May 28th

Los Angeles

We both feel we are in waiting period and feel tense.

John found this in the Golden Treasury of Irish Poetry

The poem is in Irish but this is the introduction and the translation.

this meditive monk for so long ago help soothe us.

Scholar and his cat.

The early 9th centuary poem was found scribbled on a manuscript in Austria and bacame justly famous. The whole of the scholar's life is reflected in its gentle,meditave humour,and many scores of literary cats have since andwered to the name of Pangar.

Poem

Myself and White Pangar are each at his own trade:he has him mind on hunting,my mond is on my own task.

Better than any fame I prefer peace with my book,pursuing knowledge; White Pangar does not envy me,he loves his own childish trade.

a tale without boredom when we are at home alone,we ahve interminable fun-- something on wich to exercise our skill.

Sometimes ,after desperate battles,a mouse is caught on his net; as for me there falls some difficult law hard to comprehend.
he points his clear bright eye against a wall; I points my own clear one ,feeble as it is,against the power of knowledge.

He is happy and darts around when a mouse sticks in his sharp claw,and i am happy understanding some dear, difficult problem.

however long we are like that,neither disturbs the other;each of us loves his trade and enjoys it alone.
The job he does every day is the one for which he is fit; as I am compentent at my own job,bringing darkness to light.

From a manuscript preserved in the monastery of St Paul in Carinthia.