Friday Writings for Randos - Moderation

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:...

Moderation is Not a Negation of Intensity, 

But Helps Avoid Monotony

John Tagliabue

Will you stop for a while, stop trying to pull yourself together

for some clear "meaning" - some momentary summary?

no one can have poetry or dances, prayers or climaxes all day;

the ordinary blankness of little dramatic consciousness is good for the health sometimes,

only Dostoyevsky can be Dostoevskian at such long tumultuous stretches;

look what that intensity did to poor great Van Gogh!

linger, lunge, scrounge and be stupid, that doesn't take much centering of one's forces;

as wise Whitman said, "Lounge and invite the soul." 

Get enough sleep; 

and not only because (as Cocteau said) "poetry is the literature of sleep"

be a dumb bell for a few minutes at least; 

we don't want 

Sunday church bells

ringing constantly