A Simpler Time?

Kudos to Frank Wilson for showcasing Edwin Muir, an old Underbelly favorite. Wilson triggered my memory of "The Difficult Land," where, inter alia, Muir says:

And once in a lifetime men from over the border,
In early summer, the season of fresh campaigns,
Come trampling down the corn, and kill our cattle.
These things we know and by good luck or guidance
Either frustrate or, if we must, endure.

Muir's poems appear to be out of print, at least in the U.S. (but here is a UK link)--he survives (along with his wife) as a translator from the German, mainly of Kafka. There is this web collection of the poetry--a respectable sampling but none of my favorites. And make an effort to seek out his extraordinary autobiography, a neglected classic.

But as to the poem. I hadn't read it in a couple of years My current thought: only once in a lifetime? Lucky man.

Cat's Out of the Bag Note

The Cats Out of the Bag, so I can join the chorus of those offering their salute to the cat--that would be Frank Wilson, book editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and proprietor of the estimable Books, Inq. weblog. Frank is ground down, I believe, between the upper and nether millstones of daily newspaper economics. Booklovers will cluck over the demise of another showcase, but I figure it is, or was, inevitable. I gather he intends to keep his bloggy essence active in some form, and he assures his friends that he won't be dining on, well, cat food. I've not yet met him, but I've corresponded with him and I can testify that he is civil and affable, and he has certainly presided over a fine salon.