Sicut dixit mima episcopo . . .

"I can’t show you, as the actress said to the bishop."

—Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim (1954)

The bishop to the actress said,

"It wasn't meant to be this way!

If I lived in the great Louis’ day

I'd be an atheist abbé.

But since I don't, I waste my lines

And spoil my inoffensive rhymes,

Asking too much of better times;

Now love has left me, yet unread!”

To this the doubting girl replied,

“There’s reason on the nighttime side

To be remitted? No, indeed!

It's Real Presence that you need.

A rose has thorns. So it may prick.

A throbbing thumb can make you sick!"

Sunday, September 21, 2025

After we're gone . . . Life goes on

Anteaters, it is believed, have evolved from other mammals at least twelve separate times, and they can tolerate—perhaps coordinate—greater fluctuations in body temperature than we can.

Moreover, there are lots of ants to eat (currently, around twenty quadrillion in ±14,000 species, conservatively estimated).

I find this hopeful, don't you? A million years from now, anteater savants* might well wonder what on earth we were:

Hail, Vermilingua!** Hail from Homo sap,

An arrogant two-leggèd, big-brained chap

Who mighty marvels wrought, and took the rap

For all he'd bought, filling the world with crap.

*Interesting here that depictions of the ancient Egyptian god Set show him with what appears to be the head of an aardvark, an African species similar to the Latin American anteaters.

**”Worm tongues,” the scientific name of the suborder to which the four extant species of anteater belong.

Note: Pet shops in Virginia are not allowed to sell anteaters—it's illegal to own them as pets.

Thursday, September 18, 2025

And off he goes . . .

And off he goes, into the where,

Some rain today, and bad the news,

Clouds towering; not here, but there.

How much of life could he refuse,

Music softening his green eyes?

Visions rushing, the sights'll scream,

Odors sparkle, perfumes surprise.

But who will wonder where he's been,

Or even notice that he's gone?

They’re much too busy with their messes,

To give a hoot; they'll get quite wrong

Dead mail's not-at-this-addresses!

Some kin won't be all that bothered,

They so distant, oddly brothered.

Suggested accompaniment: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Trombone Concerto (1877).

Tuesday, September 16, 2025