Plan B! Plan B! Plan B!

Thе kids don't wanna dance?

Último brindis

The Last Toast:

Whether we like it or not,
We have only three choices:
Yesterday, today and tomorrow.

And not even three
Because as the philosopher says
Yesterday is yesterday
It belongs to us only in memory:
From the rose already plucked
No more petals can be drawn.

The cards to play
Are only two:
The present and the future.

And there aren't even two
Because it's a known fact
The present doesn't exist
Except as it edges past
And is consumed...,
like youth.

In the end
We are only left with tomorrow.
I raise my glass
To the day that never arrives.

But that is all
we have at our disposal.

Nicanor Parra.

To Infinity and Beyond

Happy Voyager 1 Launch Day!

The probe is now in interstellar space, the region outside the heliopause, or the bubble of energetic particles and magnetic fields from the Sun. Voyager 1 was launched after Voyager 2, but because of a faster route it exited the asteroid belt earlier than its twin, and it overtook Voyager 2 on Dec. 15, 1977. 

• Voyager 1 discovered a thin ring around Jupiter and two new Jovian moons: Thebe and Metis.
• At Saturn, Voyager 1 found five new moons and a new ring called the G-ring.
• Voyager 1 was the first spacecraft to cross the heliosphere, the boundary where the influences from outside our solar system are stronger than those from our Sun.
• Voyager 1 is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space.

Watch out for Klingons, little buddy...

I Am Persuaded

Yeah, chaos is king, but you know that you can't stop, won't stop. 

Уярмлені народи гойдають небо

Немилосердно нас об вічність б’ють:

They beat our snow-covered heads against
eternity, relentlessly, without mercy.
And we still fail to settle a score with
our era and to find the path of truth.
Our grief’s ice-shards grind, bash and
and batter us. The shards of our pain
keep calling us to battle. But all we do is
swim behind ourselves like our own cadavers.
Our fury’s taking our breath away.
You, captive of eternity, go throw yourself
against the wall to win your freedom.
The world’s in agony, but defiant peoples
still shake the lampshade of the sky.
The stinging thorns of their screams
grow to the stars, into the cosmic blackness.

Vasyl Stus.

Talking with the girl

But the girl goes sideways...

The Entire Weight of Existence

Here and Now:

The day comes in strips of yellow glass over trees.

 

When I tell you the day is a poem

I’m only talking to you and only the sky is listening.

 

The sky is listening; the sky is as hopeful

as I am walking into the pomegranate seeds

of the wind that whips up the seawall.

 

If you want the poem to take on everything,

walk into a hackberry tree,

then walk out beyond the seawall.

 

I’m not far from a room where Van Gogh

was a patient—his head on a pillow hearing

the mistral careen off the seawall,

 

hearing the fauvist leaves pelt

the sarcophagi. Here and now

 

the air of the tepidarium kissed my jaw

and pigeons ghosting in the blue loved me

 

for a second, before the wind

broke branches and guttered into the river.

 

What questions can I ask you?

How will the sky answer the wind?

 

The dawn isn’t heartbreaking.

The world isn’t full of love.

Peter Balakian.

#throwbackthursday

Kids cleaned up good for Aunt S' wedding in Orygun last year.

Hoping for the best but expecting the worst

I've long associated this song with freshman year of high school, but turns out it was released in September '84, which was the start of sophomore year.  Memory is funny.

Who waits forever anyway?

Immortality:

Forgotten now her fragile golden beauty,
The tilt of her proud chin;
Her quick bright words, her elfish wistful laughter;
Her dreams of lovely things that might have been.
But not a one has ever yet forgotten
Her one small sin. 

Jewell Bothwell Tull.

Dad said I have to be home by eleven

Aw man, I'm gonna miss Stairway to Heaven!

Deus, in adiutorium meum intende

Vespers:

In your extended absence, you permit me

use of earth, anticipating

some return on investment. I must report

failure in my assignment, principally

regarding the tomato plants.

I think I should not be encouraged to grow

tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold

the heavy rains, the cold nights that come

so often here, while other regions get

twelve weeks of summer. All this

belongs to you: on the other hand,

I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots

like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart

broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly

multiplying in the rows. I doubt

you have a heart, in our understanding of

that term. You who do not discriminate

between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence,

immune to foreshadowing, you may not know

how much terror we bear, the spotted leaf,

the red leaves of the maple falling

even in August, in early darkness: I am responsible

for these vines.

By Louise Glück

Они говорят, им нельзя рисковать

Было время, когда НАТО нужно было закрыть небо над Украиной, теперь Украина закрывает небо над Россией

— Ivan Zhdanov (@ioannZH) September 1, 2026

Happy to report that I still got it, baby: was able read that post all by myself without needing Twitter or Google to translate.  So that's nice.  

Wish I could find the time and energy to get back to learning Ukrainian.  Таке життя.

<exits singing, Закрой за мной дверь, я ухожу...>

First day of school and I'm already failing

It was Sadie's first day of Grade 9.  Thankfully, I don't think watching Wrath of Khan is gonna cause her probs in math.