12/29/24

 Sunday, December 29, 2024

D+54

1835 The treaty of New Echota was signed between the US government and representatives of a minority Cherokee political faction to cede all lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States

1890 US 7th Cavalry massacred 200+ captive Sioux at Wounded Knee, South Dakota

1908 A patentwas granted for a 4-wheel automobile brake, Clintonville, Wisconsin

1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act was signed by President Richard M. Nixon

In bed  Fell asleep on the recliner by 8, and was awake and up by 3:30.  I dozed off at some point and woke up again at 8:30, snug and warm in my sweats with hood up.

Prednisone, day 229, 7.5 mg., day 44.  Prednisone at 5:00.w/ Dave's Bread.   Other meds at 1:15.

Cold.  At 6ish this morning, it is 38° outside but 71° inside, at least in the warm northern half of the house where I am sitting, but I am cold.  I've gotten dressed for the day early, wearing my old man's compression socks, my Haflinger slippers, Champion sweatpants, white cotton, long-sleeved, turtle neck shirt, and a heavy zippered hoodie, zipped all the way up.  When I visited my dad in Florida in winter, I was often uncomfortable in his house because he kept it so warm, 76, 77, 78 degrees.  When we would visit Jimmy Aquavia at Newcastle, his apartment was similarly stifling.  Now it's my turn. 

Church Going by Philip Larkin

Once I am sure there's nothing going on

I step inside, letting the door thud shut.

Another church: matting, seats, and stone,

And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut

For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff

Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;

And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,

Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off

My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

Move forward, run my hand around the font.

From where I stand, the roof looks almost new-

Cleaned or restored? Someone would know: I don't.

Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few

Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce

"Here endeth" much more loudly than I'd meant.

The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door

I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,

Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,

And always end much at a loss like this,

Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,

When churches fall completely out of use

What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep

A few cathedrals chronically on show,

Their parchment, plate, and pyx in locked cases,

And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.

Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come

To make their children touch a particular stone;

Pick simples for a cancer; or on some

Advised night see walking a dead one?

Power of some sort or other will go on

In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;

But superstition, like belief, must die,

And what remains when disbelief has gone?

Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognizable each week,

A purpose more obscure. I wonder who

Will be the last, the very last, to seek

This place for what it was; one of the crew

That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?

Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,

Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff

Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?

Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt

Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground

Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt

So long and equably what since is found

Only in separation - marriage, and birth,

And death, and thoughts of these - for whom was built

This special shell? For, though I've no idea

What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,

It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,

In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,

Are recognised, and robed as destinies.

And that much never can be obsolete,

Since someone will forever be surprising

A hunger in himself to be more serious,

And gravitating with it to this ground,

Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,

If only that so many dead lie round.