www.WrensJournal.blogspot.com

“Consistently doing any activity that requires self-control seems to increase willpower — and the ability to resist impulses and delay gratification is highly associated with success in life,” according to recent psychological studies reported today in the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/opinion/02aamodt.html?em&ex=1207540800&en=9367952f240fcdb8&ei=5087%0A

The newspaper I read at breakfast this morning told of the funeral of a young man who died trying to save his mother from being robbed in Mexico. It said she read this poem, which is what she found on his bed when she returned to Boulder:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/apr/05/a-life-well-lived-cut-too-short/

A Postmortem Guide
For my eulogist, in advance

Do not praise me for my exceptional serenity.
Can't you see I've turned away
from the large excitements,
and have accepted all the troubles?
Go down to the old cemetery; you'll see
there's nothing definitive to be said.
The dead once were all kinds—
boundary breakers and scalawags,
martyrs of the flesh, and so many
dumb bunnies of duty, unbearably nice.
I've been a little of each.
And, please, resist the temptation
of speaking about virtue.
The seldom-tempted are too fond
of that word, the small-spirited, the unburdened.
Know that I've admired in others
only the fraught straining
to be good.
Adam's my man and Eve's not to blame.
He bit in; it made no sense to stop.
Still, for accuracy's sake you might say
I often stoppped,
that I rarely went as far as I dreamed.
And since you know my hardships,
understand they're mere bump and setback
against history's horror.
Remind those seated, perhaps weeping,
how obscene it is
for some of us to complain.
Tell them I had second chances.
I knew joy.
I was burned by books early
and kept sidling up to the flame.
Tell them that at the end I had no need
for God, who'd become just a story
I once loved, one of many
with concealments and late-night rescues,
high sentence and pomp.
The truth is
I learned to live without hope
as well as I could, almost happily,
in the despoiled and radiant snow.
You who are one of them, say that I loved
my companions most of all.
In all sincerity, say they provided
a better way to be alone.


When I looked up the poem online, I was surprised to see this by the same author:

http://www.nortonpoets.com/ex/dunnsdifferent.htm

John & Mary

"John & Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who also had never met."—from a freshman's short story

They were like gazelles who occupied different
grassy plains, running in opposite directions
from different lions.
They were like postal clerks
in different zip codes, with different vacation time,
their bosses adamant and clock-driven.
How could they get together?
They were like two people who couldn't get together.
John was a Sufi with a love of the dervish,
Mary of course a Christian with a curfew.
They were like two dolphins in the immensity
of the Atlantic, one playful,the other stuck in a tuna net—
two absolutely different childhoods!
There was simply no hope for them.
They would never speak in person.
When they ran across that windswept field
toward each other, they were like two freight trains,
one having left Seattle at 6:36 P.M.at an unknown speed, the other delayed
in Topeka for repairs.
The math indicated that they'd embrace
in another world, if at all, like parallel lines.
Or merely appear kindred and close, like stars.

Mary and I have known each other since high school, we are engaged, and we keep putting off the date. It feels a lot like this.