Snapshots from History (More)

 

Confucius is considered the greatest sage of traditional China. When he purportedly said, “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop,” he was not talking about breakfast.

Chinese Breakfast

Zero was invented in India when Hindu philosophers made great efforts to empty their minds. They came up with nothing.

Hindu Sanyasi

During the late forties, a struggling American artist refurbishing his New York City apartment spilled yellow paint on a large canvas he had laid out on the floor—liking what he saw, he decided to do it again, this time with red paint. Thus was born the legend of Jackson Pollock, master of Abstract Expressionism.

Number 16 (1949) by Jackson Pollock

Sententia

 

Snapshots from History (More)

 

Greek physicians would diagnose their patients by tasting their ear wax. Needless to say, medical school enrollments jumped after this practice was discontinued.

Doctor Treating a Patient, Greek Oil Flask, 480-470 BCE

Indonesia’s most popular tourist destination, the 8th-century Borobudur, is the largest Buddhist temple in the world, made up of ascending levels that represent the three planes of existence in the Buddhist universe—Desire, Forms, and Enlightenment. Tourists who climb to the third level of the temple invariably experience Enlightenment, namely, that it was a good idea to go on vacation.

Borobudur Temple, view from above

When Lenin attacked the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg on October 25, 1917, ousting the Provisional Government of Kerensky, he promised the Russian people, “Peace, Land, and Bread.” What they got was Stalin.

Stalin (2018) by Andrei Mironov

Two Dawn Poems

 

PROLOGUE

Gloaming is gradually pushing night away.

Casting a magician’s spell, day sweeps

His arm in a wide arc, left to right.

The sky submits to his behest.

Darkness retreats faster than low tide pulling back its forces,

Fading until morning is a garment washed many times.

Dawn is a gray wolf’s coat streaked with white clouds.

Blue and pink light diffuse, a river entering a delta.

Moon and stars now gleam faintly, soft as kindness.

Daylight is spilling, gentle waterfall, over the window sill.

The house begins to stir, a living animal.

I hear tinkling utensils, clattering plates, sloshing glasses.

Coffee is percolating, a gurgling snorkel.

Birds let loose warbles, sinuous wrist movements of a dancer.

Clearing throats repeatedly, roosters do not understand

Only once is necessary to remind everyone day is here.

Din rises, tittering audience before a performance.

Turning squeakily, a faucet drills water into a pail.

Commuters gun their engines. Motorcycles roar, punching holes in paper.

Chaos breaks out, a bull bounding free from a maze.

WINTER DAWN

In first wintry morning light

The window sill peeling paint

Has grown a beard of ice

Overnight. Glacial darkness

Now is luminous chill. Wan

Beams bounce about, silent.

Walls, doors, bed, and sofa

Glow like the full moon.

Hidden behind the horizon, a lantern

Reddens the sky, blue and gray.

Winsome, time turns, smiles

For the photographer, who

Traps the moment in amber

As eternity enters the room.

Wheatstacks (End of Summer) (1890-91) by Claude Monet