Of All The Errands Life Seems To

...for Most People In The [jewish] Ghetto [of Warsaw] Nature Lived Only In Memory -- No Parks, Birds, Or Greenery Existed In The Ghetto -- And They Suffered The Loss Of Nature Like A Phantom-limb Pain, An Amputation That Scrambled The Body's Rhythms, Starved The Senses, And Made Basic Ideas About The World Impossible For Children To Fathom.

Which Is Crueler, An Old Man's Lost Memories Of A Life Lived, Or A Young Man's Lost Memories Of The Life He Meant To Live?

In Manhattan Last Month I Heard A Woman Borrowing The Jargon Of Junkies To Say To Another, 'want To Do Some Chocolate?'

One Can Live At A Low Flame. Most People Do. For Some, Life Is An Exercise In Moderation (best China Saved For Special Occasions), But Given Something Like Death, What Does It Matter If One Looks Foolish Now And Then, Or Tries Too Hard, Or Cares Too Deeply?

Complexity Excites The Mind, And Order Rewards It. In The Garden, One Finds Both, Including Vanishingly Small Orders Too Complex To Spot, And Orders So Vast The Mind Struggles To Embrace Them.