Main Body
April
April 1
In 1983, at the Urodynamics Society meeting in Las Vegas, Professor G.S. Brindley first announced to the world his experiments on self-injection with papaverine to induce a penile erection. This was the first time that an effective medical therapy for erectile dysfunction (ED) was described, and was a historic development in the management of ED. The way in which this information was first reported was completely unique and memorable, and provides an interesting context for the development of therapies for ED. I was present at this extraordinary lecture, and the details are worth sharing.
The lecture, which had an innocuous title along the lines of ‘Vaso-active therapy for erectile dysfunction’ was scheduled as an evening lecture of the Urodynamics Society in the hotel in which I was staying. I was a senior resident, hungry for knowledge, and at the AUA I went to every lecture that I could. About 15 min before the lecture I took the elevator to go to the lecture hall, and on the next floor a slight, elderly looking and bespectacled man, wearing a blue track suit and carrying a small cigar box, entered the elevator. He appeared quite nervous, and shuffled back and forth. He opened the box in the elevator, which became crowded, and started examining and ruffling through the 35 mm slides of micrographs inside. I was standing next to him, and could vaguely make out the content of the slides, which appeared to be a series of pictures of penile erection. I concluded that this was, indeed, Professor Brindley on his way to the lecture, although his dress seemed inappropriately casual. The lecture was given in a large auditorium, with a raised lectern separated by some stairs from the seats. This was an evening programme, between the daytime sessions and an evening reception. It was relatively poorly attended, perhaps 80 people in all.
Most attendees came with their partners, clearly on the way to the reception. I was sitting in the third row, and in front of me were about seven middle-aged male urologists, and their partners in ‘full evening regalia’.
Professor Brindley, still in his blue track suit, was introduced as a psychiatrist with broad research interests. He began his lecture without aplomb. He had, he indicated, hypothesized that injection with vasoactive agents into the corporal bodies of the penis might induce an erection. Lacking ready access to an appropriate animal model, and cognisant of the long medical tradition of using oneself as a research subject, he began a series of experiments on self-injection of his penis with various vasoactive agents, including papaverine, phentolamine, and several others. (While this is now commonplace, at the time it was unheard of). His slide-based talk consisted of a large series of photographs of his penis in various states of tumescence after injection with a variety of doses of phentolamine and papaverine. After viewing about 30 of these slides, there was no doubt in my mind that, at least in Professor Brindley’s case, the therapy was effective. Of course, one could not exclude the possibility that erotic stimulation had played a role in acquiring these erections, and Professor Brindley acknowledged this.
The Professor wanted to make his case in the most convincing style possible. He indicated that, in his view, no normal person would find the experience of giving a lecture to a large audience to be erotically stimulating or erection-inducing. He had, he said, therefore injected himself with papaverine in his hotel room before coming to give the lecture, and deliberately wore loose clothes (hence the track-suit) to make it possible to exhibit the results. He stepped around the podium, and pulled his loose pants tight up around his genitalia in an attempt to demonstrate his erection.
At this point, I, and I believe everyone else in the room, was agog. I could scarcely believe what was occurring on stage. But Prof. Brindley was not satisfied. He looked down sceptically at his pants and shook his head with dismay. ‘Unfortunately, this doesn’t display the results clearly enough’. He then summarily dropped his trousers and shorts, revealing a long, thin, clearly erect penis.
There was not a sound in the room. Everyone had stopped breathing.
But the mere public showing of his erection from the podium was not sufficient. He paused, and seemed to ponder his next move.
The sense of drama in the room was palpable. He then said, with gravity, ‘I’d like to give some of the audience the opportunity to confirm the degree of tumescence’. With his pants at his knees, he waddled down the stairs, approaching (to their horror) the urologists and their partners in the front row.
As he approached them, erection waggling before him, four or five of the women in the front rows threw their arms up in the air, seemingly in unison, and screamed loudly. The scientific merits of the presentation had been overwhelmed, for them, by the novel and unusual mode of demonstrating the results.
The screams seemed to shock Professor Brindley, who rapidly pulled up his trousers, returned to the podium, and terminated the lecture. The crowd dispersed in a state of flabbergasted disarray. I imagine that the urologists who attended with their partners had a lot of explaining to do. The rest is history. Prof Brindley’s single-author paper reporting these results was published about 6 months later.
… This lecture was unique, dramatic, paradigm-shifting, and unexpected. It is difficult to imagine that a similar scenario could ever take place again. Professor Brindley belongs in the pantheon of famous British eccentrics who have made spectacular contributions to science. The story of his lecture deserves a place in the urological history books.
— Laurence Klotz, in a 2005 issue of the British Association of Urological Surgeons’ BJU International journal
April 2
Although you put the Laozi on your desk every day, [you have to] carry it by the hands to recite it.
— Li Zhi, from Xu fenshu [Sequel to Writings to Be Burnt], translated by Hak Ze Kim
April 3
His sound is breath for life. As a friend visiting us said, when looking at Jack the malamute, who is deaf and slower but commonly magnificent in the beauty of his face, how would anyone think anybody could be–ugly as an animal–when animals, their faces, are beautiful and full-faced and harbor no disguise. It is what you life in your hands, and the eyes blink a return gaze into yours. Apples, firewood, tools, faces, to be forever thankful for that all of everything held in two hands.
— Bob Arnold, This Romance
April 4
Relax, slow down, simplify, love everyone unconditionally.
Unconditional love. That’s the bottom line. Everything is here because of love. That’s why we were created — to love. Love keeps things going, not just for now, but forever. Love gives life and makes sure what’s around today will be around tomorrow. It’s all about compassion. That’s what the cosmos best responds to.
Every moment is a gift. Relax, get into the moment, and do all you can to listen to it. I mean, really, really listen. Be present to the moment with everything you are.
It takes practice. After you’ve listened for a while, you start responding. I think you start working your gifts in response to what you’ve heard. You become appreciative of the moment. You give back because you begin to see how everything is on loan, a gift from God.
Learn how to look. Take time to look to see what’s right there in front of you, to let what you see sink in. When you look at a flower opening or a tree moving with the wind, you just relax and take it all in. Try and see everything like that, if you can.
Looking and listening lead into everything… . You become more totally aware of reality. It’s so true — everything we need to live well is already within our possession. Wisdom is right before our very eyes.
Jesus doesn’t tell me to hate or to kill. He tells me to love. More and more, I’m emphasizing the power of peace. So many good and lasting things proceed from peace.
You shouldn’t fight fire with fire; you address fire with water. And the water is agape, nonviolence. Cruel people are still people, but they have somehow forgotten how to love. Being cruel to them will only reinforce their cruelty. But what might kindness do? What might peacefulness do? I think that’s what Jesus was thinking about.
Be gentle and patient both with yourself and with others, no matter what comes along. In this way, waiting becomes a fulfilling, very meaningful experience. If you live gently, honorably, focusing on the cultivation of your heart, good things are sure to follow.
Prayer is a way of doing instantaneous good for all things in all places. It’s a way of ending out love everywhere at one. It’s a power that everyone has access to, and it can transfigure the world. Prayer makes everything you do more real, lasting, meaningful and fruitful. Through prayer, everything just flowers and flows.
Try to live as purely and as simply and as gently as you can. Relax. Be flexible. Be forgiving. Be creative. Be loving. You are a peacemaker. Those who cross your path may need you.
Listen, be discerning, use all the radar you can generate in your waking moments. Try to keep the balance. The whole world’s watching, counting on you to do the right thing, the loving thing. So let in the light whenever, wherever you can.
— Robert Lax, writing to Steve Georgiou
April 5
By no means shall ye attain righteousness unless ye give (freely) of that which ye love.
— Yusuf Ali’s translation of surah 3, verse 92 of the Quran
April 6
Some say a cavalry corps,
some infantry, some, again,
will maintain that the swift oars
of our fleet are the finest
sight on dark earth; but I say
that whatever one loves, is.
— Sappho, Fragment 16, trans. Mary Barnard
April 7
It is not easy always to be attentive to the maturing of wild fruit. Plants are so unobtrusive in their material processes, and always at the significant moment some other bloom has reached its perfect hour. One can never fix the precise moment when the rosy tint the field has from the wild almond passes into the inspiring blue of lupines. One notices here and there a spike of bloom, and a day later the whole field royal and ruffling lightly to the wind.
— Mary Austin, The Land of Little Rain
April 8
A god could have brought the body of Hector back,
just as Phoebus kept it from decay,
but Priam had to get it himself;
so Pallas could have killed Hector easily,
but Achilles had to do it.
She would hand him his spear when he missed
but he had to throw it again
— Charles Reznikoff, “Lesson in Homer” from By the Well of Living and Seeing
April 9
I’m eating a little supper by the bright window.
The room’s already dark, the sky’s starting to turn.
Outside my door, the quiet roads lead,
after a short walk, to open fields.
I’m eating, watching the sky—who knows
how many women are eating now. My body is calm:
labor dulls all the senses, and dulls women too.
Outside, after supper, the stars will come out to touch
the wide plain of the earth. The stars are alive,
but not worth these cherries, which I’m eating alone.
I look at the sky, know that lights already are shining
among rust-red roofs, noises of people beneath them.
A gulp of my drink, and my body can taste the life
of plants and of rivers. It feels detached from things.
A small dose of silence suffices, and everything’s still,
in its true place, just like my body is still.
All things become islands before my senses,
which accept them as a matter of course: a murmur of silence.
All things in this darkness—I can know all of them,
just as I know that blood flows in my veins.
The plain is a great flowing of water through plants,
a supper of all things. Each plant, and each stone,
lives motionlessly. I hear my food feeding my veins
with each living thing that this plain provides.
The night doesn’t matter. The square patch of sky
whispers all the loud noises to me, and a small star
struggles in emptiness, far from all foods,
from all houses, alien. It isn’t enough for itself,
it needs too many companions. Here in the dark, alone,
my body is calm, it feels it’s in charge.
— Cesare Pavese, “Passion for Solitude,” translated by Geoffrey Brock
April 10
the heart is
an immense complication of
[veils?] and lives, webs – loops
almost transparent and luminous
– no tree – just nest.
— Mary Oppen, handwritten in a sketch book just above a simple drawing of a nest
April 11
I come as a guest
entering my own life
and the tree that leans lends
me its strength
what my mothers said,
the dreams
I disappear into in sleep
in safety I dream danger
I open my eyes
startled that I am safe
we walk in autumn stubble
the field not ours
small houses unfurnished empty
we enter
and it is our home
— Mary Oppen, “Untitled”
April 12
Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.
But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’
— Luke 15:11-31, from the New International Version of the Bible
April 13
Cell by cell the baby made herself, the cells
Made cells. That is to say
The baby is made largely of milk. Lying in her father’s arms, the little seed eyes
Moving, trying to see, smiling for us
To see, she will make a household
To her need of these rooms—Sara, little seed,
Little violent, diligent seed. Come let us look at the world
Glittering: this seed will speak,
Max, words! There will be no other words in the world
But those our children speak. What will she make of a world
Do you suppose, Max, of which she is made.
— George Oppen, “To Sara in Her Father’s Arms”
April 14
The world is always like a round, rolling eye,
round and rolling since it existed: a cure for pain
and then again a pain that supplants the cure.
— Abu’abdulla Ja’far bin Mahmud Rudaki, translated by Basil Bunting
April 15
Pans are super ‘cuse they koce [cook] underwar.
Pans are super ‘cuse they koke yoyr hand.
Pans are super ‘cuse they smak you in the head.
Pans are super ‘cuse the handl pokes you in the iyball.
Pans are super ‘cuss they coke you food.
— Jackson Rose, age 6
April 16
The creature gazes into openness with all
its eyes. But our eyes are
as if they were reversed, and surround it,
everywhere, like barriers against its free passage.
We know what is outside us from the animal’s
face alone: since we already turn
the young child round and make it look
backwards at what is settled, not that openness
that is so deep in the animal’s vision. Free from death.
We alone see that: the free creature
has its progress always behind it,
and God before it, and when it moves, it moves
in eternity, as streams do.
We never have pure space in front of us,
not for a single day, such as flowers open
endlessly into. Always there is world,
and never the Nowhere without the Not: the pure,
unwatched-over, that one breathes and
endlessly knows, without craving. As a child
loses itself sometimes, one with the stillness, and
is jolted back. Or someone dies and is it.
Since near to death one no longer sees death,
and stares ahead, perhaps with the large gaze of the creature.
Lovers are close to it, in wonder, if
the other were not always there closing off the view…..
As if through an oversight it opens out
behind the other……But there is no
way past it, and it turns to world again.
Always turned towards creation, we see
only a mirroring of freedom
dimmed by us. Or that an animal
mutely, calmly is looking through and through us.
This is what fate means: to be opposite,
and to be that and nothing else, opposite, forever.
If there was consciousness like ours
in the sure creature, that moves towards us
on a different track – it would drag us
round in its wake. But its own being
is boundless, unfathomable, and without a view
of its condition, pure as its outward gaze.
And where we see future it sees everything,
and itself in everything, and is healed for ever.
And yet in the warm waking creature
is the care and burden of a great sadness.
Since it too always has within it what often
overwhelms us – a memory,
as if what one is pursuing now was once
nearer, truer, and joined to us
with infinite tenderness. Here all is distance,
there it was breath. Compared to that first home
the second one seems ambiguous and uncertain.
O bliss of little creatures
that stay in the womb that carried them forever:
O joy of the midge that can still leap within,
even when it is wed: since womb is all.
And see the half-assurance of the bird,
almost aware of both from its inception,
as if it were the soul of an Etruscan,
born of a dead man in a space
with his reclining figure as the lid.
And how dismayed anything is that has to fly,
and leave the womb. As if it were
terrified of itself, zig-zagging through the air, as a crack
runs through a cup. As the track
of a bat rends the porcelain of evening.
And we: onlookers, always, everywhere,
always looking into, never out of, everything.
It fills us. We arrange it. It collapses.
We arrange it again, and collapse ourselves.
Who has turned us round like this, so that,
whatever we do, we always have the aspect
of one who leaves? Just as they
will turn, stop, linger, for one last time,
on the last hill, that shows them all their valley – ,
so we live, and are always taking leave.
–Rainer Maria Rilke, “Duino Elegy #8,” translated by A.S. Kline
April 17
Why do I not also consider another’s body as myself in the same way, since the otherness of my own body is not difficult to determine? Acknowledging oneself as fault-ridden and others as oceans of virtues, one should contemplate renouncing one’s self-identity and accepting others. Just as the hands and the like are cherished because they are members of the body, why are embodied beings not cherished in the same way, for they are members of the world? Therefore, just as you wish to protect yourself from pain, grief, and the like, so may you cultivate a spirit of protection and a spirit of compassion toward the world. One who wishes to protect oneself and others quickly should practice exchanging oneself for others, which is a great mystery.
— Santideva, A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life
April 18
The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think. It’s an extraordinary declaration, asserting that the unknown need not be turned into the known through false divination or the projection of grim political or ideological narratives; it’s a celebration of darkness, willing – as that “I think” indicates—to be uncertain even about its own assertion.
Most people are afraid of the dark. Literally when it comes to children, while many adults fear, above all, the darkness that is the unknown, the unseeable, the obscure. And yet the night in which distinctions and definitions cannot be readily made is the same night in which love is made, in which things merge, change, become enchanted, aroused, impregnated, possessed, released, renewed. …
Nonfiction has crept closer to fiction in our time in ways that are not flattering to fiction, in part because too many writers cannot come to terms with the ways in which the past, like the future, is dark. There is so much we don’t know, and to write truthfully about a life, your own or your mother’s, or a celebrated figure’s, an event, a crisis, another culture is to engage repeatedly with those patches of darkness, those nights of history, those places of unknowing. They tell us that there are limits to knowledge, that there are essential mysteries, starting with the notion that we know just what someone thought or felt in the absence of exact information. …
To me, the grounds for hope are simply that we don’t know what will happen next, and that the unlikely and the unimaginable transpire quite regularly. And that the unofficial history of the world shows that dedicated individuals and popular movements can shape history and have, though how and when we might win and how long it takes is not predictable.
Despair is a form of certainty, certainty that the future will be a lot like the present or will decline from it; despair is a confident memory of the future, in Gonzalez’s resonant phrase. Optimism is similarly confident about what will happen. Both are grounds for not acting. Hope can be the knowledge that we don’t have that memory and that reality doesn’t necessarily match our plans.
— Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me.
April 19
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.
And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection.
And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.
— Hebrews 11:1, 13-16, 32-40, from the King James Version of the Bible
April 20
A few years ago in a letter Cid Corman had remarked that he couldn’t visualize Leah or me without each other, and I, to confirm that there was a solid base for this, wrote back that ours must be one of the great marriages of all time. When I told Leah what I had written, she looked at me in disbelief. I was startled. Didn’t she believe the same thing? Had I missed something? Was my understanding of her that bad? I studied her face in a glance. She looked serious. I had a sense, however, that more was coming. She wouldn’t leave a look like that unexplained. As I was trying to figure out what that was, something told me that she was going to lower the boom on me, but not in the way I expected. What was in that mischievous head of hers? By this time I was smiling slightly and waited. It came:
With a straight face, she said: “If you feel that way about it, why don’t you bring me presents?”
We burst out laughing. She had scored again.
— Carl Rakosi, writing about his wife Leah
April 21
What kind of world does one see when one experiences it from the point of view of two and not one? What is the world like when it is experienced, developed and lived from the point of view of difference and not identity? That is what I believe love to be.
— Alain Badiou, In Praise of Love
April 22
Tuesday, April 22: Found Alex here at Nauvoo and Julia in care of mother. Mrs. Abercrombie doing the work of the house.
Wednesday, April 23: … Mother apparently failing. … Slight rain. … Cherries in blossom. The old places looks lovely but oh! how desolate.
Thursday, April 24: Slept splendidly so still, so pleasant. Clouds over the sky this am. … Mother continues to fail. Food fails to stimulate her.
Friday, April 25: Mother fails more rapidly. Has taken no nourishment for some hours, her pulse grows feeble constantly. … her breath labored.
Saturday, April 26: Mother quite bad.
Sunday, April 27: Was up with mother till 4:30. She was very bad. Did not think she would live till morning.
Emma died around 4:20 am on April 30, 1879.
— Joseph Smith III’s diary of his mother Emma Smith Bidamon’s death. Quoted in Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery’s Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith
April 23
The Angel of Death was sent to Moses when he came to Moses, Moses slapped him on the eye. The angel returned to his Lord and said, “You have sent me to a Slave who does not want to die.” Allah said, “Return to him and tell him to put his hand on the back of an ox and for every hair that will come under it, he will be granted one year of life.” Moses said, “O Lord! What will happen after that?” Allah replied, “Then death.” Moses said, “Let it come now.” Moses then requested Allah to let him die close to the Sacred Land so much so that he would be at a distance of a stone’s throw from it.“ Abu Huraira added, “Allah’s Apostle said, ‘If I were there, I would show you his grave below the red sand hill on the side of the road.'”
— Hadith 4:619
April 24
When speaking of those who take their own lives, it is always most dignified to use silence or at least restrained language, for the ones left most vulnerable and most deeply hurt by such an occurrence can feel oppressed by the louder assertions of understanding, wisdom and depth of remorse foisted upon them by others. One must ask: Who is best served by speculation? Who is really able to comprehend? Perhaps we must, as human beings, continue to try and comprehend, but we will fall short. And the falling short will deepen our sense of emptiness.
— Yasunari Kawabata, as quoted in Howard Norman’s I Hate to Leave This Beautiful Place
April 25
Yet if we are angry because we are destined to die, there is no more cause for shame than if we were to be angry because we have been born or because we have been created as human beings instead of as angels. Awareness of this is a first step to soothing our fear of death and is in no way insignificant. That remedy will be more effective if we take true account of what we leave behind here. For many are tortured by the thought of death because they look only at the good things they leave. This is when they think how pleasing is the sight of the sun, how beautiful is the firmament, how delightful nature is in spring; they think of their games, their banquets, their wives, their children, their homes, their gardens. You must open the other eye, however, so that you may perceive that you are leaving behind many more bad things than good, and that those very things that are thought of as good involve some adversity and bitterness. Cast your mind over all the stages of life and recall the sordidness of conception, the dangers of being carried in the womb, the wretchedness of birth, the exposure to many misfortunes in infancy, the wrongs suffered in adolescence, the vices by which we are defiled in our early maturity, the anxieties and troubles when we are in our prime, the sufferings of old age. Suppose God were to grant us the chance to go through once again in exactly the same way all that had happened in our lives in the past from conception itself to old age. I do not think you would find anyone who had enjoyed such good fortune that the offer would be accepted. How unbelievably foolish it is, then, to be so distraught when we have to give up what we would not accept if we had the opportunity to repeat it afresh.
… So much for the bad things. Now for the blessings. Calculate how much trouble and anxiety your material resources have brought you, resources from which you cannot now be parted; your wife has, by far, brought ‘more aloes than honey,’ and yet it is because of love of her that you now shrink from death; the rearing of your children has caused you much worry, their behavior much vexation and shame. In addition, one’s mind is ever turning to evil. … In short, put the blessings of life on the right side, the unpleasantness on the left and calculate how short is the whole life that we are to live here. We pass through infancy without awareness of what is happening, our youth flies past as we are engaged in many different activities, our maturity is taken up with worries of all kinds, old age creeps upon us unawares. What is the sum of all this but a moment of time with that eternity to which we willingly go if we have lived an upright life here, to which we are dragged if we have lived a wicked one? Serious contemplation of these things is no worthless remedy against our horror of death.
— Desiderius Erasmus, “De Praeparatione Ad Mortem”
April 26
And they were among the people of Nephi, and also numbered among the people who were of the church of God. And they were also distinguished for their zeal towards God, and also towards men; for they were perfectly honest and upright in all things; and they were firm in the faith of Christ, even unto the end.
And they did look upon shedding the blood of their brethren with the greatest abhorrence; and they never could be prevailed upon to take up arms against their brethren; and they never did look upon death with any degree of terror, for their hope and views of Christ and the resurrection; therefore, death was swallowed up to them by the victory of Christ over it.
Therefore, they would suffer death in the most aggravating and distressing manner which could be inflicted by their brethren, before they would take the sword or cimeter to smite them.
And thus they were a zealous and beloved people, a highly favored people of the Lord.
— Alma 27:27-30, from the Book of Mormon, translated by Joseph Smith, Jr.
April 27
Bubbles
and sparks
–when consulted–
say
that they would like to stay longer.
The hardest crystals
and oldest metals
declare the same:
there would be no two opinions
on this subject.
–Time.
–More time.
–A little more time.
— Circe Maia, “Interviews,” translated by Jesse Lee Kercheval
April 28
The extraordinary patience of things!
This beautiful place defaced with a crop of suburban houses—
How beautiful when we first beheld it,
Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs;
No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing,
Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the outcrop rockheads—
Now the spoiler has come: does it care?
Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people are a tide
That swells and in time will ebb, and all
Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of the pristine beauty
Lives in the very grain of the granite,
Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our cliff.—As for us:
We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;
We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confident
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.
— Robinson Jeffers, “Carmel Point”
April 29
Someone embraces me
Someone looks at me with the eyes of a wolf
Someone takes off his hat
So I can see him better
Everyone asks me
Do you know how I’m related to you
Unknown old men and women
Appropriate the names
Of young men and women from my memory
I ask one of them
Tell me for God’s sake
Is George the Wolf still living
That’s me he answers
With a voice from the next world
I touch his cheek with my hand
And beg him with my eyes
To tell me if I’m living too
— Vasko Popa, “In the Village of My Ancestors,” translated by Charles Simic
April 30
Life is like
nothing else.
Exactly.
— Cid Corman, “N.B.”