41
" Inconstancy of every second punishes me.
The wind, the rain, the clouds, the days,
I try to grasp the hours but they banish me,
And I remain in the vortex of incongruity.
The lone coyote shrieks,
Startling my soul into wakefulness.
The Cacti bloom and the Wren beckons,
Deepening my mind into dreamlessness.
And the moments spend time with inconstancy,
increasing the ease of uneasiness.
Why this daily pilgrimage of ideas?
When no saint has ever ceased the day!
Still yearning for some magic hour,
Where nothing but permanence dwells.
Alas, only this thought be the only truth,
That certainty in death is constant.
And so, in every second, minute, hour,
our only gain is memory.
Be it bitter or sweet:
it is ours!
Rejoice. "
― Ansul Noor , Soul Fire (A Mystical Journey through Poetry)
47
" There was nothing the matter out there. It was in here, with me.I decided I'd better go to work, maybe that would exorcise me. I fled from the room almost as though it were haunted. It was too late to stop off at a breakfast counter now. I didn't want any, anyway. My stomach kept giving little quivers. In the end I didn't go to work, either. I couldn't, I wouldn't have been any good. I telephoned in that I was too ill to come, and it was no idle excuse, even though I was upright on my two legs.I roamed around the rest of the day in the sunshine. Wherever the sunshine was the brightest, I sought and stayed in that place, and when it moved on I moved with it. I couldn't get it bright enough or strong enough. I avoided the shade, I edged away from it, even the slight shade of an awning or of a tree.And yet the sunshine didn't warm me. Where others mopped their brows and moved out of it, I stayed - and remained cold inside. And the shade was winning the battle as the hours lengthened. It outlasted the sun. The sun weakened and died; the shade deepened and spread. Night was coming on, the time of dreams, the enemy. (" Nightmare" ) "
51
" For about 48 weeks of the year an asparagus plant is unrecognizable to anyone except an asparagus grower. Plenty of summer visitors to our garden have stood in the middle of the bed and asked, 'What is this stuff? It's beautiful!' We tell them its the asparagus patch, and they reply, 'No this, these feathery little trees.' An asparagus spear only looks like its picture for one day of its life, usually in April, give or take a month as you travel from the Mason-Dixon Line. The shoot emerges from the ground like a snub nose green snake headed for sunshine, rising so rapidly you can just about see it grow. If it doesn't get it's neck cut off at ground level as it emerges, it will keep growing. Each triangular scale on the spear rolls out into a branch until the snake becomes a four foot tree with delicate needles. Contrary to lore, fat spears are no more tender or mature than thin ones. Each shoot begins life with its own particular girth. In the hours after emergence, it lengthens but does not appreciably fatten. To step into another raging asparagus controversy, white spears are botanically no different from their green colleagues. White shoots have been deprived of sunlight by a heavy mulch pulled up over the plant's crown. European growers go to this trouble for consumers who prefer the stalks before they've had their first blush of photosynthesis. Most Americans prefer the more developed taste of green. Uncharacteristically, we're opting for the better nutritional deal here also. The same plant could produce white or green spears in alternate years, depending on how it is treated. If the spears are allowed to proceed beyond their first exploratory six inches, they'll green out and grow tall and feathery like the house plant known as asparagus fern, which is the next of kin. Older, healthier asparagus plants produce chunkier, more multiple shoots. Underneath lies an octopus-shaped affair of chubby roots called a crown that stores enough starch through the winter to arrange the phallic send-up when winter starts to break. The effect is rather sexy, if you're the type to see things that way. Europeans of the Renaissance swore by it as an aphrodisiac and the church banned it from nunneries. "
60
" You know, Piggly Wiggly never could hang on to a night stock manager. Your math skills would be a plus, maybe even your Spanish, and you don't mind staying up late." " Piggly Wiggly, wow. I hadn't thought about that. I'll swing by, pick up an application tomorrow. But if it doesn't pan out maybe ... Never mind, it's a crazy idea." " No, tell me. I want to hear it." " Well, just as a backup plan, I did hear that Sony has an opening. They're, um, they're looking for a rock star. The hours suck, but it's no worse than night stock manager at Pigs. I bet it pays better too." Isabel stopped in her tracks, playfully slapping his arm. " Aidan, that's genius! That's what you should do! I've heard you sing, you can carry a decent tune." She looked him up and down. " With a little work, you can probably pull off the image." He tugged on her arms until she was in his. " Only if you're sure. Only if it's what we want." " Aidan, it's who you are. I've known it since the day we brought that first guitar here. I'd never want to take that away. "