Saturday, December 16, 2006

Letting go


Another old journal entry -
November 24, 2004 6:14 PM
Interesting end to the day – a nice piece on All Things Considered by a guy who built a log cabin in Maine with two friends back in the late sixties. He told it well, about the work and the friendship, about getting the materials and tools to a site without a road. The friends grew up, changed jobs, moved apart. One friend, the owner of the cabin, sent the writer a letter about how he planned to burn the cabin down – no one used it anymore except vagrants and he was afraid of someone getting hurt. He took pictures of the fire. The other friend, on hearing of the event, sent a Japanese poem that I remember as:

I see the moon so clearly
Now that my storehouse has burned.

This brought tears to my eyes. The whole thing – hold on but don’t be attached. I love you all.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

MQM,
Robert the gray here;
thanks for your comments on my blog
I do most of my sailing single handed, and have had my share of scares and crisis. I remember the first time I anchored out on cormorant's wing. I somehow ended up with the boat sailing by mainsail alone down wind with me holding the anchor rode off the stern being pulled off the boat. I was lucky that there wasn't much wind and I had a small boat. I can't remember if I fell off the boat this time or another time. sailing wisdom is deep and ancient indeed. books and study can prepare but the learning is in the doing.

Peace R

Anonymous said...

Hold on but don't be attached and also acceptance and gratitude. So simply put and so much there.

Thank you.

Bob_Lem said...

the poem and post are gorgeous Michael; thanks, you