f/k/a archives . . . real opinions & real haiku

Thanks to the magic of baby-boomer memory lapses,

this post from a year ago today is as fresh as ever

for me:

Caesar Bust [Sandro Vannini/Corbis]

Things I probably used to know but learned again today:

History tells us that Julius Caesar was killed 2049 [ed. note:

you’ll have to do the calculating this year] years ago, on the

ides of March, 44 B.C. Despite Ceasar’s fate, Wikipedia says

that the ides (which fell on either the 13 or 15th of the month) were

considered auspicious, and traditionally corresponded with the

full moon (a favorite of haiku lovers and other romantics).

Thanks largely to Shakespeare’s line, in Julius Caesar, “et tu, Brute?,” the Ides of March is now associated with treachery by a friend. So, this might be a good day to practice and express your loyalty to those who merit it.

I learned a couple interesting things about the Roman calendar and the notion of fasti, clicking around Wikipedia today. It appears that legal activities could only take place on certain days (dies fasti), while “dies nefasti” were days, designated N on the calendar, on which the courts could not sit, for various religious reasons, and dies endotercissus, designated EN, were days when legal actions were permitted on half of the day only. Does this give Walter Olson any possible reform strategies?

New this year: At NPR this morning, Robert Krulwich commemorates

Ceasar’s dying breath — telling us why chemistry teachers use it as a

teaching tool and believe we will all inhale at least one of Casear’s death-

breath molecules today (along with a molecule from each breath of every-

other human ever on the planet — talk about one-very-poetic-breath).

“Commemorate Caesar: Take a Deep Breath!,” March 15, 2006; audio

available)

the cattails
lose their heads
march wind

…. by Tom Painting from the haiku chapbook piano practice

 

mid-March thaw –
et tu,
snow buddha?

 

…….. by dagosan

 

 

stiff march wind
the sound
of an airball

…. by Ed Markowski

 

between Pompey
and Caesar
I place my bookmark

John Stevenson– Some of the Silence (1999)

 

 

 

March wind
wondering how I tied my hair
as a child

Hilary Tann
Upstate Dim Sum (2005/II)

Did you say you wanted a few more poems

from Hilary Tann? Happy to oblige:

morning frost
the slight yielding
of the earth

old boyfriend –
his new wife and I
exchange hugs

road crew –
bright orange jackets
circle the old tree

Hilary Tann Upstate Dim Sum (2005/II)