At Grass

I started this blog one year ago and I am afraid I haven't done a very good job of keeping it up. In my defense, I would note that I work on computers all day and sometimes it is hard to face the screen again at night. Lately, too, my attention has been on Facebook and following friends and family there. Well, so be it. Here is a new start at least. Isn't that what birthdays are, an assessment and a prediction? I wanted to find a poem to post and I like this one very much. I have never been much of a horse racing fan, but certainly can sympathize with the subjects. I remember thinking that I could do anything, be anything, when I was young. I was certain that fortune waited just around the corner. Well, I have wandered in that maze for some time now and I haven't turned that particular corner.

At Grass, by Phillip Larkin

The eye can hardly pick them out
From the cold shade they shelter in,
Till wind distresses tail and mane;
Then one crops grass, and moves about
--The other seeming to look on --
And stands anonymous again.

Yet fifteen years ago, perhaps
Two dozen distances sufficed
to fable them: faint afternoons
Of Cups and Stakes and Handicaps,
Whereby their names were artificed
To inlay faded, classic Junes --

Silks at the start: against the sky
Numbers and parasols: outside,
Squadrons of empty cars, and heat,
And littered grass: then the long cry
Hanging unhushed till it subside
To stop-press columns on the street.

Do memories plague their ears like flies?
They shake their heads. Dusk brims the shadows.
Summer by summer all stole away,
The starting-gates, the crowds and cries --
All but the unmolesting meadows.
Almanacked, their names live; they

Have slipped their names, and stand at ease,
Or gallop for what must be joy,
And not a fieldglass sees them home,
Or curious stop-watch prophesies;
Only the groom, and the groom's boy,
With bridles in the evening come.

The Philosopher's Stone

I am reminded of the story of a boy walking along the road (don't they always start that way?) and encountering an old man weeping by the side of the road. The Boy stops to inquire why the man is so inconsolable and he notices that in spite of the pitiless rags the Old Man is wearing and his general look of poverty that his belt buckle is of purest gold. The Old Man tells his story, "I was once a great thinker and alchemist. I have sought my entire life for the Philosopher's Stone, that magic stone that will turn anything it touches into gold. I sought high and low, from Kings and Sages and Wizards of all kinds. Surely the Stone must exist! Every pebble and rock I touched to my buckle, in hopes of finding the Stone and so securing my fortune. I have wandered the Earth for years in search of the Philosopher's Stone."
The Boy cocks his head and scowls, "But Sir, surely you have found the Stone, since your buckle is of purest gold! Why do you weep so?"
And the Old Man answers, "Yes, my buckle is purest gold. But for years I tested hundreds, nay, thousands of stones. Every one was a failure. Over the years, I acquired the habit of picking up stones and touching them to my belt, one after another, and knowing they were not the Philosopher's Stone, I eventually ceased even looking at my buckle to confirm another failure."
"So you see", the Old Man goes on, " I kept on my quest until one day I chanced to look down and see my golden buckle. Then I realized I had found the Philosopher's Stone . . . yes, found the Stone. . . and had cast it away." With this the Old Man rises stiffly and hobbles down the road, picking up pebbles, one by one.