The poor, if they are self-possessed, may sharenThese views, provided the self they possessnIs reasonably becoming. Read HemingwaynTo see how it’s done. He was the paid companionnPar excellence. In his democracy of skiersnAnd good shots, where a simple guide may benManlier than many millionaires, aretenIs the password. Wit is not called for here,nAnd those who live by it, in an atmospherenOf crystal, silver and swift repartee, would herenBe out of place. Here language is “honed down”nTo the basic palaver of a Greystoke,nWhom even apes may apprehend and must obey.nNo wonder Papa’s books are assigned to all classes.nPractice such protocols and you may learnnTo be a ski instructor too, exalted to a like degree.nSharing the platonic form of Millionaire.nBut be aware there is a price to pay, not justnWit’s richer vocabulary and its license to be snidenAbout jeunesse doree, but the obligation to risknOne’s life on a regular basis, to taste the self-nApotheosizing vin extraordinaire of mortal danger.nDrunk on such brew, laurels seem spontaneouslynTo wreathe one’s brow. What did Dryden say? NonenBut the brave, none but the brave, deserve the fair.nAnd what better proof of bravery than to have returnednAlive from the perilous jeep-ride or the theater of war?nO to have skied the Plunge and have the factnBe known to one’s beholders! It is a winenPast all compare. Drinking it, one must believenIn the divine right of kings. We are then kingsnOurselves, and heirs of empires.nClass Notes: Rocky Mountain Ramblenby Tom DischnSo much for the brave: what of the fair?nWhat of August’s meadows at the topnOf the trail? What of these butterflies? What ofnThese many-aspened galleries of timeless art.nThe true Conceptualism of the rampant eyenSnapping Monet after Monet in the stillnessnOf these higher altitudes, above the cragsnWhere eagles dare—though, really, where’s the daringnOf it for an eagle? They must feel quite at homenUp here. See how they ride the breezes languorousnAs Cleopatra on her barge. Rarely is there neednTo rapture prey, and the hours would pass awaynAlmost wholly in contemplation, were it notnFor the flies and the sudden discovery amidnThese pastoral vistas of a mining camp,nAbandoned, slowly turning into scree.nHere men enjoyed the mountain air who werenNeither kings nor Hemingways. Do they weepnThere where they’ve gone to their rewardnTo see their tenements so forgotten and forlorn?nWould any modern Goldsmith mournnTheir loss? Goldsmith! — the very wordnIs like a bell to toll me back to my hotelnIn the valley far below, to all the comfortsnAnd confusions, the names and dates, the daily newsnAnd unpaid dues, and terms of sufferance,nThence to the city we have named our home,nInapprehensible Reality.nnnAUGUST 1991/11n