All things are wearisome,                                               more than one can express:                                   the eye is not satisfied with seeing                                      nor the ear filled with hearing...                                                           the more the words                                                      the more the emptiness.                                                         --Qoheleth 1:8, 6:11 I want to sing of joy: of babies grasping distant splendor, the fullness of a friendly fight enmeshing minds in common question, to greet each day the new-born light as letter from a loving sender, my work relieved of all oppression and taken as a toy. But I have had too much: too many stars have missed my reaching, discussions left me in disgust with words that lack enough precision  to introduce a lasting trust  in me or you or any teaching. I greet the dawn with indecision and I am out of touch. So let me give you pain and boredom as my one belief, a melody that slips too slow, from a tongue softly dying, a life I have come to call 'De Trop' to find in death relief, in silence the success of crying in losing all, my gain.                                                                      -- Mahlon H. Smith