Comments on: Rippling Hills http://www.farrfeed.com/2007/11/03/rippling-hills/ John Hamilton Farr's Living Planet Mystery Tales from Taos, New Mexico Sat, 11 Feb 2012 03:57:33 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: K.J. Webb http://www.farrfeed.com/2007/11/03/rippling-hills/comment-page-1/#comment-142 K.J. Webb Sat, 03 Nov 2007 21:10:44 +0000 http://jhfarr.com/farrfeed/2007/11/03/rippling-hills/#comment-142 Our mother the earth is an old bitch gone in the teeth. We're walking on bones more than on flesh. I don't mind scuffing up the old harridan. I object to her bloodthirsty savagery. The best I look for from her is a truce, given that we humans, like it or not, are part of her monstrous game and can't really escape her. Might as well accept the limitations she imposes - death, brutality, indifference. Can't escape them anyway. "Death is the mother of beauty", as the poet said. Doesn't mean we have to love the nasty creature. She hasn't been lovable since the days of Wordsworth, who managed to convince himself that she was the spiritual force behind the beautiful scenery of the Lake Country. No, Bill, it was just scenery. Just ducks quacking and water rippling and trees towering. Didn't mean a thing except the thing it was - a nice outing in the countryside for a gentleman of leisure. Much better than being pent up in the smoky city, I grant that much. You liked to draw moral truths from the pleasure of the scene, but weren't you really just on an extended holiday? Not that there's anything wrong with that! Maybe we should all do it. Pardon my whimsy, John. I like to tease you. I liked your metaphor of walking on a dusty cushion, which might be a moving sidewalk, which might evolve to a waterway. Maybe it will lead us to heaven in the end. You're just naturally more spiritual than me, I reckon, who generally relishes being stuck in the mud and calling it by that name. But I like your words when you're in full flight. We your readers get our word's worth out of you. Our mother the earth is an old bitch gone in the teeth. We’re walking on bones more than on flesh. I don’t mind scuffing up the old harridan. I object to her bloodthirsty savagery. The best I look for from her is a truce, given that we humans, like it or not, are part of her monstrous game and can’t really escape her. Might as well accept the limitations she imposes – death, brutality, indifference. Can’t escape them anyway. “Death is the mother of beauty”, as the poet said. Doesn’t mean we have to love the nasty creature. She hasn’t been lovable since the days of Wordsworth, who managed to convince himself that she was the spiritual force behind the beautiful scenery of the Lake Country. No, Bill, it was just scenery. Just ducks quacking and water rippling and trees towering. Didn’t mean a thing except the thing it was – a nice outing in the countryside for a gentleman of leisure. Much better than being pent up in the smoky city, I grant that much. You liked to draw moral truths from the pleasure of the scene, but weren’t you really just on an extended holiday? Not that there’s anything wrong with that! Maybe we should all do it.

Pardon my whimsy, John. I like to tease you. I liked your metaphor of walking on a dusty cushion, which might be a moving sidewalk, which might evolve to a waterway. Maybe it will lead us to heaven in the end. You’re just naturally more spiritual than me, I reckon, who generally relishes being stuck in the mud and calling it by that name. But I like your words when you’re in full flight. We your readers get our word’s worth out of you.

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