A VALEDICTION: FORBIDDING MOURNING

Ciao Ale,

Hey, perhaps the monday service is on time,
but then, what is time?

One of the real good english poet dudes
is John Donne.  Hemingway borrowed a line
for the title of his book "For whom the
Bell Tolls."

Tomorrow is the start of our Big Big Conference.
A lot of big big names will be here, Kolb, Rees,
Vilenkin, Linde, Smoot, etc etc.

A VALEDICTION: FORBIDDING MOURNING

   As virtuous men pass mildly away,
       And whisper to their souls, to go,
   Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
       "The breath goes now," and some say, "No:"

   So let us melt, and make no noise,
       No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
   'Twere profanation of our joys
       To tell the laity our love.

   Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;
      Men reckon what it did, and meant;
   But trepidation of the spheres,
      Though greater far, is innocent.

   Dull sublunary lovers' love
       (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
   Absence, because it doth remove
       Those things which elemented it.

   But we by a love so much refin'd,
       That ourselves know not what it is,
   Inter-assured of the mind,
       Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

   Our two souls therefore, which are one,
       Though I must go, endure not yet
   A breach, but an expansion,
       Like gold to airy thinness beat.

   If they be two, they are two so
       As stiff twin compasses are two;
   Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
       To move, but doth, if the' other do.

   And though it in the centre sit,
       Yet when the other far doth roam,
   It leans, and hearkens after it,
       And grows erect, as that comes home.

   Such wilt thou be to me, who must
       Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
   Thy firmness makes my circle just,
       And makes me end, where I begun.


This little poem has one image that has stayed
with me since I was tiny, maybe 20 years now.
(gosh, am I so old?)  It is the compass thing -
not the compass with the little magnet, but the
kind used to draw circles.  The tips of the
compass are far away from each other when you
draw a big circle, and that is when the legs of the
compass point most towards each other.  John
Donne was something like a diplomat/spy, and he
went to France often, and his wife did not
like it, so he wrote the poem.

I haven't heard any stories about your thesis defense!
Would you send a copy to the Maeda group?  We discuss
new stuff at our weekly meetings, so it would be fun.

Ciao Pablo