Dividing the Day

When midnight's shift divides the day
I look within — and what is saved?
Or what is gone, and not to be?
But sleep has come, and all is dark.

When morning's wall remains to climb
The first step's getting out of bed
More choices open up again
And boil away under the sun.

Vignettes

These are little glimpses into the secret life of us all.

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Morning meditations. The tale is a familiar one. The leader of the people vanishes up the mountain to commune with his God. His people fret in his absence. They indulge in abhorrent practices. The leader returns. He mobilises a few hundred of the sanctified to kill three thousand people in the name of his God.

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The end of the day at the College of Wyverns. Gathered in the scriptorium beneath the aedificium, the warrior monks and nuns of the Grand Order are engaged in serious philosophical debate. Today's topic: ethics and discipline. This is how the conversation ends.

"I, sir, am a paragon of moral rectitude!"

"Moral turpitude, more likely!"

"My rectum is perpendicular to the ground!"

"So is your turpentine!"

"Gentlemen, you're all being a bit..."

"Sorry, madam."

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In quite another section of the College, fifty young men and women – some of senior and exalted station, some of junior and less exalted estate – stand in wait for the mysterious Knights of the Old Republic, servants of the Black Order. They will wait for a long time, but they do not mind, for they also serve who only stand and wait.

The lines stretch out forever, orderly, active, disciplined. They wait, they wait. Is there any use to the waiting? They assume so; their faith is like armour.

=====

The Grey Man walks the white corridors and appears in the Plaza. Students call out to him, "Sir, entertain us!" It is an unusual request, but the Grey Man is feeling uncharacteristically beneficient and he complies.

"Entertaining yourself is very simple. You need to start with boredom. Perfect boredom creates heightened self-awareness."

The students quieten, realising that one of his rare public performances is in the offing.

"You stand upright, life and death in your hands, left and right. It is at the moment of equilibrium that you will realise your hands are different."

They stare at him. Is he serious? The Grey Man is not known for straight talk.

"Left and right. You will begin to see that they are different, feel that they are not the same."

He sees that some of them are looking at his hands, or at their own. He lifts his hands: plain, ordinary-looking hands.

"Select a hand and look at it. You will suddenly know that it is not your hand, that it is an alien object, separated from you, not you at all."

He takes a breath, and so do they.

"And at that moment, you will have entertained yourself."

He smiles, steps away, and vanishes.

=====

He has a daughter. She has a father. When did they grow to be this far apart? Not that far apart though; merely at arm's length. But far enough. He is feeling old; the white hairs depress him, with their little antimelanic messages. She is feeling old because things irritate her which shouldn't. She shouldn't feel old. She is less than half his age.

But it's there, and what can you do about it?

Days Of Our Lives

We're all days, and this is a truth from the beginning. As the temperament of a day goes, so too are there people to go with it; the Bard himself has remarked, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate." (Sonnet 18)

Cultures from all over the world have their counting-rhymes for the days and seasons; it is that tradition which has given us that infamous blight and self-fulfilling prophecy of the day of the week which is said to control the destiny of a child. (For the record, I was born on Vendredi, or Freya's Day.)

There is something which calls to us from the nature of a day - its fresh and dewy beginning is like a baby's innocence, while its parched and richly darkening end is like the complicated diversity of our various and separate drawings-down of blinds. In the noonday of one's life, one might think of Apollo and Mithras, of the Sun in Splendour, or of le Roi Soleil.

In the North of the world, where the days are often far longer or far too short, people are at their sunniest and gloomiest - bright fair people with grim sagas; it reminds me of what the Good Book says - "As your days, so shall your strength be." (This last speaks to my heart in particular because my late grandfather's last words were an exact quotation of verse 27 of that passage.)

The days of our lives are threescore and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore, all their strength is suffering - so says Moses from the elegiaic height of his disappointment, as he contemplates the failing of his sixscore years with no hope in this life of entering the Promised Land. His advice is probably sound; all we can do in the end is to number our days aright, and do our best with what we have.

On a lighter note though, here is a song from that odd and entertaining group, the Bee Gees...

Ooh you’re a holiday, such a holiday
Ooh you’re a holiday, such a holiday

It’s something I think's worthwhile
If the puppet makes you smile
If not then you’re throwing stones
Throwing stones, throwing stones

Ooh it’s a funny game
Don’t believe that it’s all the same
Can’t think what I’ve just said
Put the soft pillow on my head

Millions of eyes can see
Yet why am I so blind
When the someone else is me
It’s unkind, it’s unkind

de de de de de de de de de de de de de
de de de de de de de de de de de de de

Yet millions of eyes can see
Yet why am I so blind
When the someone else is me
It’s unkind, it’s unkind

Ooh you’re a holiday, ev’ry day, such a holiday
Now it’s my turn to say, and I say you’re a holiday
It’s something I think's worthwhile
If the puppet makes you smile
If now then you’re throwing stones
Throwing stones , throwing stones

de de de de de de de de de de de de de de

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Yes, indeed. And just in case he feels left out, I shall dedicate this post to my one student whose name sounds suspiciously like the day on which we have chapel services in school. You (now) know who you are; be at peace with your nature, OK?