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Tom King's avatar

I found this fine summary on Mr. Emerson, thanks to Google. It is Waldo who led us to Thoreau and later, our Garrison, to his Woebegon woods.

Waldo was a gentle soul, but a constant preacher of peace and righteousness. This is very hard to do these days solely with poems that rhyme. A limerick-forced rhyme just doesn't have a consistent potent punch of peace.

Thoreau's "Woods" are a place worth going. HIs manifest is on my wall. Some might call it prose. But I do believe it's poetic. Henry David Thoreau wrote: "....when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Live we must.

Still, more than ever now, the "love ye" clause of life is is truly a struggle for us all. Others are not us, nor are we them. Liking is never required of us, but loving is. Much of who we are was never our own decision. We're all a scrambled DNA, given us by our forebears. Yet our decisions on loving one another are still our own.

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Jeannine Lawall's avatar

And now Ralph Waldo Emerson is stuck in my head as "Em." I hope he doesn't mind too much. Thank you for the good morning chuckle!

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