My sister, Jude, is out of the hospital and faring independently with her newly-diagnosed diabetic condition.  Thanks to all for your heartfelt concern.

Somewhere, someone wants me to feel like I just got out of hell.  Isn’t that strange?  I don’t know who this someone is, but I sense their concern for my ‘liberation’.  How do I sense this concern?  Call it: synchronous receptivity or ‘psychic intuition’. 

But more to the point: Have I really been in hell?  Metaphorically, always.  Literally, never.  Hence, my true ‘liberation’ lies in the destruction of all metaphors for thereby would the rendering of all ‘hell’ be abolished.

But I’m not inclined to destroy or uproot metaphors.  In fact, I take great pleasure in their effusive propagation.  Metaphors can always be found jumping out of my mouth.  They are but strange baby bunnies that squeeze through my lips and scurry with hell-bent rapidity to dive down the rabbit’s hole in Alice’s backyard to join the Mad Hatter for a tea-party.

But what is hell, indeed?  My sis, Jude, once had a high-school religion teacher, a Catholic nun of apparently heretical inclinations, who shared this secret about Hell with her all-girl religion class:  “Satan’s in the Hell.  But he’s the only one.  And that is why it is Hell.” 

Of course!  Misery loves company.  And what place of greater misery is there but Hell?  Yet if there were to be company in Hell, there would be  that ‘love’ that misery has for company, also.  Yet, what Hell would be worthy of ultimistic inferno consideration that harbors any artifact, no matter how shattered or defective, of Love?  Hence, Hell, by necessity, is a loveless solitude, a non-relational monism.  Satan is a monoverse, impossible as a co-existent. 

Yes???   Or is Love but a metaphor, too?  Johnny loves Barbie.  Misery loves company.  I love to blog…  I live for love, in a hellrush of love, I love to live for Life!  Ah, Life, indeed, what is it but a flower? …
 
 
OH see how thick the goldcup flowers 
  Are lying in field and lane, 
With dandelions to tell the hours 
  That never are told again. 
Oh may I squire you round the meads        
  And pick you posies gay? 
—’Twill do no harm to take my arm. 
  ’You may, young man, you may.’ 
 
Ah, spring was sent for lass and lad, 
  ’Tis now the blood runs gold,         
And man and maid had best be glad 
  Before the world is old. 
What flowers to-day may flower to-morrow, 
  But never as good as new. 
—Suppose I wound my arm right round—         
  ‘’Tis true, young man, ’tis true.’ 
 
Some lads there are, ’tis shame to say, 
  That only court to thieve, 
And once they bear the bloom away 
  ’Tis little enough they leave.         
Then keep your heart for men like me 
  And safe from trustless chaps. 
My love is true and all for you. 
  ‘Perhaps, young man, perhaps.’ 
 
Oh, look in my eyes then, can you doubt?         
  —Why, ’tis a mile from town. 
How green the grass is all about! 
  We might as well sit down. 
—Ah, life, what is it but a flower? 
  Why must true lovers sigh?         
Be kind, have pity, my own, my pretty,— 
  ‘Good-bye, young man, good-bye.’ 

A. E. Housman (1859–1936).  A Shropshire Lad.  1896.