physically, all emotionally and spiritually. I think of signs I saw over certain seats on buses and the Metro in Paris the last time I was there, reserving those seats for "les mutilés de guerre," those with war injuries. I was struck by the term "mutilés' meaning simply 'disabled' but so suggestive of 'mutilated', a term that seems to me to be more discriptively acurate than 'disabled.'
Drawing by Egon Schiele
"We have to be cruel now and not think too much about the hostages" said Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's Finance minister. “It was a terrible mistake to attack Israel,” Netanyahu said. “What we will do to our enemy in the next few days will echo for generations."
Psalm 137
By the rivers of Babylon we sat and we wept, when we remembered Zion . . .
Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you, according to what you have done to us.
Happy is he who seizes your little ones and dashes them against the rocks.
A not-so-silly sketch I did some years ago. "The Church accepts and venerates the Bible as inspired. The Bible is composed of the forty-six books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. Together these books make up the Scriptures. The unity of the Old and New Testaments flows from the revealed unity of God’s loving plan to save us." Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Treadmill: 8:00 a.m., 21; 0.50
Looking through the storm door at Lilly, on her second outing, doing her usual: standing still surveying the area around her for several minutes before getting about her business, looking at a neighbor walking briskly down Wakefield to County Line. We are 20 minutes past sunrise and the dusk-to-dawn lightbulbs are still on. Even in the subdued daylight, the tree colors are striking. The big maple across the street in a very dark crimson, almost purple. The euonymous bush in front of the Pandl's is cherry red, cerise. The leaves on many trees have turned yellow or brown and are being ejected by their hosts, preparing for winter when their leaves become life-threatening instead of life-enhancing. On other trees, including our locust and berry trees, the leaves are still green and temporarily holding on to their branches and twigs. The wind is already blowing strong, anticipating the three days of rain expected to start this evening. The sunflower/safflower seed tube needs filling. As usual, the chickadees are the first hungry visitors to appear, in numbers. Why would I not concentrate on the trees and the birds instead of the horrors reported in the morning papers?
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