And some days...you wander out of Mass, full of God and coffee, and on the way home, wonder what it would be like to give lesson planning a miss, and just book it top speed, driving East (Aslan came from the East), across deserts and mountains, with no destination in mind.

Movement is peace. Changing, we rest.

But staying in one place for a time requires you to confront your weaknesses head on. It's easy to be cheerful and enlightening, warm and positive, charitable and good for hours, possibly even days at a time. New friends, coworkers, and students have no faults. But weeks and months? When the air conditioning is broken and the seventh grade has decided that they are tired of vocabulary, themselves, and you, several high schoolers have just been caught rifling through your desk in search of Slinkies (let this be a lesson to us all), everyone wants just a bit more of your time than you are able to give, and your car tires keep mysteriously deflating? Then you find out what you are truly made of.

In my case, it's Jello.

the lesson of the moth

i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires

why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would now
be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense

plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves

and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity

but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself

- archy (don marquis)