Untimely Demise

The unfortunate news came on Monday morning; Ralph Wiley, one of my favorite columnists, had passed at the age of 52 from a heart attack. Ralph's voice was not just unique but clear and prescient. He was able to speak of things that were just on the hazy edge of everyone else's knowledge. Ralph was widely known as a sports columnist but he also had a wide body of writing outside of that genre; his book, 'Why Black People Tend to Shout', was recommended to me and has been on my list of 'must reads' for more than two years now. The strange thing, though, is this: I thought of that book at least ten times this weekend and had two attempts at purchasing it aborted. Who's prescient now? I hope not me. (The follow-up to this is last night's envisioning of the dish before I went into the Chinese restaurant and having it come to my table when I thought I had expressly ordered something different. Circumstance -- that's all it is.) If you happen to come across one of Ralph's books, please pick it up and read it. Some folk just plain do not get what he had to say but fear not. It's worth the read. Anyway, the brain now has more mortality issues to sift through. It might be time to re-read Don DeLillo's 'White Noise'. This man is prescient, no doubt.

The flower beds are changing all over again in the Second City. The Magnificent Mile now has summer annuals and seasonal evergreens (they look so small and wispy I can't imagine they'll make it through the winter); impatiens are everywhere. (God knows I've a weak spot for them.) The marble sarcophaguses are now barren: the mulch is new but the plants are gone. I wonder what happened to them?

A voice taken now
That knew what was coming next.
The future is now?