Covid, the Bomb of the Twenty-twenties

Covid, the bomb of the twenty-twenties, from which no country in either the Northern or Southern Hemisphere can escape. Nowhere entirely safe, all could be traps if landed there. No hard, barren country or tropical paradise to be exiled to; no place on the world map from which to avoid restrictions, or the barrage of information – mis and dis – regarding the virus and vaccination. No room for the truth of your own experience, and no space to wander, think or speak freely.
Covid, the BOMB of the twenty-twenties.

Picture credit: Bomber in the Corn, 1940, Paul Nash.

From journal, November 2021.

Kilvert's Diary

In Kilvert's Diary fragments of forgotten peoples dwell; consecrated with the Reverend's own personal reflections and observations of nature. The peopled fragments mingle with the solitary romantic day-dreams. The laughter from tea parties, picnics and excursions spill over; the pleasure Kilvert finds in the natural landscapes makes one long to view the world with nineteenth-century eyes.

Picture credit: Rev. Robert Francis Kilvert, 1840-1879 (source: Wikipedia).

From journal, November 2021. See Kilvert's Diary (Vintage Classics, selected by William Plomer).

Mind

When we have emptied our mind of a theme, the mind turns to something new: war, religion or mankind, or the mind itself. The first sanitised, as are other natural or unnatural sufferings; the second tolerating nothing but its own dogmas; the third whose whole point of existence is good and evil; and the last which might be far older than the host it's housed in, and yet subject still to wear and tear. The mind, like an enemy, tries to force us to engage on chosen ground, but, in practice, succeeds far less than it fails.

Picture credit: The Labyrinth of the Mind, 2000, Joan Tuset (source: WikiArt).

From journal, November 2021.

Sea

The Poet writes to the sea as he might to a mistress; a mistress who for all her moods draws him ever to her. He is helpless at the sight, or, borne on her waves, powerless.
She, a Romantic idea; an ideal love.

Picture credit: Woman on the Beach of Ruegen, 1818, Caspar David Friedrich (source: WikiArt).

From journal, November 2021. See Records of Shelley, Byron and the Author by Edward John Trelawney (Penguin Classics 2013).