Thanks to the annual Super Bowl Sunday Buy One Get One Free sale at Books Etc. in Laguna Hills, the works of Bellow, Borges, Bukowski, Brautigan, Cheever, Eco, Grace Paley, Dennis Potter, Pynchon, Robbe-Grillet, Philip Roth and Tom Wolfe have found their way onto my bookshelf for a capital outlay of only 32 dollars American.
I think about things that might have been and never were.
The treatise on Saxon myths that Bede omitted to write.
The inconceivable work that Dante may have glimpsed
As soon as he corrected the Comedy’s last verse.
History without two afternoons: that of the hemlock, that of the Cross.
History without Helen’s face.
Man without the eyes that have granted us the moon.
Over three Gettysburg days, the victory of the South.
The love we never shared.
The vast empire the Vikings declined to found.
The globe without the wheel, or without the rose.
John Donne’s judgment of Shakespeare.
The Unicorn’s other horn.
The fabled Irish bird which alights in two places at once.
The child I never had.
[Ed. Note: The unusual spellings are from the original source.]
If I could live again my life,
In the next – I’ll try,
- to make more mistakes,
I won’t try to be so perfect,
I’ll be more relaxed,
I’ll be more full – than I am now,
In fact, I’ll take fewer things seriously,
I’ll be less hygenic,
I’ll take more risks,
I’ll take more trips,
I’ll watch more sunsets,
I’ll climb more mountains,
I’ll swim more rivers,
I’ll go to more places – I’ve never been,
I’ll eat more ice creams and less (lime) beans,
I’ll have more real problems – and less imaginary ones, I was one of those people who live prudent and prolific lives – each minute of his life, Offcourse that I had moments of joy – but,
if I could go back I’ll try to have only good moments,If you don’t know – thats what life is made of,
Don’t lose the now!I was one of those who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, without a hot-water bottle,
and without an umberella and without a parachute,If I could live again – I will travel light,
If I could live again – I’ll try to work bare feet at the beginning of spring till the end of autumn, I’ll ride more carts,
I’ll watch more sunrises and play with more children,
If I have the life to live – but now I am 85, - and I know that I am dying …
