Half staff

I am not sure why, but all of the flags on campus today are at half staff. If I were to venture a guess, a member of armed forces from Mississippi, likely one of our students, was killed in Afghanistan or Iraq...

Little man woke up early, coughing his lungs out. No better way to be woken on a Sunday at 6:00 or so am.

We took an early morning walk around the deserted campus. The air was cool, crisp, and clean. Not a cloud in the sky. Not a drop of moisture in the air. It reminded me of a poem by one of my very favorite poets, Czeslaw Milosz:

Gift

A day so happy.
Fog lifted early. I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

Berkeley, 1971

All I am missing, is the sails.