"I'm nobody, who are you?" From poetry's edge we move toward the spiritual of life, on to faith.  Toward deeper meaning.  Toward the simple parable deep in meaning, worth exploration.  What do the parables mean?  How should we interpret and act upon them, to what extent?  What questions do they call forth for us, and how could we take these questions seriously.

Sometimes wine talk becomes like the irksome fruit fly hovering over the glass.  I think of the form beyond the form of the glass of wine.  In a longer lens, the vines grow on a particular place on the spinning globe, receiving life from the rays of the sun that shines upon the earth, the source of the sun itself that which is, the divine, call it love.  This is what the guy is talking about in Corinthians, that beyond the form of the particular individual, which itself one day will die, there is that divine reality within ourselves, long-suffering, kind-hearted, that is the form of our own form.

In France the term for wine-maker is vigneron, tender of vines, nothing more, nothing less.  I think of Eric Bonnet of Bastide St. Dominique, in the Southern Rhone, a humble guy who grew up a vineyard, sweet, shy, gentle, giving one lots of space.  When grapes are picked, the wine process begins naturally after a few intuitive steps on the part of mankind.




When does one ask himself if he has become like Jonah in his life in this world?  Confusion and doubt and exasperations are heaven sent, token of divine will by its logic.  Without faith we do not comprehend the truer nature of our work.  One could easily misunderstand any job, any work, writing, teaching, tending bar...   The work cannot be selfish, nor conceived as different from that of great faith itself.   Its definition goes beyond earthly matters and considerations.  We might hardly have no way of knowing, but that there is great confusion and that there has to be something like faith, faith in a divine love and forgiveness of human frailty and sin.

Where Jack, beset by continual pain, liked a good time, Bobby gained joy through the deep Catholic mission of working on behalf of the poor.   Two different tastes, the same tastes.