I have been working through various papers and blogs all day but can find nothing to write about.  Too much tragedy: the bombings in Mumbai; the tunnel collapse in Boston; the various wars.  Perhaps it is the summer heat that has sapped my critical focus this evening.  I could hold forth on issues of state, but it is just not in me tonight.

    Instead, I turn to Li Po, the great Chinese poet.  Thumbing through Hinton’s selections, I find one that catches my fancy.  I am alone just now – Maureen and Maggie are out at a movie – and, even though I am not drinking wine, and the moon has not yet put in an appearance (though it was beautiful last night and will likely be so again tonight), let me offer the second section of a three-part Li Po piece, "Drinking Alone Beneath the Moon:"

Surely, if heaven didn’t love wine,
there would be no Wine Star in heaven,

and if earth didn’t love wine, surely
there would be no Wine Spring on earth.

Heaven and earth have always loved wine,
so how could loving wine shame heaven?

I hear clear wine called enlightenment,
and they say murky wine is like wisdom:

once you drink enlightenment and wisdom,
why go searching for god and immortals?

Three cups and I’ve plumbed the great Way,
a jarful and I’ve merged with occurrence

appearing of itself.  Wine’s view is lived:
you can’t preach doctrine to the sober.