The Bait by John Donne

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The Bait

by John Donne

Come live with me and be my love

And we will some new pleasures prove

Of golden sands and crystal brooks,

With silken lines and silver hooks.

There will the river -- whispering run

Warmed by thy eyes more than the sun

And there th' enamoured fish will stay,

Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,

Each fish, which every channel hath,

Will amorously to thee swim,

Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou, to be so seen, be'st loth,

By sun or moon, thou darken'st both

And if myself have leave to see,

I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,

And cut their legs with shells and weeds

Or treacherously poor fish beset,

With strangling snare or windowy net.

Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest

The bedded fish in banks out-wrest;

Or curious traitors, sleave-silk flies,

Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes.

For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,

For thou thyself art thine own bait:

That fish, that is not catch'd thereby,

Alas, is wiser far than I.

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The Seven Ages of Man by William Shakespeare

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The Seven Ages of Man

by William Shakespeare

from "As You Like It"

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players,

They have their exits and entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages.

At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

Then, the whining schoolboy with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school.

And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow.

Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth.

And then the justice In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd,

With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws, and modern instances,

And so he plays his part.

The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,

His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide,

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again towards childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound.

Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

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Not Over The Hill

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Not Over the Hill

Up the hill. Over the hill. Down the hill.

I've been up the hill. I'm over the hill. I'm not ready to go down the hill, but I guess that's where I am headed. Today I found out I'll be running in my fifth St. George Marathon. I wanted to run this year because I turned fifty-five, but I don't feel that old.

The first time I ran the marathon I was probably thirty-six or seven. I was celebrating my wife's cancer victory; I figured if she could survive cancer, I could run a marathon. It wasn't a stellar performance, but for a guy who didn't think he could run a mile until he was twenty-five, it was a pretty fun four-and-one-half hours.

That's right. Even though the winners were done in just over two hours, I was still running two hours later. But that was fine with me. It was the most amazing feeling of accomplishment. Surging with endorphins and totally exhausted, I felt on top of the world. But I must have looked pretty ragged, because as I leaned against a tree in the park in the center of St. George, a lady walked up and asked me if I needed to go to the hospital.

I had just jogged, plodded, ran and walked twenty-six point two miles. What should I look like? I felt like an Olympian God ready to send lightning bolts from my fingertips. But I bet I looked like a sweaty, exhausted mess.

It was a long journey from not being able to run a mile to finishing a marathon, and just like everything else I've done in my life, it just takes putting one foot in front of the other and not stopping. It sounds hackneyed and trite but it's true. Just don't stop.

The St. George Marathon is an amazing, exhilarating race where it seems the entire city turns out to cheer every runner for every step. As a celebration for my luck in the lottery to decide who gets to run, I walked up my local hill today. I'm not in the best shape, and the last time I ran the marathon two years ago, I had to walk the final six miles. My knees stopped working. I hadn't trained enough, but I finished the race.

Now as a baby-boomer, senior-citizen, I am officially over-the-hill. I have a hill to climb in the next one-hundred forty-four days. That's the countdown given on the website.

I'm not in the beginning of my race of life, but I'm also not at the bottom of the hill. I've found out a few things on this long distance race. Life isn't a bunch of short sprints but more like a marathon than most people know. Endurance has a lot more to do with success than we might think, and that really is the secret to the marathon -- and to life. Danny Kaye once said, "Life is a great big canvas, throw all the paint at it you can."

I may not win the marathon, but I am a winner in life. I've thrown so much paint at my canvas most people ask if I have a clone. I'm an award-winning gardener, and I love working in my yard. I've acted in more than thirty films, commercials or television shows. On stage I've performed more than fifty different plays. I've had a radio program and recorded all of the Shakespearean sonnets. I have a website which is getting about twenty-thousand visits each month. I've taught high school and college for more than thirty years, continuing to expand my interests like wind-surfing, skiing, writing poetry. But since I am over the hill, I guess I'll just have to increase the speed I learn new things.

As I speed down the hill, toward the end of this race, I'll know I did everything I wanted. And if I didn't do it, I just didn't want to badly enough. Walking up the hill today was a beginning, but mostly a symbol. The St. George Marathon starts at the top of a long canyon and so it is mostly downhill. The course descends a half-mile over the twenty-six miles.

But there is one part of the race which challenges every runner. Veyo. A small hill in the middle of a long race, but it does show up just a little into the race; just enough to discourage anyone looking up at the extinct volcano. My approach to the hill is to not stop running. It may not look like I am running to anyone else, but in my own plodding and determined style, I know as long as I don't stop, eventually I will be over the hill.

Even when I'm already over the hill.

You Are Old, Father William by Lewis Carroll

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You Are Old, Father William
by
Lewis Carroll

You are old, Father William', the young man said,
'And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head --
Do you think, at your age, it is right?'

'In my youth', Father William replied to his son,
'I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.
'
'You are old', said the youth, 'as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door --
Pray, what is the reason of that?'

'In my youth', said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
'I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment - one shilling the box -
Allow me to sell you a couple?'

'You are old', said the youth, 'and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -
Pray, how did you manage to do it?'

'In my youth', said his father, 'I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.'

'You are old', said the youth, 'one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -
What made you so awfully clever?'

'I have answered three questions, and that is enough,'
Said his father, 'don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!'

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High Flight

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High Flight

by John Gillespie McGee

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,

I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew -

And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod

The high untresspassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

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Beginnings by Dane Allred

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Bright Space

by Dane Allred

Beginnings

You were there.

So was I.

Everyone and everything that ever was, is, or will be

Was there.

There was nothing else, no other place, and no other time except

That bright space where we all were.

All united in the peace of that bright space

Yet at once all individual.

We were content.

We were at rest in the never ending and

Never beginning

Bright space.

Every idea, every thought

To be thought was there.

There was no time because there was all time.

There was no rush because there was nowhere to go.

At peace, we rested in the blissful knowledge

Of all that was,

Of all that is,

Of all that ever will be.

But then that nagging doubt began.

What if there is something else?

Something not here now

That we could discover if we were not

Resting together in that bright space?

Something we could only discover if we

Became separate

And left the bright place

Of peace and content and rest.

Could there be more if I was not with you

And you were not with me?

What would such a something else be like?

What would make me want to leave you

And for you to leave me

That would be worth abandoning

All that we had ever known

All that we had ever been?

That was when the answer appeared.

Apart, we could be more.

Apart we would find things we could never find

If all of us remained in this peaceful, restful, contented

Bright space.

So we decided to leave.

We would have to become separate for a while

So we could experience all we couldn’t experience together.

We agreed to return and share all that we had learned

So that in our new bright space

We would have no more doubt about

What could be

What we could know

What we could become.

We promised we would remember all we would experience

When we were together again.

And then truly be at peace.

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I Lit The Stage On Fire

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I Lit The Stage On Fire

This particular story is an adventure that I had that an audience got to share.  This is at the University of Utah a good thirty years ago.  I really only had one interesting incident that endangered my life, but also threatened the entire audience. My wife and I were in "Romeo and Juliet".  It was being performed on the main stage of the Pioneer Memorial Theatre. It's a great stage; it's got a loge; it's got a balcony; seats hundreds of patrons. The seats have the names of pioneers on the armrests, so that's why it's called the Pioneer Memorial Theatre. I'd never even been to a show in that theatre before; I didn't realize that's why it was called that.

The best news is that since it's an Equity stage, as students, we got paid - in the form of free tuition for the semester. We were acting with some really great actors I have crossed paths with again and again since then. It was a great experience and we still laugh about the night I lit the stage on fire.

Really. It was a small flame, but it was a small fire.  The audience knew it was a fire.  I knew it was a fire and had to make a decision.

I was playing Balthazar, just a small speaking part who is the servant of Romeo. I was really excited because the whole play turns on the speech I give to Romeo, telling him Juliet's dead and the audience would go completely silent anticipating how the play was about to become an incredible tragedy, caused by a simple speech by a servant who thought he was telling his master about his wife.

I felt really bad in this production for the guy playing the apothecary scene right after mine. He had memorized his part but since we were running a little bit long, cut the scene three nights before the show, and that was after all the costumes and sets had been built for this scene and I don't know how he felt, but it would have crushed me as an actor.  I'm glad my part didn't get cut.

I was playing a scene with two of the leads, Mercutio and Benvolio, Max Robinson was playing Mercutio and if you saw his performance of that you know what an exquisite thing he was able to make out of a character who dies in the second act. These are two of Romeo's best friends and as Romeo's servant I was carrying this torch with these two guys as we searched for Romeo. Now, he's slipped off to see Juliet, but we're wandering around, boisterously making our way home calling out his name. The scenery department had built this great wall which was about 4 feet high, and we were to lean over the wall into the Capulet's orchard. The prop department had arranged for us to use live flame on stage, which is illegal now unless you have the proper training and certificates. But they had taken some gel sterno that's usually used for warming trays underneath food and stuck some in a tin can on the top of a stick. It was a great prop, and it was a little dangerous; sometimes a little smoky.

We were constantly having to refill the tin cans, and as the stuff heated up it would liquefy. So one night, as we leaned over the wall and called for Romeo, I stuck my torch on the other side of the wall to light the orchard as we searched for Romeo. The torch dipped, and the liquid sterno dropped out of the tin can into a small puddle on the floor, which would have been fine.

But it stayed lit.

Now there was a small flame; it's about 3 inches tall on the stage. We could see it; we could tell the audience could see it because there were some murmurs in the crowd. Everything got silent. We had a little short, stocky stage manager.  She was ready to run on stage with her fire extinguisher when I motioned to the other two actors to lift me over the wall. I was going to stomp on it when I got to the other side of the wall, and if I climbed the wall on my own, there was a chance the Styrofoam would fall over and maybe get on the flames.

Scott Wells was playing Benvolio and he and Max Robinson lifted me up.  They unceremoniously dumped me over the wall. I landed on my feet, and one of my feet serendipitously landed on the flame.

There had been an extended silence in the audience while this was going on. "Was it a real fire?" they're wondering. "Was it planned?"  I looked down at my foot for the flame, and seeing none, I lifted up one of feet to look at it.

The audience started to laugh, and they knew everybody was all right. I started to climb over the wall and Scott and Max grabbed me and we beat a hasty exit.

When you do a live stage production, people can listen downstairs on monitors so they know what's going on with the show.  So those listening downstairs were wondering what was so funny about Mercutio, Balthazar and Benvolio looking for Romeo. We'd never had any laughs in that part before.  We decided we didn't want to get laughs that way again.  So I made sure that every night after that my torch had as little liquid sterno in it as possible.

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