No sentimentality in simplicity
The catch
He knew a fisherman.
The fisherman told him, it was a hard life. Not too much money. Poseidon a tough boss. And then the two choices:
One, be alone. Not too bad. Fishing and drinking, drinking and eating. But, too long alone isn’t meant for a man.
Or two: find a woman, make children. But then you love them so much. Hate when they’re hungry. Can’t pay when they’re sick. Feel shame when you fail to provide. Then they become fishermen. Or find one to settle. For there aren’t many choices ‘round there.
He asked the fisherman what he should do.
Make money, get money, however you can. Sweat and toil, be a Gaudin. Invest to grow and savor. Then you can swim, fish, play all you want, in a life of blue seas and few whales.
That is when Mr. Roberts decided to move to Denmark to become a poet.
“His destiny was to rise in order one day to enter the worlds of others? The Hour of the Star
“What was it all for? Furlong wondered. The work and the constant worry. Getting up in the dark and going to the yard, making the deliveries, one after another, the whole day long, then coming home in the dark and trying to wash the black off himself and sitting into a dinner at the table and falling asleep before waking in the dark to meet a version of the same thing, yet again.” Small things like these
“All through the dog-breath air of late summer and fall, cast an eye up the mountain and there she’d be, little bleach-blonde smoking her Pall Malls, hanging on that railing like she’s captain of her ship up there and now might be the hour it’s going down. This is an eighteen-year-old girl we’re discussing, all on her own and as pregnant as it gets.” Demon Copperhead
“Once I moved about like the wind I. Now I surrender to you and that is all. Said Geronimo.” The Last Novel
“Nature, being unsentimental, accommodates the reality that some sows eat their young,” Pig Years
“We finished up, and as we prepared to leave, I asked Tahseen what he thought would happen to the little girl. He looked her over slowly, considering the question, and then said, “She will marry a man who beats her, and have children who cannot read.” Missionaries
To see the connections, open the site below.
