Mental paralysis. One foot in front of the other. Grim hope that the completely unnecessary sacrifices our military and economy are making will come back to haunt our leaders at election time.

My New American Library Stevens is still on my desk, and I open it to the post-war book Transport to Summer. From "Dutch Graves in Bucks County":

There are circles of weapons in the sun.
The air attends the brightened guns,
As if sounds were forming
Out of themselves, a saying,
An expressive on-dit, a profession.

And you, my sembables, are doubly killed
To be buried in desert and deserted earth.