As I stared back at the stricken town, I heard the gulls. “Phaon, it was bad,” I said.
“Yes, very bad, though I’ve seen worse.”
“I hope I never do.”
“These people had help...sometimes there is nobody to help.”
“We’re in the lead,” Libus cried. “We’ll be the first ones home. Now for some sleep.”
P
Today, I had a letter from Solon: he discussed politics and his immediate intentions and then went on to consider my poetry, praising it for its lyrical quality, refreshing themes, compassion and sense of beauty.
I respect his judgment and his quotations sent me to my books, to reconsider and evaluate. For a while, I sat at my desk, thinking over passages, contemplating the ocean, serenely blue as usual. Life, for the moment, was balanced: it had acquired profundity and calm: here was my reward since I believed his assessments just: for once, I needed no one to share: I needed nothing.
But I picked up Aesop’s clay fox and recognized my need: the bite of yesterday cornered me.
P