My parents-in-law sold their house and the family gathered to clear out their things. Years ago I stored boxes of old New Yorker magazines in the attic.
\nI contemplated tossing them out only to open one and find this poem by W.S. Merwin. They’ll survive another decade.
\n![\"\"](\"https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/103725/2025/3ec48ba31a-m.jpg\")
\n","summary":"","url":"https://www.jameslileclarke.com/2025/08/19/my-parentsinlaw-sold-their-house.html","date_published":"2025-08-19T15:19:44+00:00","author":{"name":"James Clarke","url":"https://jameslileclarke.com ","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2023%2F11%2F1366039.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"jamesclarke"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2025-08-19 15:19","date_timestamp":1755616784,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":false,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"18644793","content_html":"Loveliest of trees, the cherry now\nIs hung with bloom along the bough,\nAnd stands about the woodland ride\nWearing white for Eastertide.\n\nNow, of my threescore years and ten,\nTwenty will not come again,\nAnd take from seventy springs a score,\nIt only leaves me fifty more.\n\nAnd since to look at things in bloo... www.jameslileclarke.com","summary":"","url":"https://www.jameslileclarke.com/2023/04/25/loveliest-of-trees.html","date_published":"2023-04-25T16:47:50+00:00","author":{"name":"James Clarke","url":"https://jameslileclarke.com ","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2023%2F11%2F1366039.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"jamesclarke"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2023-04-25 16:47","date_timestamp":1682441270,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":false,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"18505647","content_html":"@ayjay I need to take a leaf out of your book and get started. Right now I own nothing but a list of music that won’t play without a valid credit card.
\n","url":"https://micro.blog/jamesclarke/18505647","date_published":"2023-04-19T22:14:35+00:00","author":{"name":"James Clarke","url":"https://jameslileclarke.com ","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2023%2F11%2F1366039.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"jamesclarke"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2023-04-19 22:14","date_timestamp":1681942475,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":true,"is_linkpost":false,"is_mention":true}},{"id":"18504667","content_html":"Cycling up Banbury road today, I saw a woman on her jog leap up to touch the cherry blossoms dangling overhead. Springtime is the cherry blossoms. It is also the leaping woman.
\n","summary":"","url":"https://www.jameslileclarke.com/2023/04/19/cycling-up-banbury.html","date_published":"2023-04-19T21:25:19+00:00","author":{"name":"James Clarke","url":"https://jameslileclarke.com ","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2023%2F11%2F1366039.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"jamesclarke"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2023-04-19 21:25","date_timestamp":1681939519,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":false,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"18504601","content_html":"@ayjay is it time to buy everything on Bandcamp, get a digital audio player, and be done with streaming? I found myself wondering whether to buy a digital audio player yesterday - largely to get off my phone - but this is a whole new angle.
\n","url":"https://micro.blog/jamesclarke/18504601","date_published":"2023-04-19T21:21:48+00:00","author":{"name":"James Clarke","url":"https://jameslileclarke.com ","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2023%2F11%2F1366039.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"jamesclarke"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2023-04-19 21:21","date_timestamp":1681939308,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":true,"is_linkpost":false,"is_mention":true}},{"id":"18371888","content_html":"Iain McGilchrist: “You can’t weigh suffering.” Observation: and yet how desperately we try (Cf. the fundamental premises of the likes of Effective Altruism)
\n","summary":"","url":"https://www.jameslileclarke.com/2023/04/13/iain-mcgilchrist-you.html","date_published":"2023-04-13T20:28:33+00:00","author":{"name":"James Clarke","url":"https://jameslileclarke.com ","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2023%2F11%2F1366039.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"jamesclarke"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2023-04-13 20:28","date_timestamp":1681417713,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":false,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"18369766","content_html":"Iain McGilchrist: “In trying to study English we had disembodied works of art, poems; we’d turned them into abstracts, paraphrased them and lost all the meaning. The way in which we did this destroyed them of their uniqueness, destroyed them of their embodied nature and destroyed them of their necessarily ... www.jameslileclarke.com","summary":"","url":"https://www.jameslileclarke.com/2023/04/13/iain-mcgilchrist-in.html","date_published":"2023-04-13T18:58:15+00:00","author":{"name":"James Clarke","url":"https://jameslileclarke.com ","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2023%2F11%2F1366039.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"jamesclarke"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2023-04-13 18:58","date_timestamp":1681412295,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":false,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"18359074","content_html":"Andrew Welburn in: Owen Barfield, Romanticism Come of Age by Simon Blaxland-de Lange: “We are dimly aware … that our own stage [of consciousness] depends on, and ultimately only makes sense if we connect it with that original, though unrecaptureable wholeness of meaning. The very words and ideas we us stil... www.jameslileclarke.com","summary":"","url":"https://www.jameslileclarke.com/2023/04/13/andrew-welburn-in.html","date_published":"2023-04-13T10:17:33+00:00","author":{"name":"James Clarke","url":"https://jameslileclarke.com ","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2023%2F11%2F1366039.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"jamesclarke"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2023-04-13 10:17","date_timestamp":1681381053,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":false,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"18294334","content_html":"![\"\"](\"https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/103725/2023/cd35701365.jpg\")
\n","summary":"","url":"https://www.jameslileclarke.com/2023/04/10/152548.html","date_published":"2023-04-10T14:25:48+00:00","author":{"name":"James Clarke","url":"https://jameslileclarke.com ","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2023%2F11%2F1366039.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"jamesclarke"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2023-04-10 14:25","date_timestamp":1681136748,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":false,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"18282705","content_html":"@ayjay I found this both an interesting and thoroughly heartening read. Verworn’s distinction between classical and romantic science brings to mind the (poorly understood and therefore much maligned) scientific writings of Goethe and their relationship to the work of Newton: what is it that a science without qualities misses? Perhaps - in our excitement for AI diagnosis and the rest - a great deal more than we are ready to admit…
\n","url":"https://micro.blog/jamesclarke/18282705","date_published":"2023-04-09T22:13:23+00:00","author":{"name":"James Clarke","url":"https://jameslileclarke.com ","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2023%2F11%2F1366039.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"jamesclarke"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2023-04-09 22:13","date_timestamp":1681078403,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":true,"is_linkpost":false,"is_mention":true}},{"id":"18271613","content_html":"![\"\"](\"https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/103725/2023/62df13976a.jpg\")
\n","summary":"","url":"https://www.jameslileclarke.com/2023/04/09/101804.html","date_published":"2023-04-09T09:18:04+00:00","author":{"name":"James Clarke","url":"https://jameslileclarke.com ","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2023%2F11%2F1366039.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"jamesclarke"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2023-04-09 09:18","date_timestamp":1681031884,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":false,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"18159602","content_html":"Niels Bohr: “No, no . . . you are not thinking; you are just being logical.”
\n","summary":"","url":"https://www.jameslileclarke.com/2023/04/04/niels-bohr-no.html","date_published":"2023-04-04T09:18:26+00:00","author":{"name":"James Clarke","url":"https://jameslileclarke.com ","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2023%2F11%2F1366039.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"jamesclarke"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2023-04-04 09:18","date_timestamp":1680599906,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":false,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}},{"id":"18120192","content_html":"@ayjay Read the first in the series recently (for the first time) and was blown away. Brings to mind Auden: “There are good books which are only for adults, because their comprehension presupposes adult experiences, but there are no good books which are only for children.”
\n","url":"https://micro.blog/jamesclarke/18120192","date_published":"2023-04-02T14:50:45+00:00","author":{"name":"James Clarke","url":"https://jameslileclarke.com ","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2023%2F11%2F1366039.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"jamesclarke"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2023-04-02 14:50","date_timestamp":1680447045,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":true,"is_linkpost":false,"is_mention":true}},{"id":"18120105","content_html":"“Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” - Simon Weil
\n","summary":"","url":"https://www.jameslileclarke.com/2023/04/02/attention-taken-to.html","date_published":"2023-04-02T14:45:53+00:00","author":{"name":"James Clarke","url":"https://jameslileclarke.com ","avatar":"https://cdn.micro.blog/photos/96/https%3A%2F%2Favatars.micro.blog%2Favatars%2F2023%2F11%2F1366039.jpg","_microblog":{"username":"jamesclarke"}},"_microblog":{"date_relative":"2023-04-02 14:45","date_timestamp":1680446753,"is_favorite":false,"is_bookmark":false,"is_deletable":false,"is_conversation":false,"is_linkpost":false,"is_mention":false,"note":"","syndication":[]}}]}