26 March 2007



Softly and tenderly
Brightly and darkly
Little by little
Lightly and sparkly

(.)

and i sit in my car and sing at least twenty minutes a day.




I am writing lists on the back of my hand again which means that I am moving quickly enough that my mind doesn't retain details. Except annoying one-line-segments of the poor song selection on work radio.

I wrote "ebenezer" on the front of my new journal this weekend because I realize that right now I am in the midst of a season of grace that I will NEED to remember in the future. About to start writing full time. Can't believe it. Coming in late for makeshift dinners after hostessing at the resturant. Not falling asleep until the last whispered word.


And right now I'm about to go do that.

The present is never our end. Past and present are our means, only the future is our end. And so we never actually live, though we hope to, and in constantly striving for happiness it is inevitable that we will never achieve it. (Pensees, III.80).

07 March 2007

You are here to kneel.

And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfillment.

...




If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.







T. S. Elliot, Quartets IV.I

04 March 2007

Beauty is truth

I like this. Papers and notes all over the floor. Haphazard hair. Running out of ink and getting another pen.


Diminish, cut away all the pretense, cut away, cut away, cut away. Write with a scalpel. Give me the probe. I've been taking notes about everyone anyways. Now I can actually ask the questions I've been wondering. This feels a lot more like carving than building. Cut away, cut away, cut away.


I could interview the blind man who rides Ripta. Ask him about his dog, Abby.

I could stop a familiar stranger on Westminster Circle and begin to test my speculations.

And they can read me beneath the gossip in the Arcade.


Write found-poems from overheard-dialog onto the back of my hand.

Life, etched into my skin.

Don't speak too soon amidst the agony of creation... but I am going to learn everything, and I'm going to tell you.


"Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

John Keats