seven ages of man...

salmagundi: a salad of whatever is at hand [purportedly served on pirate ships] derived from the French salmigondis - disparate assembly of things, ideas, people, forming an incoherent [!] whole ...It seems likely that the name is connected with the children’s rhyme, Solomon Grundy. (wiki)

Solomon Grundy,
Born on a Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday.
That was the end of
Solomon Grundy.

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII


Oedipus and the Sphinx

"What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three in the evening?"

"Man"



Children picking up our bones
Will never know that these were once
As quick as foxes on the hill;

And that in autumn, when the grapes
Made sharp air sharper by their smell
These had a being, breathing frost;

And least will guess that with our bones
We left much more, left what still is
The look of things, left what we felt

At what we saw ...

Wallace Stevens, A Postcard from the Volcano





fox and grapes
Pompeii



The River

Toward the end
of its journey
the river
made its final bend.

Clouds of mist
pollen from pines
far above
descended dream like
upon our craft
and upon ourselves

The river flowed
and I flowed,
not only with it
but as it

Not only was I upon it
but it was upon me

And finally we were one

Michael Francis Doyle, 1948-2006