an old writer and his words

  • THE MISSING POWER

    We have granted ourselvestremendous powers that oncewere reserved to the Gods.We have long overthrown themand assumed their thrones.We can destroy cities, evencountries on a whim, andif not careful can eradicateall life on this planet.We can harness rivers,the wind, the sun, the atom.Yet despite all our powerwe cannot avoid growingold, we cannot avoid dyingfor that is…

    Lou Faber

  • CELESTIAL AWE

    He says that there isa really good chance thatso much of astronomyis delusion, that allof astronomy is history.Go out in the countrywhere there are nostreetlights and lookat the sky and the multitudeof stars that you see.There are atlases listingthe name or numberof each of them butstop and realize howmany of them nowno longer exist as…

    Lou Faber

  • TOTALLY UNFAIR

    You realize, of course, that it wasan arbitrary and capricious decisionno matter what you say, making up the rulesas you go, changing them withoutconsulting those of us who are to bemost affected by the changes. Suremy brothers and sisters probably agreed,more for them with me out of the picture,but don’t give me the lecture on…

    Lou Faber

  • ALWAYS

    There were always morequestions than answers.There were always morewrongs than rights.There were always morehungry ones than food.There was always moreanger than compassion.There were always moredays of war than days of peace.There were always moreself-righteous than righteous.There were always morepeople than this planetneeded or could support.

    Lou Faber

  • IN BAKERSFIELD

    In Bakersfield they don’t give a damn about hurricanes, he realized. They might watch them on the news, be amazed at the force of the wind, the water, the destruction they could cause, but they were abstract, like blizzards now were to him, a curiosity of nature but having no bearing on his day to…

    Lou Faber

  • ONE MORE

    He hated the expression “another trip around the sun.” First and foremost, it was arrogant, accurate but arrogant. The universe has a billion billion suns and ours is a bit, wordless player in a great galactic drama. Yes, while we took that trip, that’s like saying that standing still on this old planet you are…

    Lou Faber

  • ACCESSIBILITY

    Technology has afforded those of uswith impairments the abilityto more fully participatein the world around us. However we can never lose sight,a painful use of the phrasein my case, of its imperfections. Perhaps it is merely anticipatingthe future of our species, as whenthe phones captioning decideda somewhat elided Marsha and Barrywas in fact Martian berries.As…

    Lou Faber

  • THE OLD ROCKER

    I reached the point in lifewhere I know the Byrds were right,I was so much older then,I’m younger than that now, andfor good measure Jethro Tull knewI was too old to rock ‘n’ rollbut far too young to die.And yet I am still inchoate,a product of the Big Bang, stellardust accreted temporarily.And the Webb Space…

    Lou Faber

  • PAUSING

    As the rivers dry upand lakes become pondswe are finding things wenever thought we would see.An old warship in Europe,dinosaur footprints, carsand, sadly, the bones of some.We stop momentarily to marvelat these discoveries, thenwithdraw to our homes where wehope we can escape the heat,our air conditioners working overtime,the power plants strained.Yet we never stop to…

    Lou Faber

  • THE CAT

    Pause and consider, if onlyfor a moment, this question,which you need not answeras you will be right andyou will be wrong regardlessof what you say in response. What if we are the cat insome Godly thought experimentand our degradation of the planetis the bit of radioactive material,of which we have in profusion. Are we alive,…

    Lou Faber