While we were waiting for the movie to begin,
my wife caught up with her old friend Maryann,
and because I could only make out every
third or fourth word, my attention fluttered off
in search of something else and landed on
the thirty-five-ish couple sitting three rows
in front of us—the backs of their heads

Schweitzer, The Teaching of Reverence for Life.
Tich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness.
Mortimer Adler, Ten Philosophical Mistakes.

When Alexander Kinglake was seventeen,
the pasha of Egypt sent a young giraffe
as a gift to Charles X, King of France,