Pottering though my library, I found an old collection of poetry from my youth. Most juvenile writing is instantly dismissable, but this poem I have always liked, so I reproduce it below. The reader will indulge me, I hope, this one folly.

Break Into Day

A shimmer of pale mauve,
the sea, the sky,
now two parts again,
stretch,
like a trick 2-D photo -
a cyclorama, ever so
slowly washed , and washed again,
of night shadow.
White foam like fresh ice,
tosses, gushes
tumbles in a helpless headlong rush
ridges of ice-clear tunnels trailing.
Suspended brows of cloud disperse,
catching intermittent shafts,
abandoning their aimless silhouettes.
A leaf turns, brown, salty
sounding crisp.
Among the scrub, lifeless petals rejoice
the break into day.

dusk leaf-fall
breeze swings a russet vault
under that low-slung moon

This one shows the versatility of feeling and subject matter, by Buson, a haiku master. It is collected in The Pocket Haiku. Even the wise have a sense of humour.

With no underrobes,
bare butt suddenly exposed-
a gust of spring wind

I have borrowed a haiku collection from Springwood library a few times now, and perceiving it to be a gem, decided to buy a copy on ebay. Haiku Poetry Ancient and Modern, compiled by Jackie Hardy, is just what it says it is, combining some beautiful haiku from the Japanese masters with more contemporary Western writing. The book itself is a joy, with Japanese woodcuts and paintings throughout.

My copy is not new, though it appears to have been opened only rarely. It was a gift from a young woman to a young man, I'm guessing. The inscription in the front cover reads,

To John

This is my attempt to get you reading poetry! Hope you enjoy!

All my love

Lux xx

It's a lovely and thoughtful gift, but I fear that it did not get John reading poetry, since I now have the book and that volume, in excellent condition.

Here is one from the collection by Susan Rowley

this year
through the dying cherry
so much more sky


And that, my friends, is the power of this short form poem.

the chasing down of summer
birds jostle for burnt toast,
from branchtops, that sound

leaves on a windy day
untreed kites in tumbling array,
such are my thoughts

Every so often a Beach Boys song comes on the radio or finds its way into an advertisement. And every time this happens I think of my old friend Robert Mumford, who passed away in the very prime of life in 2007. I lived in a share house with Robert in the early 1980's and the emblematic harmonies of the Beach Boys often resounded from his bedroom. Tales of the band and its founding genius Brian Wilson were a part of many flowery discourses over the years, Robert being a kind of Glen A Baker for Beach Boys trivia. At times I felt like a psychologist, Robert weaving narratives of his own life with those of the band; at other times, a kind of amanuensis, documenting the master's thoughts on this rarefied slice of pop culture.

With this in mind, I went searching Spotify for a double-album Robert gave me back in the day, Ten Years of Harmony. Essentially an eclectic compilation of the band's better material from the lean 1970's, I found that Ten Years had been deleted from the catalogue and had not been collected on Spotify. As a tribute to Robert, I found the original track listing and put together almost all of the original compilation, minus one or two tracks I simply could not find anywhere. And I added the sublime, Our Prayer, as a final gesture to the Beach Boys biggest fan.

If you find me on Spotify, the album is called BobGoMIATributeAlbum

From the attic....

A gang of four waiting to unload a truck near Scotland Island, early 1980's. Robert is on the far left.

My choir director, Suzanne, came around last night. She is also a marriage celebrant and she helped Ann and I through the process of lodging an intention-to-be-married document. We are hoping to get married in the next two months.

Ann and I first met online in February of last year and had our first face-to-face in March of the same year. We met at the fountain in Hyde Park and wandered, that sunny autumn day, through the Botanical Gardens, past the Opera House and then on to dinner at Pancakes at the Rocks. The latter was Ann's choice and she surprised me because I had foolishly thought that she would probably want to eat Thai.

On Monday last, we had the anniversary of that first meal together at Pancakes at the Rocks in Darling Harbour, which is where this picture was taken.

There is a kind of strange fascination in watching the GOP nominate a candidate for the office of President of the United States. Some might call it a nightmare. It would have been impossible to predict 12 months ago that the cartoonish Donald J Trump would be the clear front-runner and that the gargoyle-like Ted Cruz would be the only person with a chance of catching him. Both being so different - Trump the narcissistic deal-maker, Cruz the doctrinaire conservative - they form a kind of analysis-defeating top two from the pages of a racy political thriller, the one you know could never, ever happen in the real world. But there you go, as Reagan might have said, for this is how the world is turning.

Having watched the GOP debates and segments of Trump rallies, it is clear that this man should not be taken lightly and that it is entirely possible that he will win in November. This is not because he is coherent, has policies beyond the slogans, shows Presidential metal or gravitas, or is able to command the facts. He is the opposite of all these things. But he has an energy, showmanship and an ability to change defense into attack, that should be regarded by Democrats as potentially lethal to any Clinton contest for the top job.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

It is funny how road leads onto road, way onto way. It started with a chance encounter with a Japanese novelty train photograph this morning, the trail leading back to the Tohoku earthquake in 2011. The train in question, a converted KiHa 100 series was ploughing a weekly run on the heavily damaged Ofunato line. Later in the day I found the following photo, taken in 2008 in Rikuzen-Takata.



I realised that this was the same train as the Pokemon with You since they share the same number, 100-3. The photo had been taken prior to the March 11 2011 and was shot in its work-a-day livery. The town in the photo above was completely obliterated by the tsumani. The following photo shows its shocking transformation.



Over 1600 people died and over 200 are still missing. More than 80% of all housing was swept away. The town had harbour gates which failed to close and 48 firemen died while trying to close them manually. What does that say about true heroism?

The Pokemon With You is a very special train.

As an addendum to my last post, and bearing in mind the anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake a mere two days ago, consider the following images taken of the next station immediately downline from Kesennuma on the Ofunato line. The first, of Shishiori-Karakuwa Station, was taken in 2005 and the second, six years later in 2011, following the cataclysm. Over 2,500 people are still unaccounted for. Cuteness aside, nobody should begrudge these folks a visit by a Pokemon to raise their spirits.

I love trains and I especially love trains in Japan. They are everything that many great Western railway nations used to be. There is a diversity that is quite extraordinary, with parallel lines and companies (eg: JR and Hankyu in Kansai), many liveried carriages and engines, staff formalities and rituals, small one-rice-field country stations and the like. As they say, I miss the whole shebang.

Another aspect of train culture in Japan is a certain cuteness of style, which I suppose comes out of a culture that lionizes manga and anime. Dressing up trains as fictional characters is not exclusive to Japan (we have a Thomas in the Blue Mountains) but they do make a habit of it. An example below highlights Pikachu and friends and operates in the Ichinoseki area of Iwate prefecture. The train (a KiHa 100 series diesel) is dwelling here at Rikuchū-Matsukawa on the Ofunato line.



A second view of the same train, which, through diligent research, I now know to be called the Pokemon With You Train, resting here at Kesennuma Station on the same line. As a point of interest, this is still as far as one can travel on this line, all stations beyond this point being closed as a result of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

I came across the following piece today, proving that I am not the only one given to arcane speculation. We come from different angles but manage to achieve a similar outcome. However, the author, Nico Salazar, was thinking about this all of 7 years ago, which makes him somewhat of a prophet.

On Sunday I decided to stay in the city so I could make Ann's early return flight at Mascot on Monday morning. Having already experienced the 6am carpark that is the M5 for the short stretch to the airport a fortnight ago, I craved no repetition. It was more expensive to stay in the CBD, but I had merely to stroll out onto Castlereagh Street from my hotel at 7am, locate some good coffee from a wide range of options, then hop on the train to the airport at Town Hall. I was at T1 by 7.20.

The day before I had had plenty of time after check-in to wander the city and be the flaneur. From Circular Quay to Chinatown and precincts beyond, I strolled without any particular plan, allowing myself (not easy for a goal-centred walker) the chance to follow crowds wherever they lead. It was genuinely pleasant. In the course of three hours, I wandered through the large cool rooms of the Museum of Contemporary Art, navigated alleyways and markets in The Rocks, jostled with shoppers in Chinatown and watched people watching the passing afternoon in outdoor cafes. In Martin Place, a wedding shoot was in progress. A Chinese couple, newly married, were posing in front of an impressive pile at the George Street exit. In the foreground was a homeless man begging for coins. It was a earnest juxtaposition.

Trompe l'oeil is a technique for giving two dimensional pictures, paintings or images the appearance of being three dimensional. Donald Trump is a person who exists in three dimensions but gives the appearance of being two dimensional. I find this a little puzzling.

Below. Trump rendered in two dimensions. An example of trompe l'oeil by the artist, Daniel Grangeon.

Dilshara Hill, a talented member of Moo Choir, a mathematician and photographer (amongst other things), took the following photo. It featured on the site Redbubble which I believe gives her significant street-cred. Dilshara kindly consented, a posteriori, to my writing a haiku about it. For the curious, the location is Sri Lanka.

It is obligatory, I think, for visitors to Australia to get close and personal with the cutest fauna. I get that, because a large part of our sales pitch to potential tourists is catching sight of animals that hop through the bush or cuddling creatures that otherwise would be sleeping. So, bearing this in mind, I took Ann to Featherdale in Doonside last week so she would have a story and pictures to take with her on her holiday in Thailand. She was reluctant to have anything to do with snakes but managed to pet some very cute wallabies and stand beside a snoozing koala. Mission accomplished.

Lately I have been hearing a lot about people who are on the wrong side of history. Most recently Boris Johnson, the British Conservative MP and former London Mayor, who has urged a British exit from the EU, has found himself stranded in the rear in this inexorable march of history.
Getting on the wrong side of history is an epithet that is most often leveled by progressive critics at conservative positions, an example being the issue of gay marriage. Being a progressive myself, I sympathize with the argument even if I quibble over the words.

For it strikes me that history, which is a construct of persons and events and the meanings and interpretations attached to these things, is rarely a linear phenomena and may well be, if the philosopher John Gray is correct, circular. While we can see and measure technological change and the apparent benefit it brings humankind (though we can also debate these things vigorously), and it is clear that there has been something approximating a line of technological progress since the Industrial Revolution, this is only a small part of any metric we might use to assess actual human historical progress. The latter is decidedly bumpy, for how else do you explain the Nazi gas chambers? How do we account for the loss of knowledge that occurred after the Fall of Rome? There are many examples.

Of course I am being a rather too literal, because what is usually meant by being on the wrong side of history is that someone is swimming against the tide of public opinion or some inevitable reform that, given how far we have come come, cannot be held back. I am a little dubious about that too.

A compass that is of great use on Earth has no meaning in space. Our north and south or east or west have no correspondence in the universe, where up and down or sideways are equally incoherent. Similarly, it is hard to measure human progress and history, which has neither sentience nor agency, is largely dumb on the matter. Anything, like nothing, can change endlessly.