Today, November 30, is Robert Lax’s Birthday

© Michael N. McGregor

Robert Lax was born in Olean, New York, on this day in 1915, to Sigmund and Rebecca Lax, both Jewish immigrants.

To honor his birthday, here’s a brief selection from his poetry (and his soul):

Who can speak for the soul's delight in a beautiful
  day?
Who can tell the wonder that enters through the eyes
  & into the heart?
Who knows the soul's rejoicing?
The whisper it would make to its Maker,
the whisper of love, the song of glory?
Who knows the soul's delight in beauty?

The light
  is on the mountains
    in the brush country,
      & I am tortured
        by the beauty
          of the light
            upon the mountains
              in the brush country.

(a selection from a longer poem set down on November 12, 1947, in Hollywood, CA)

--p. 68, journal E/tagebuch E: hollywood journal, published by pendo-verlag, 1996

A Quote from Robert Lax on His 101st Birthday

Today is Robert Lax’s 101st birthday.  Picturing him as a child all those years ago, it’s interesting to contemplate something he wrote in the late ’60s:

 

“…the meaning of our lives, and what we write, and what we do,

is somehow in us from the beginning:

in this sense, the child’s only duty is to live and grow”

–p. 304, Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax

 

Happy birthday, Bob.