High Windows
by Philip Larkin
When I see a couple of kids
And guess he’s fucking her and she’s
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise
Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives—
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide
To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, That’ll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark
About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds. And immediately
Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
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9 comments:
Ha. I was just looking at The House of Rufus boxed set, and the salesperson recommended a biography, There Will be Rainbows, which is prefaced by Philip Larkin's "High Windows".
http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/pubsetpages/greatloves/
That was the inspiration. Was.
To contextualize this poem in 2008, a lover's lover liked Philip Larkin, which meant that I hated Philip Larkin. I cannot think of much that I liked about myself at that time, so I won't mention it.
This is the book I won't read because I cannot contemplate that life.
https://books.google.com/books/about/There_Will_Be_Rainbows.html?id=9_t9aUJBqT0C&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1#v=onepage&q&f=false
The last line of "High Windows" is for transcendence, and the ambiguity allows for elevating one's thoughts above the fornicating couple completely earthbound; allegedly consequences-less, on the pill.
Elevating one's time and mind is the aim, no matter what society finds fashionable.
The first and last song, for me, by Rufus Wainwright.
https://youtu.be/NRItL62qexg?si=sKuWzY0kLGHku8L3
I cannot contemplate that life: meaning I am not going to run after a gay aesthetic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1jhNC2mh20
The 1500 questions in that bank, which I just discovered, will be done before I contemplate anything else.
The amended answer is that I will finish the modules, which I was wont to do (in entirety) before the third test, for the 37 hours of CE. I can pay for my license two months early with the qualifying hours. I will utilize both test banks that I have purchased. I will contemplate these, and determine the right time to proceed.
I make things difficult: I ran around four floors looking for an RQI CPR manikin to finish my validation due today. It is nothing like real life with the tiny blowhole in the mouth requiring one to hyperextend the dummy's neck to inflate the balloon, and achieve required chest rise that is real-time looped up to a software reaching the red or green zone or no zone at all (no ventilations detected). I smashed two resuscitation face masks in attempts, and the manikins are so unresponsive this year I nearly despaired at 9 pm. I found the last manikin hidden in an alcove, and finished effortlessly in two minutes for the adult and infant.
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