11.28.2007

Approach the Brink

"Approach the brink serenely and accept the risk of melting into nothingness."
A butchered translation, no doubt, of the words of one of the greatest masters of any language the world has seen, but I still like it. I've many times in my life only been able to feel great and positive changes after doing the person-to-puddle trick. We're always held down by habits and modes that we didn't even intend to develop crowding out new and better manifestations of ourselves.

- E.B.M

11.24.2007

Magic





the moon in her tent of pastel rainbow -
the rippled quilted clouds of her cloak drape over this globe of earth-
through the ripples in the cotton, I look up, agape at shining dots -
diamonds in the vast expanse of clear sea above her





11.22.2007

Silver & Gold

(posted 12 18 2007)

11.21.2007

On the Way Down



I'm kind of glad I didn't have my camera with me.










11.15.2007

Yellow and Gray

I noticed that the gray day produced not a darkening, but a clarity,
the wash on which the watercolors perform.
A river of malleable west wind stirred the flocks of solid yellow tree wings and pressed them amid the black and white tree branches. Beyond, sliding atop the west-bound sheet of the gray sky water, the black, white, and yellow colors did not blend, but encircled and caressed one another.

my ears caught a whiff of descending violins



today is better.

11.11.2007

"...strong in the broken places."

Quoted on PostSecret


The children the world almost breaks
become the adults who save it.

-attributed to Frank








11.08.2007

Common Speech

As I walked to the library in the warm bubble of my coat,
between the cold foggy lamplight, there were no sharp corners, no chameleons, no fish. Sharp corners are hazardous and fish an intermediate. If you can make chameleons sprout by will, you're dreaming.
I hoped for a bounding white stag, which leads to reality, to at least blink across the corner of my vision.

I saw none of these, and I haven't replaced the chalk in my pocket.



Earlier,

We exchanged the common greetings, a hazardous task for us both.

"I'm getting stronger," I say, surprised at the manner of optimism in my own voice.
Do you know, I've died once already? Now, it can only make me stronger.

She hears it too.
"What?"

"It can't kill me, I'm getting stronger"
After so long, the disease is only in my lungs, which guard my heart. Daily, I cough it out, but still my heart is safe, unless it's also in my head, which renders judgment suspect.

"Oh,"
She pulls me in with her arms around my shoulders.
"I'm getting stronger," I protest ineffectively, without a change in voice.

"I know," she said,
not unlike a mother rocking a child waking from a bad dream.
"I know."

11.02.2007

Leaf : The Dance

(posted 12.28.07)



Leaf Bids Farewell









How brave they are to dance the dance so gracefully