I was an English major, after all.

So it's term paper time here, and I get to write a total of 60 pages for the end of the semester. One paper is already written, and work has been done toward a second, which will put the lion's share of the writing behind me, and a summer of non-academic pursuits will become reality. I'll write something a little more worthwhile at some point, but for right now I'll cop out and quote someone else.
For Christmas 2 years ago, my grandfather gave me a volume of poetry by Czeslaw Milosz, a Polish/Lithuanian poet who had died about a year before, and who spent much of his career here in Berkeley. When I read from this volume, Second Spaces, I feel like I'm stealing something. Milosz, with a lot more miles on his bones than I have, pours his wisdom into these poems. I particularly like this one, entitled "Werki," after a place in Lithuania.

An English Horn, a drum, a viola making music
In a house on a hill amidst forests in autumn.
A large view from there onto the bends of the river.

I still want to correct this world,
Yet I think mostly of them, and they have all died.
Also about their unknown country.
Its geography, says Swedenborg, cannot be transferred to maps.
For there, as one has been, so one sees.
And it is possible even there to make mistakes; for instance,

to wander about

Without realizing you are already on the other side.

As I, perhaps, just dream those rusty-golden forests,
The glitter of the river in which I swam in my youth,
The October from my poems with its air like wine.

The priests taught us about salvation and damnation.
Now I have not the slightest notion of these things.
I have felt on my shoulder the hand of my Guide,
Yet He didn't mention punishment, didn't promise a reward.