That because of these
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nd in a few fatal yards of grass,In a few lengths of sky and treetops ... A future was lost yesterdayAs easily and irretrievablyAs a tennis ball at twilight. (5) outside it is warm and blue and April. And I have to digest Darwin, Marx,and Wagner. I'd like to rip out my brain and set it to assimilating the printedhieroglyphics in this book, and send my body down to the tennis courts inanimal imbecility to jerk muscles in proper coordination and feel only the bestialand sensuous delight of sun on skin. 67 as : . : ;67) Indecision and reveries are the anesthetics of constructive action. (58) seem to grow more acutely conscious of the swift passage of time as I growolder. When I was small, days and hours were long and spacious, and there wasplay and acres of leisure, and many children's books to read. I remember that as Iwas writing a poem on "Snow" when I was eight. I said aloud, "I wish I couldhave the ability to write down the feelings I have now while I'm still little,because when I grow up I will know how to write, but I will have forgotten whatbeing little feels like." And so it is that childlike sensitivity to new experiencesand sensations seems to diminish in an inverse proportion to the growth oftechnical ability. As we become polished, so do we become hardened and guiltyof accepting eating, sleeping, seeing, and hearing too easily and lazily, withoutquestion. We become blunt and callous and blissfully passive as each day addsanother drop to the stagnant well of our years. 6?) For future reference:To be incorporated into a sarcastic poem about a fat, greasy, and imperfectgrandmother: "Laugh as you lift your eyes to the heavensAnd think of her fat pink soulBlundering among the logical five-pointed stars." (70), have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectivelypassive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between. (71) written, as usual, in the tense and crucial interval when I should be studyingfor a Botany exam: "Geography Lesson" On the yellow part of the map,
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