Ben Abuya - who else could it be?

Four men went into an orchard, and three are still there. The other, the Akher, went out and, as Isaac Deutscher notes, took a stroll with Rabbi Meir. But the Akher saw that the Rabbi had reached the Eruv - the boundary beyond which he ought not proceed, and advised him to return. Without that intervention the Rabbi would have transgressed.

A Vague Impression

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. (Henry David Thoreau - he was always saying that).

Let's not be narrow, nasty, and negative (TS Eliot)

"For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning."

Pebbles that make a good road

Friedrich Mohs, a German mineralogist, developed the Mohs scale of hardness in 1812. He selected ten minerals of distinctly different hardness that ranged from a very soft mineral (talc) to a very hard mineral (diamond). With the exception of diamond, the minerals are all relatively common and easy or inexpensive to obtain. 

Zornitsa

the cloud of dust specks 

swirls in rays of morning sun -

our remains play on

.

When the heart is full, the eye overflows אַז דאָס האַרץ איז פֿול, גייען די אויגן איבער

the salt of the earth
bound with the water of life -
can they separate?

.

.

Gonzaga's dream

in the afternoon
the new town street is empty
the centuries sleep

.

Kleptoparasite

city people sleep
as the sea bird forages
time too is taken

.

Time capsule

between the old stones
time is trapped like a cobweb
shadows block the sun

.

Aesthetics – and self-criticism

a coastal walk gives

a visual metaphor

now filed as sea views

.

Urbi et orbi

listen well comrade

in the vast metropolis

a child is crying



.

The struggle

an old etched churchyard

where springtime bluebells struggle

to suck in the light

.