First Known When Lost: How To Live, Part Three: "A Single Grain Of Rice Falling -- Into The Great Barn"

First Known When Lost: How To Live, Part Three: "A Single Grain Of Rice Falling -- Into The Great Barn"
Excerpt:
The Chinese poets of the T'ang Dynasty are a great source of wisdom. Seamus Heaney writes, in a poem about reading the poetry of Han Shan: ". . . enviable stuff,/Unfussy and believable." ("Squarings XXXVII" in Seeing Things.) The wisdom of the T'ang poets is of particular value in a time of media and political hysteria. In recent days, I have been reminded of lines from Patrick Kavanagh's "Leave Them Alone": "Newspaper bedlamites who raised/Each day the devil's howl." Kavanagh concludes:

The whole hysterical passing show
The hour apotheosised
Into a cul-de-sac will go
And be not even despised................