"I'm tired of schools today...
all this learning from inanimate objects"
I asked him what a book was
"I know - but we're losing something in human contact"
I agreed, and let him know
I'm a bit of a Sophist, a bit of Socrates
I'm just trying to get you to take me somewhere I haven't been
I told him I don't have much conviction in what I say
'cause I know I'll think something else in a few months, years
but I said I don't see much reason to worry about it either
that the sun is either gonna blow up
or the earth's core will cool and solar winds will burn us up
but until then we'll have food on the table
we'll have space to grow
and when we need to put our minds to something we can do it
we built the atomic bomb in a few short months
but until then, no matter what we do, life will outlive us
If there is one thing I have faith in
It is life's ability to fill a void
but I doubt we can even destroy ourselves if we wanted
He said he liked my optimism, my spirit
but he said that something was still wrong
this feverish pace of destruction
of fertilizers and pesticides in the Mississippi
that what they did in the Gulf was just a fast forward
of what we were already doing
then he started talking about Korea
How the US could mow down 40,000 soldiers in a day
and the very next morning
there would be that many waiting again
"They threw away life like a used condom"
"That stuck with me"
That'll stick with me too