..and Only Sticks And Stones

I Like Poetry When I Don't Quite Understand Why I Like It. Poetry Isn't Just A Question Of Wrapping Something Up And Giving It To Someone Else To Unwrap. It Just Doesn't Work Like That.

Fiction That Responds To Recent World Events Is A Hostage To Fortune Because All Momentous Events Look Very Different A Year, Two Years, Three Years Later.

One Person Looks Around And Sees A Universe Created By A God Who Watches Over Its Long Unfurling, Marking The Fall Of Sparrows And Listening To The Prayers Of His Finest Creation. Another Person Believes That Life, In All Its Baroque Complexity, Is A Chemical Aberration That Will Briefly Decorate The Surface Of A Ball Of Rock Spinning Somewhere Among A Billion Galaxies. And The Two Of Them Could Talk For Hours And Find No Great Difference Between One Another, For Neither Set Of Beliefs Make Us Kinder Or Wiser.

And Father Said, "christopher, Do You Understand That I Love You?" And I Said "yes," Because Loving Someone Is Helping Them When They Get Into Trouble, And Looking After Them, And Telling Them The Truth, And Father Looks After Me When I Get Into Trouble, Like Coming To The Police Station, And He Looks After Me By Cooking Meals For Me, And He Always Tells Me The Truth, Which Means That He Loves Me.

The Secret Of Contentment Lay In Ignoring Many Things Completely.