TO MY FRIENDS Dear friends, and here I say friends In the broad sense of the word: Wife, sister, associates, relatives, Schoolmates of both sexes, People seen only once Or frequented all my life; Provided that between us, for at least a moment, A line has been stretched, A well-defined bond. I speak for you, companions of a crowded Road, not without its difficulties, And for you too, who have lost Soul, courage, the desire to live; Or no one, or someone, or perhaps only one person, or you Who are reading me: remember the time Before the wax hardened, When everyone was like a seal. Each of us bears the imprint Of a friend met along the way; In each the trace of each. For good or evil In wisdom or in folly Everyone stamped by everyone. Now that the time crowds in And the undertakings are finished, To all of you the humble wish That autumn will be long and mild. ~ Primo Levi (1919-1987), Italian chemist and writer and poet, whose many works, especially If This Is a Man, his memoir of his year at Auschwitz, examined man’s struggles to maintain his humanity in the face of great evil

Silence Posted: 30 Jul 2011 04:23 AM PDT (On the Beach at Trouville, Normandy by Claude Monet, 1840-1926, French Impressionist painter) And nothing is lost. SILENCE ’Tis better to sit here beside the sea, Here, on the spray-kissed beach, In silence, that between such friends as we Is full of deepest speech. ~ Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906), American poet and novelist